Teaching yoga is a way of living

Teaching yoga isn't just a way of earning a living, it's a way OF living. This is something I was reminded of a couple of weeks ago as I was teaching a class. As people settled into savasana I felt the energy simmer down. I was reminded of the hundreds of classes I've taught over the past 17 years, and how much this feeling has been a part of my own experience too.

Yes it can be a challenge to create a lasting yoga business or teaching practice that sustains you practically. But this is secondary (for me anyway) to the feeling that comes from sharing yoga. The calm that resonates at the end of a class is something people search all day for, and they find it within themselves. What a gift!

This doesn't end when you step out of the yoga class either. For a lot of people, teaching yoga is a calling, perhaps a personal dharma (svadharma). And it naturally seeps into how you show up in your life, how you interact with other people, how you manage tricky situations. What you learn through practicing yoga informs what you teach, and this informs your life.

I'm no guru, I'm certainly not perfect and I really don't have all the answers. But I can see how teaching yoga can really shape how we live and who we become. I know I'm a lot calmer these days than I ever used to be, and I've managed to navigate some pretty tricky situations with a lot more ease.

If you're curious about embracing yoga as a way of life more, get in touch to find out about upcoming yoga teacher trainings.

The next hybrid yoga teacher training starts in June, self paced starts any time and in person starts this Winter.

The benefits of studying online

Before the pandemic most of us had never heard of Zoom, but we now seem to have been catapulted into a totally new way of working, learning and living. For some people it still feels alien, and that’s ok, but for many of us the freedom of being able to do so much more online has opened up lots of possibilities we’d never thought of before.

Online learning is one of those possibilities; whilst they have been around for a long time, there have never been so many distance learning courses as there are today. This is largely as a result of us all having to move online in 2020. Zoom (and similar programmes) have enabled us to make our classrooms virtual and therefore take them out to a wider audience, across the globe. So, whilst we may have felt cut off and isolated during the pandemic, paradoxically we have also become more connected in different ways.

Yoga is all about connection, at least it is for me, and I know that nothing beats being in a room with people, feeling, hearing, seeing, touching them. We are sensory animals and we thrive on this stimulation. However, with the best will in the world, it isn’t always possible to get to a training course for so many reasons. These may be logistical, financial, emotional to name a few. The world of online learning has given us more choices and made learning far, far more accessible for so many people. This is something that’s hugely important to me; there are lots of barriers to learning to teach yoga, yet I know how incredibly powerful it is as a practice for so many people.

It’s often the people who might find it difficult to get to a yoga studio to do a teacher training who need the course the most!

If you’re wondering why learning online is such a great option, below are just a few benefits:

• being able to study from anywhere, including your home

• fitting learning around your routine

• feeling safer and more relaxed by in your own space

• being able to set your own pace of learning, watch things back and go over content

• courses are often cheaper, and take out cost of travel

Personally, I love learning online from the comfort of my own home, often at my own pace. I’m not great in a classroom as a student (ironically!) and I like to be able to study when I want, which is often in the evenings when my daughter is in bed or during the day when she’s at school. Life is busy and unpredictable, so I like to be able to set my own timetable to an extent, and I’m self motivated enough to be able to stick to it. A bit of support and accountability from a teacher is also really helpful when I need it.

During the pandemic I moved my yoga teacher training course onto Zoom. I also created a lot of online content that my students can access to help support their learning journey through self paced study. I’m really excited to be launching a fully online yoga teacher training course this Autumn, with scholarship places also available. If, like me, you find learning online suits you better, simply follow the link below to find out more.