All the unexpected lessons I’ve learned six months into my teacher training
I’ve just finished my sixth month of yoga teacher training, which is a fact my brain can’t quite process. It also triggers an insane amount of imposter syndrome, intense grief at the idea of the journey being over, and so much pride for my growth since September.
And while my brain is understandably swimming with anatomy, asana and pranayama, I also wanted to share a few not so obvious lessons I’ve picked up in our sacred yurt in the Sussex countryside.
Everyone has a pose, stretch or limitation that’s just not accessible for them - and you’ll never be able to tell just by looking at someone. Someone who can hold a crow pose with poise and impressive strength may also struggle to sit with their own thoughts in meditation. Someone who can lift their foot to their head and beyond may struggle to hold a simple child’s pose for an extended time due to their hip flexor tightness. Another may be great at balancing their tree pose on the left, and fall time and time again on the right. Everyone has their difficulties and they’re never obvious, progressively linear or logical either.
The poses you “hate” are sometimes the poses you need most. Sometimes it’s where the fire ignites or the emotions flow from. Sometimes it strengthens and turns on muscles that need some extra love.
Yoga philosophy will change your relationships with everyone and the world around you. It will make you question how you ever existed without this wealth of knowledge. It will make you find yourself over and over and help you through every one of life’s frustrations and pains with a tenderness and care you couldn’t have accessed before.
Sometimes the most fundamental healing and growth comes through tears and deep, deep breaths. Nobody else on this learning process will question how this transformation moves through you.
Using blocks and bolsters can be a progression rather than a regression and they are never something to be ashamed of. Offering props to yourself is an act of great support and care and often allows you to reach new depths.
Inversions are fun, but do not define your capability as a teacher!!! You can be an incredible headstand practitioner and not engage with those in your class in a meaningful way, or struggle to hold a safe space.
Where the psoas muscle is (and what it does!)
How incredibly strong mothers are (myself included), to be away from their children in order to learn and better themselves, especially when that feels selfish or misguided. How nice it is to be around others who understand birth, the intensive cellular transformation of mothering, the pelvic floor, and how beautiful and complex it is to be a mother.
To wear wellies when training in a yurt in the middle of a field!
Yoga is a life long class and workshop. We never stop learning, we stay inquisitive and we always find more to explore. There are endless books to be read, endless adaptions and progressions to try, and uncountable ways to move and find ourselves within yoga.
Mini-eggs and babybels are universally loved yogi snacks.
What you teach your students might not align with what you need as a personal practice. Sometimes our personal practice may not engage through asana at all, and instead it can be a free-flowing release of tension, rolling on the floor, finding kinks and grooves to push out of. It can be energising or soft or both at once. It can be laying still an knowing that is enough.
“Come back to the breath” is the most important phrase to carry with you when half-marathon training.
The beauty of seeing your new friends shine as they harness their voices, find their place in leadership and come into their own. The wonder of suddenly knowing so many talented, warm, empathetic souls. The magic of leaving the world at the door and watching our moods lift just being in each others presence for a weekend.
Your voice will come, even if the words themselves are hard to access. You have all the knowledge you need within you.
Your yoga teachers are human too.
Teaching for the first time, even two poses to your peers, makes you anxious to your stomach because you care so damn much about getting it right. It matters so much more than you realise.
Yoga happens on and off the mat. It is carried with us always. It’s in our quiet cups of tea, in kindness to our pets, in the way we carry out chores, in the way we hold ourselves. Every road leads back to yoga once you open your heart to it.
