I read a couple of blogs written by newly qualified yoga teachers. They ooze positivity, enthusiasm and this beautiful desire to just share and share and share which is the yoga teacher’s calling. They make me feel so excited and they rekindle my own enthusiasm for yoga and for teaching and for sharing. And just as a heads up for any newbie or trainee teachers reading this, that feeling of bursting at the seams with information you want to give your students and trying to find the balance between too much and not enough in terms of instruction never ever leaves. Nor does feeling sick with nerves before every class but maybe that’s jut me?
Reading these blogs made me start thinking about my own journey from trainee to newbie to …. well whatever it is I am now. A yoga teacher of five years standing, not an old hand by any means and still with so much to learn, but no longer a newbie. No longer wet behind the ears. And then I started to wonder what this blog would have been like if I had started it right at the beginning. Right when I first started teaching. Because I have forgotten so much of what that felt like.
It’s not as though I take teaching for granted or do it on autopilot or anything as sinful as that. It’s just that these days teaching yoga is so much a part of who I am and such a massive part of my identity (although not the part that other people seem to think, but that’s an exploration for another day), that it is second nature to me. I know which instructions I need to focus on in each class, I know how to work with the energy of the room on a given day, I know how to throw my lesson plans out the window if need be and wing it, I no longer feel I need to meticulously plan everything. But I want to know how I felt when I was new to this. When everything was an eye-opener, when I still questioned everything.
There is still so much I don’t know about this beautiful yoga, so very much and in many ways my journey as a bodyworker has only just begun (massage school starts this weekend and Pilates training continues to beckon with tempting fingers), but I know that never again will I be that blank canvas that I was during those first six months of regular teaching.**
So trainees and newbies, keep your journals and blogs for posterity, in five years time you will want to read them!
Readers, is there a period of your life you wish you had been able to blog about?
Oh, also, tune in tomorrow for a new giveaway!!
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** During my teacher training we were required to write a journal of our experiences. This journal was handed in at various intervals during my 3.5 years of training***. Reading it back now it seems a mix of pretension and negative self talk. Not what a blog would have been like at all…
*** Yup, 3.5 years. You can read more about lengthy British teacher training and why it rocks here! Teacher training itself is about 2.5 years but I did an optional extra year as well because I am a dork.
Hi Rachel! I’ve been following your blog through out my teacher training. I’ve found the yoga blogging community so helpful and inspiring! Will you share the links to the newbie blogs? I would love to follow them as well! Thanks for the words of encouragement!!
How nice to see and hear you in your video. But how surprising – I didn’t expect you to have that accent! I suppose we always read blogs and “hear” them in our own accents. Interesting!
It’s like you’re writing for me here, oh dear! Reminds me that I still want to write about what my feelings are like now, after my first weekend
I had an online journal through a fitness forum for many years. I kind of wish I had started blogging back then instead of doing the fitness forum because I think I would have grown out of the unhealthy habits quicker. I don’t know how much I would want to go back and look at those times though. It would be cool to look back and reflect on thoughts going through a process like yours though.
6.5 years. And I hear you about the not-newbie-but-what? I am so much more comfortable in front of a class and can focus more on the students and how to tweak my lesson plan based on what they seem to need, and less on my own voice and explanations. I still feel very fresh (in a good way), tho, and wonder when you do feel like an “old hand.”
Maybe you never do. I would think that might be a good thing…
Cheers!
Thanks for your experienced yoga teaching advise!
Question: during those 2.5/3.5 years, are you allowed to teach? If so, under what “title”? (ex. “Certified Yoga Teacher”, “Yoga Teacher in Training”, “Qualified Yoga Teacher”)
Emma, this really depends on the trainer and the trainee and when they think you are ready but as a general rule of thumb you can start teaching after a year of training and your title is “Student Teacher” (as long as your insurance is all paid up of course).
Hi Rachel,
I’ve been reading your blog for a while & really enjoy your take on yoga & life
. i was really interested to hear that you’ll be starting massage therapy as this is something i’ve been considering for a while and was just wondering if you know of any good websites / blogs / books that might be of interest? I’m really not sure what type of massage course to do (this might not happen for a while mind!) but at the moment I’m swaying towards the more general holistic type of thing. I’m looking forward to hearing more about your own massage school journey as time goes on and learning from your experiences! All the best 