Many of you are already familiar with Emma’s blog The Joy of Yoga. She dedicates her time to sharing some of the best yoga sequences with us all! Well today is Emma’s birthday and to celebrate she has kindly written a guest post for me!
Here Emma talks about balancing her life as a yoga teacher with her continued journey as a yoga student – something all of us teachers have battled with I’m sure. So over to Emma – and happy birthday dear girl!
One day, I attempted positive thinking. They say if you imagine something for yourself as true and present, it will come to pass. “I am a yoga teacher. I am a yoga teacher. I am a yoga teacher.” I tried different intonations, but the mantra remained the same. At the time, I wasn’t, but very much wanted to be (you guessed it) a yoga teacher.
And then bounty rained.
Within a month or so, I was teaching yoga as my primary form of employment. At the height, I must have been teaching a dozen classes a week. I taught people in chairs, kids in gymnasiums, and athletes. I taught everyone, it seemed, except for one very important missing piece. My own education (if you can call it that) completely stopped. Between using a bicycle as my primary form of transportation and teaching, my usual pepped up, sweaty practice felt out of the question. Being blind, at the time, to alternatives besides what I was accustomed to, I moved from self-fulfillment to self-justification that my practice would have to wait.
I’ve learned since. Without a personal practice, the classes I taught suffered as well. Keeping in touch with your own needs cannot be laid aside, so there’s some things I now do to maintain balance. If I’m keeping a full teaching schedule, and feeling physically tired, I practice Yin or restorative postures. To keep things fresh for myself and the classes I lead, I try to take at least one class a week. By studying with others, learn new things, have fun, and am able to share that knowledge. Then, of course, there is the blogosphere. Bless the blogosphere. I use blogs to discuss, debate, and dialogue. Plus, I make some new friends.
I’ve come to a good point. I can say, with conviction, that “I am a yoga teacher.” Now, I can also say, “I am a yoga student.”
