Am I Ready for Yoga Teacher Training?
How do you know if you are ready for a yoga teacher training? By Sevanti of Unity School of Yoga
Reading time: 3 minutes
Curiosity, passion, courage and discipline — after 23 years of running yoga teacher trainings, I feel these are core qualities that support students through to certification. Embarking upon a yoga teacher training (YTT) is deeply life-enhancing and can be life-changing.
Sensing that you are ready for such a journey is essential. The true purpose of yoga teaching goes way beyond learning how to teach asanas; it invites us to consciously hold space for practitioners to find a significant pause from the busy[1]ness of modern living, to unite with all dimensions of themselves and align with their true essence.
Holding space like this may take different forms, some lighter and some deeper, yet the unifying glimpses of peace, love and acceptance are the seeds that grow into attaining a sense of true life-purpose and self-awareness. Therefore, we are embarking on a path of great responsibility when we choose to become a teacher. Can we imagine ourselves able to create a safe and peaceful container for people to practice, to witness with acceptance and guide with clarity?
The question is always: what is our intention?
The ultimate answer is usually about being of service, wanting to help individuals connect with a calmer, kinder, more respectful side of themselves, to enhance a sense of global healing and unity.
The experience on the mat is not to be underestimated; many of us quieten down enough to hear solutions to daily challenges, to tune into the bigger picture and sense our true pathway. We gain yogic resources to take out into our life, to make the world a better place.
It is a courageous practice because part of this journey is to truly feel what is deep within us, including our basic and complex emotions, which can be tough to sit with. Yet our breathing, surrender and willingness to feel become powerful tools to dissolve and transmute these sensations into spaciousness and equanimity. The sensitivity to feel the full spectrum of what it is to be human, is an essential quality to have as a teacher, if we intend to mirror this inner awareness to others.
We could just learn how to structure classes, teach asana and pranayama, yet it is the inner awareness based on years of self-practice which offers a deeper, more profound, and yogic value.
This essence can be fused with other qualities; a sprinkling of humour, inspiring quotes from yogic philosophy, interesting choreography of flowing or dynamic sequences, pranayama, yoga nidra, mudra and meditation. All of these fragments make a great teacher, yet a foundation of self-awareness from our own self-practice is what grounds us as a teacher of integrity.
A YTT is a deep personal journey, as we weave through our own emotional inner territory, examine the workings of our own mind, reflect on our life choices, and align with the inner arrow of our own spiritual path.
If all of this sounds even more inviting, then you could be ready for such a journey! Meanwhile, the mind will often tell us we need more space, time, finances…but if our heart’s desire is to step on this pathway, then we can usually summon whatever we need to put this calling into action. There is simply an inner knowing.
Therefore, it is a balance of mind and heart; putting into place the practical conditions, whilst feeling into the ‘aliveness’ of our vector, our direction.
Sevanti's next YTT (200 hrs) begins in October 2024. Please visit being-in-unity.com/ytt for details. Sevanti is also leading a week's retreat in stunning Andalusia, Spain, from 27 July and a weekend retreat in beautiful Pembrokeshire in October. Full details are at being-in-unity. com/retreats .
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