I was recently at my sister's house at the same that she had another house guest. My sister, knowing that I was a yoga teacher trainer and her friend had just recently finished a yoga teacher training opened the introductory conversation with "Joy, why did you do a teacher training?" I knew this would be a great personal story, not unlike many I had heard about how little magical moments aligned and her life shifted. I wasn't wrong. My new found friend had stumbled into a yoga class, felt something safe and special about that place and wanted to know more. Because her teacher wasn't offering a training or more of the in-depth information she wanted to know in order to understand the yoga, she looked on the internet and asked around. Through a friend she found a place with a good vibe and signed up.
"Even though it was called 'teacher training' did you go into it wanting to be a yoga teacher?" I asked, remembering that when I started a yoga teacher training I had no interest in being a yoga teacher. "No," she said "I was more interested in learning the deeper aspects of yoga." I nodded in agreement. We chatted a bit more about what she felt was most meaningful from the experience of a yoga training; for her it was a spiritual safe haven during a faith transition and a way to stay embodied, for me it has been intellecutalizing a lot of the healing I had felt practicing yoga 1on1. We both agreed that the expansive understanding of yoga through a teacher training made our life better. A lot better.
Learning with a yoga trainer, someone who has been where you are and understands what it is like to connect the dots of a thousand different points of view on yoga offers you safety, structure, and resources.
Whatever journey brings you to yoga, it is pretty common that once you start, you can't help but get hooked. There is a little bit of magic in a good yoga class that keeps you coming back again to the next class even when you can't put your finger on it. Each week, every day, however often it is we are drawn back to the mat for the experience. Overtime we are drawn to know more. Just like we start practicing yoga with a teacher as a guide to how to do the poses and the breathing, starting to learn more about where yoga comes from and how it works on a deeper level is much easier done with a teacher and guide. But do you need a training to keep learning more from yoga?
It might be that where you practice yoga they already offer workshops or in-depth seminars on various different yoga topics. Great! Picking up little nuggets of information along the way is so helpful! Maybe you have one of those teachers who is constantly recommending books to read after class and you find yourself accumulating a library of resources. Amazing! With great teachers and a curious mind you can continue to learn so very much. Why then would you choose a yoga teacher training, especially if you have no desire to be a teacher?
Learning with a yoga trainer, someone who has been where you are and understands what it is like to connect the dots of a thousand different points of view on yoga offers you safety, structure, and resources.
Knowing when and how to practice different yoga techniques is important in the progression of your yoga journey. Sure, yoga is generally a safe practice but it may not be a great idea to tie your body or your mind in knots before laying a bit of groundwork first. Even something as easy as breathing could be vastly improved by having a guide to point out was to improve the foundations before doing that noisy Darth-Vader sounding breath (like maybe checking that you are using your diaphragm to breath first). A yoga teacher training makes sure that the groundwork is laid for you before adding on anything fancy or potentially unsafe.
A large part of a formalized yoga training is the structure of study. Just like any formal education, the teacher lines out the curriculum so you can build one skill upon the next toward mastery. With structure you can start to see how pieces fit together like the picture on a puzzle box, you know how things can click together to make a bigger picture. It is likely that some of the things in the training you may never have thought of on your own, let alone known how they fit with everything else.
Which brings us to yoga resources. We all have the capacity to search the internet endlessly, but how do we know which people are telling us the truth or which techniques will help us the most? The most valuable resource in a teacher training is the human in front of you who can answer your questions, offer suggestions of where to find more information, and guide you through the information in the course. You might even look for a training that offers bookclubs where you can discuss yoga topics at length inside and out of the training.
In the end having a safe and sturctured way to learn more about yoga may be just what you need. Maybe like my new friend. Joy you need a safe place to soothe your soul and be connected to your body. Or like me you want to know why yoga can be so healing. Signing up for a yoga teacher training is not a commitment to become a yoga teacher - I know the title and branding here gets a little tricky because 'yoga teacher' is in the name -the training can serve whichever need you have on your yoga journey.
If you are ready to expand your understanding of yoga, or maybey ou are looking to dip your toes into deeper waters - check out this upcoming event where you can learn the "How to..." and why of yoga training.
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