Teaching and Being Taught (One Year On)

While I'm waiting for my somatic workshop to begin, I thought I'd jot down a few words on account of tomorrow.

Tomorrow marks for me precisely one year teaching yoga. Which, admittedly, doesn't sound like a whole lot. Which is one of the first things I told myself when I started looking back for the exact date. What kind of loser celebrates a year. Like, what could you have really learned in a year?

Oh yeah, imposter syndrome has been at the forefront of things I could've done without, but which were nevertheless part of my story, starting this. I see, from the online medium, I'm not alone in feeling that.

Countless times, I've gone to a lesson feeling like an utter fraud. Who am I, minding my own business and doing my own life (so un-yogi in so many ways), to teach others how to be more "yoga"? What gives me the right? I can't even sit on my head, and my belly sometimes wobbles, and I don't really got arm strength to save my own life, you know.

They'd be better off.

And yet. As I witness the slow growth of community around me... As I overhear a student telling another how amazing they feel when they're out of class and they don't think I hear that... As I spot the glimmer of peace on another person's face as they lift their head off the mat... I start thinking, maybe.

I don't think I'm there yet. But I'm closer than where I was last year, and that's something. When we completed our training, the teacher did advise us to start teaching soon.

Don't let fear set in and grab you by the balls, or it's gonna be a whole lot harder to start.

Boy, I'll say. Thankfully, I was gutsy from the get-go and started teaching a week before I'd completed the course. Was that wise? Did I know what I was teaching? Not really. But also, I've learned more from teaching (and from my own practice) than I did in the YTT (and I learned a lot in YTT).

It's such luck to be allowed to sit with people. It's such an honor to catch a glimpse into where other people are right now. What they're moving through. I had a beautiful yoga in the park class today where some of my regulars came, as well as some old friends.

And it just so happened somehow - because things just aling sometimes, don't they? - that everyone sort of needed this today. The energy was there, and we all took a minute on the mat to notice

hey, i'm meeting these fellow human beings on the mat here. and i'm experiencing something with them. life. i'm not doing life alone.

it seems like a worthwhile message, particularly today, with all the social media. i always advise people not to come into the class with bullshit like "am i doing this right", "do i look alright", "is everyone else sort of laughing at me or judging me". because those are messing with us, and keeping us from experiencing this much bigger, much more awe-inspiring realization. that we're all here now together.

that's quite something.

you don't get to experience that a lot.

A year teaching. Feels like more, but also like less. In comes that imposter again, making me question how I even got here, and why the hell I'm still in this.

I've gotten a whole lot clearer on what I do not want to teach. In training, we learned how to structure a class. Breathing goes here, asanas go there. Some meditation, gets thrown around. Over the past year, I've gotten a fairly good idea of what I want to be moving towards, and have learned to say "so what" a whole lot.

It doesn't fit in with the standard structure. So what.

I'm not talking about techno yoga or puppy yoga or all the other words we're adding to yoga to make it fun. I tried for a while with playful yoga. Now, I'm not so sure about the yoga.

I love it, still, but I realize also I'm a bit ADHD and my mind wanders in 100 different directions. I want to blend it with other things, not to make it more fun, but to make it more me. I want to be able to offer others something that's real, you know?

When someone asks 'why this', I want the answer to be 'because I think this would help you more than another sun salutation'. Over a year ago, when I was trying to find my way, a very amazing person in my life suggested structuring a class that I would've loved to do as a young girl, when I first discovered yoga.

This isn't that, exactly. But it's a whole lot closer than when I thought I had to fit a certain mold to be a "proper teacher".

It's been a hell of a year. I've met some wonderful people, for sure. And I've moved (not often smoothly) closer to answering this:

What's the magic that I alone can bring into the world, and how do I bring it?

I started out really thinking somehow the people wouldn't come back to my class if I put a warm-up pose in the main sequence, for instance. But now, I've seen it's so much more about trusting my own gut and honoring my energy as I grow, and that has been the most valuable lesson of them all.