being a yoga teacher in challenging times
I’ve practiced yoga for more than half of my life. When I first started, yoga was just about the poses. I wasn’t as concerned about authenticity or tradition.
From the first time I met my primary teacher, I could feel a level of authenticity that I’d rarely felt before. Yoga began to feel less like a new thing and more like an age-old practice. I originally got into a teacher training program to deepen my personal knowledge, but I quickly decided that my passion was to help others bridge the gap between yoga as an exercise and yoga as a lifestyle.
The yoga I practice and teach is based on Tantric expressions of Hatha Yoga. Tantra means thread or weave. In the Tantric view of yoga, interaction in community is vitally important. We can enhance our own capacity for growth by supporting those around us. That thread is made of Swami Kripalu’s teachings, my teacher’s deep knowledge and fierce commitment, all of my fellow yoga teacher’s passion for sharing, and my students’ curiosity and openness to learning.
My yoga journey has been, for the most part, one of personal inquiry. What I’ve come to learn is that yoga offers the tools to deepen this personal inquiry through mindful engagement with those around us. I’ve found that being a yoga teacher and helping others in their own personal inquiries has allowed me more opportunities to share my own unique light and deepen my own knowledge of self.
I can use authentic yoga culture as a vessel for shaping change. I’ve been given the tools and provided with the support to do this. I can help people connect through yoga to live a happier, more fulfilling life.
Together, we are feeling and facing so much right now. We may be feeling all sorts of feelings from a wide range of emotions. Yoga teaches us to feel our feelings and stay present. We can use yoga as a tool for healing through these uncertain and challenging times, but it also means getting off your mat and getting involved.
In the Tantric view of yoga, interaction in community is vitally important.