Why I want to do...

From your perspective, what is the role of a yoga teacher? Take into consideration your own experience, your ideal, and your goals as it relates to teaching yoga.

I personally have many activities of daily living which incorporate the importance of a properly functioning body.  Many individuals have encountered physical and mental challenges of balancing a healthy mind and body. Physical setbacks have occurred during activities of daily living. For example, I had to rehabilitate my knee after a physical setback of a torn ACL. I experienced the frustration and the stress of both physically and mental challenges of improperly functioning body. One component of the role of a yoga teacher is educate others to increase flexibility, to stretch, and to physically prevent injuries; furthermore, as a yoga teacher, it is important to be able to correct body positioning and to hone in on proper alignment to help others strengthen their body with both exercising agonistic and antagonistic muscles all in order to keep the body musculature balanced and thus prevent injuries.

Another key component of yoga is the philosophy and intertwined with this is the meditative practice.  By physically stretching, strengthening, balancing the body through exercise, breathing, and (equally as importantly) exercising the mind to let go, to focus, and to be open, the practice of  yoga allows the mind, spirit, and body to connect as a whole. In turn this allows individuals to be able to focus on, to de-stress, and to improve an individual’s overall quality of life. Sometimes this holistic component of mind, body, and spirit cannot be actualized without guidance. With everyday physical challenges, stress (each a personal task to each unique individual), sometimes an individual needs guidance. Sometimes the challenge is “not knowing”. A yoga teacher is someone who can educate and guide another individual. A yoga teacher is a valuable and educated resource who can guide and continue to expand their own practice for both helping others as well as benefiting their own practice.  Sometimes we all need a reminder to breath. 

           I have come to deeply appreciate the importance of a properly functioning body. To integrate this passion for fitness and for my sincere aspiration to serve, I am aspiring to become a trained yoga teacher in order to educate others in their own understanding of physical well-being.

I am additionally studying Physical Therapy and would like to be able to combine the information learned from both Yoga and Physical Therapy to help educate people to appreciate their own bodies with preventative care. I would like to incorporate yoga and Physical Therapy and eventually be able to educate patients and clients in yoga therapy.

Two paths diverge in a woods

I decided to start tracking some of my thoughts that I have put on paper for various assignments. Here is a response to reading the first two chapters of "The heart of Yoga". I am reading the the book for the 200 hour yoga teacher training class.

 After reading chapter one of The heart of Yoga I was surprised of how broad of a concept yoga actually is. So much so, that I am certain that what we have talked about in class and also what the book talks about doesn’t even tip-toe on the cascade of meaning and history behind yoga.  Yoga is a translated term so I am curious as to what behind the concept is lost in the translation. Not only that, yoga can mean different things on a personal level. Each individual has a personal make-up which alters a perspective of what the term means to themselves, and on a global level. Not only this - there is no one wrong perspective.  For instance imagine two people, you and I are sitting at a table drinking tea. In the center is a teapot. I see the teapot from my perspective; it does not appear to have a handle because it is obstructed from view. You see the teapot from your perspective where the teapot has a handle. We both have a view, it is personal to us. I am not wrong in saying that the teapot doesn’t have a handle. That existence is true to me; however your truth suggests that my reality is wrong because your reality the teapot has a handle.  Both perspectives are wrong to the other person while simultaneously being correct to the perspective of the party involved. Not only this, it is impossible to see how we each may feel about this teapot. Maybe it reminds me of my grandmother. What little I know of yoga is that it is a practice of focus while simultaneously being very complicated and challenging to balance idea and realities. Yoga seems to be a practice where the journey is the component that is important; “to attain what was previously unattainable”. Yoga is a practice where you are striving to achieve something and to better yourself. The unattainable is a new “you”. Yoga is a tool that acts like a needle on a compass; yoga points in a direction.

Being balanced and open are key components of the philosophy of yoga.  Like Robert Frost’s poem The road not taken:

“ Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference “

 This can be connected to the quote from The heart of Yoga chapter 2: “We can never be sure of the fruit of our actions, that is why it is better to become slightly detached from our expectations and to pay more attention to the actions themselves”.  Becoming detached is challenging in that one must also simultaneously keep the balance between not carrying attachment, being present, and accepting.  This brings forth an idea of stepping outside your own box. The challenge of taking a step outside your comfort zone and having the courage to be open to whatever possibility is out there, and to learn from whatever experience, and “being” that occurs. Part of learning is seeing (drastra). Part of seeing is taking a step without expectation or bias towards what occurs in the present moment; part of the challenge is to not be occluded by ourselves /our ego.