Thinking About Teaching

Right now, Robin tells me that I'm "like a sponge" when it comes to yoga. I'm just soaking it all up, every last bit of it, processing it, trying to figure out what it all means and where I fit into the whole thing.

She's asked me more than once when I'm going to start teaching, but I've always thought, no, I need to save up enough money to afford a teacher training and take a month off from work to attend the training and figure out how my husband and son will function with me gone for five weeks.

Pretty tall order.

And yet...and yet...

Now I dream of taking a month off for myself and spending it experiencing a 200-hour yoga teacher training course at a place like Kripalu or Omega or even someplace exotic, like, say, Los Angeles.

But, how?

I thought about doing some distance education teacher training, but none of those were recognized by Yoga Alliance (which is still up in the air as to whether recognition by YA is important for a yoga teacher), and anyway, I'm really afraid of spending $300 or $400 on a training program and getting ripped off, when I could take that money and spend a weekend intensive at Omega or Kripalu.

If I want to be completely honest, my husband is terrified that if I take a yoga teacher training course, I'm going to quit my job and become a full-time (and poorly paid) yoga instructor. I think it makes me seem like I'm just being some kind of flightly bitch again, unable to keep my focus on one thing for more than thirty seconds.

And yet...

I've always been a big fan of distance, or self-guided, education. I've been doing a lot of reading about yoga instructors and yoga teacher training, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't necessarily have to complete a YA-approved teacher training, at least, not right now.

My son's preschool teacher has asked me if I'd be interested in leading some sun salutations at her June 21 Summer Solstice gathering, and I've made up my mind to do that.

I've also started reading everything I can get my hands on about yoga anatomy, physiology (which I have a smattering of experience with from my bio/pre-veterinary studies way back when), the yoga sutras, yoga philosophy, the different branches of yoga, yoga gurus like Iyengar and Kripalu and  Bikram (the last one of whom I am not a huge fan), and listening to just about anything anyone has to tell me about yoga.

I'm trying Qi Gong classes and Kundalini yoga. I'm working out how I can travel to other nearby yoga studios in Vermont and downstate to experience other teachers.

Maybe one day I'll get to go to a month-long 200 hour Yoga Alliance recognized teacher training. But for right now, I'm going to teach the best way I know how: by teaching myself, experiencing, and writing it all down for someone else to read.