Its been a long time coming for me. Now is the time, and I need to start putting it out there. I’m in the process of writing a continued education manual for yoga teachers, personal trainers, pilates teachers, etc. For years I thought that I would write my own yoga teacher training. Now adays, there are so many trainings, some good, some not so good. But MANY trainings non the less. I don’t see that I need to create yet another training. I do see the need for “life after teacher training” as I call it.
When people ask me what I do, I’m shy about saying, “I teach yoga”. Why? Because often I get a response like, “Oh, my wife teaches yoga and my 18 year old daughter just started teacher training”. Great. We’re everywhere. I am so grateful that yoga is out there, more popular and being practiced more than ever. Please, don’t get me wrong. I am however, concerned about how many people are out there in teacher trainings, with very little practice leading up to their training, and with very little training before they start teaching. (Annie Carpenter, a teacher of teachers, mentioned recently in a Yoga Journal article that a good rule of thumb to follow, is to think about becoming a teacher trainer after ten years of practice. Ten years! I think this is a great guideline for us all)
I feel so grateful and sometimes spoiled from my experience coming up as a teacher. I come from a time and place where we (the students in my first teacher trianing), studied with our teacher 3, 4, 5 or 6 times a week for months and years leading up to our training. We then, continued to practice with him after and had the opportunity to assist, apprentice and learn from him in class. We all spent hours together and getting our certification wasn’t the main thing on our mind. The love of the practice was. Now, as much as poeple love the practice, I’m concerned with the little amount of pratice hours that some students have as they enter teacher training, and concerned with the rate at which people begin teaching after a short training. What happened to simply wanting to learn more, without a certifcation as our end goal?
To my point. With all the teacher trainings out there, I see a need for more continued edcation courses. What I’m most excited about, is that my continued education course will be applicable and useful to teachers of different disciplines, not just yoga.
On a personal level, putting this out there is a challenge. I think about it often. I envision the teachings and have for years. I see it as my next step in order to help further this “industry”. Yet the thoughts of self doubt are loud! “Who do you think you are to think what you have to offer is needed?” “Why will anyone be interested? You’re just nerding out”. Things like that go through my head often. I also know that I have a unique lense in my training having studied, dance, yoga, Pilates, Gyrotonic and gait therapy. It’s also the one thing I can honestly say that, at this point, I will rerget NOT doing if I don’t create this material. So, what do I have to lose? Nothing. Now, its about creating the discipline to get this manual done and get it out there. Thanks for hearing me out and stay tuned. Ideally, this training will be at a yoga studio near you soon!
*On a teaching note - thank you YogaSmith in Seattle for hosting me this weekend (www.yogasmithseattle.com) and I look forward to teaching at Exhale, Center for Sacred Movement in Venice, CA this coming week - www.exhalespa.com. For my teaching schedule, please see my "schedule" page above. Thanks.
