I don’t want to be a yoga teacher anymore. I want to be a yoga facilitator.

After an entire weekend of anatomy study—that is poking and prodding my classmates to feel their muscles and bones, looking for abnormalities in their bodies, and studying how they move—I’ve given up on the idea of “teaching” anyone.

Aside from the surprisingly compelling workshop where I was finally able to retain many of the anatomical terminology I’ve been struggling with for months, this week’s speaker, Michael Watson, impressed something even more important upon my class. We may be studying to become yoga teachers, but we should be striving to become facilitators for others’ yoga practice instead.

In other words, we shouldn’t strive to show students our way of doing things but empower them to find their own way.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I certainly have a much more profound experience as a student when I have the room to explore the sensations in my body than when someone is telling me what I should be feeling.

The key to facilitating is providing the opportunity for awareness. Yoga poses without mindfulness are nothing more than choreography, Watson said. Although that may be great exercise, it’s no substitute for bringing a student’s awareness into his or her body. That’s the ultimate gift because then they can grow and deepen their practice for themselves.

Watson did an exercise with us on Sunday where he asked us to make subtle movements with our bodies (lying on the floor, twisting from side to side, gently lifting our hips off the floor, etc). With each movement he asked us to just observe how the movements affected us. If ever we aren’t sure what we’re feeling, Watson said, we should slow down and reduce the range of movement. This was his advice for yoga, as well as for life.

I never knew I could learn so much in a class about anatomy.

On a side note, would people take a yoga facilitator less seriously than someone who markets themsleves as a yoga teacher?