I read Erica's blog on Yoga outlaw and am relieved to hear that i'm not the only one constantly fighting with living the way of a disciplined yoga teacher. While pursuing my yoga teacher trainee course, i lead an extremely disciplined life in terms of my diet etc.

3 months later, i am constantly resisting the temptaion to binge and lead a easy goer's life and not care about the discipline mentined in yoga sutras. I am even having trouble rising early to do asanas. I would truly appreciate if there is anyone else out there who could relate to this and let me know how they overcame the lazybones in them.

Namaste
Indra

I'm laughing as I read this....it must be something all teachers in training go through! I too, along with some classmates have felt what you were experiencing....yoga is not the "escape" (although I don't like to use that term) that it use to be. I'm sure this will pass when we don't have to think so much about how we execute postures and how we will teach them....it kinda takes the fun out of it when you have to think so much! And yes...I only have to remind myself why I want to teach yoga to reignite my passion for it.

I've had days like that as well - heck, I think everyone has. It is easy to loose sight of the end result or why in the world we started doing this long process in the beginning.

Congrats on taking the plunge to become a teacher. I've pondering the same path for a while but wonder whether I'm qualified enough and how to find a good teacher-training program. Any advice?

It sooths my nerve after reading this. Now I understand almost every teacher will go through the similar path before becoming a real teacher. I just started my training for couple of months. I have the draw back lately for "no" reason. Not that I don't love Yoga. Simply I don't have the confident to teach!

Though I do want to teach yoga one day, I'm not a teacher yet, and still I go through these times when I just can't bring myself to go to class. I just started a new job and I'm exhausted with my schedule (up at 4 a.m. at least 2 days a week most weeks and on my feel 6-8 hours a day...) I've had to adjust my practice so that I'm doing the poses I need to soothe tired muscles and a racing mind instead of following the time frame and asana choices of another teacher. I think that's the best I can do for myself right now as I wouldn't get much out of a normal class right now.

It sounds like you are embarking on becoming instructors before you have developed your own practices. While you might be able to show students how to correctly align their physical bodies, how will you be able to help them align their physical bodies with their spiritual bodies? Certainly yoga is not something that can be hurried. Why not first savor the process of becoming a yogi?

I couldn't agree more with Deborah. I think it's ridiculous that yogi novices are enrolling in courses to 'learn' how to be a teacher before they have reached their own level of mastery. You wouldn't see someone playing basketball for three years and then becoming a coach. Much less with yoga, which is such a complex physical AND spiritual discipline. Yoga is not the physical fitness practice that americans have made it out to be. The entire goal of all of yoga is to reach spiritual enlightenment. Nobody should be teaching yoga who is clueless to the subtle aspects of it. Just because you took a class on how to construct a pose and an overview of the sutras doesn't mean you have the expertise to guide someone on what is a SPIRITUAL path, not a physical one.

It doesn't seem to me as if anyone who is going thru a teacher training program expects to be an accomplished master teacher when the program ends. It is just one step in our own learning, while we learn the basics of sharing our humble experience with others. A recent graduate most likely doesn't pretend to know everything, whether after 3 or 15 years of practice. Again I strongly believe the training simply adds to our experience, it doesn't miraculously make us a master. You can bring experience to others at your own level. Isn't it a worthy thing if you can even just share breathing exercises, or a few poses, as long as you do it safely? Why criticize so harshly someone's desire to share something they're passionate about? As each new year passes a teacher will bring more to his or her classes. I don't believe I can ever reach a "level of mastery." And as far as yoga not being the physical practice that Americans have made it out to be, it seems to me there are many ways to practice yoga, and regardless of the way, it always seems to touch people in a positive way.

First, I just want to say "Thank You"! I started teacher training about 2 months ago (I say about because it happened so quickly I lost all track of dates) and I constantly go through the "I don't want to do yoga" phase. The lifestyle I'm adopting, and the one I'm leaving behind are total polar opposites. I skipped classes for 2 weeks last month, one due to a bad cold and one due to the cloud in my mind. I noticed I wasn't sleeping well, eating junk food all the time and I just felt "wrong". I confided in my boyfriend about all this, that my brain and body are tired and that I felt icky and he said "Well, when did you last do yoga?" Then it hit me: No matter how much I resist, I still need to do it. I need to be devoted to the end result, to be devoted to the process no matter how uncomfortable it may temporarily be, and don't worry about how I'm going to do it all. I have a lot of emotional baggage to sift through and get rid of and sometimes I just want to escape. In yoga I can't really escape, but I can be at peace. This weekend I have a workshop and I've been running non-stop volunteering. I'm tired and I can wholeheartedly say "I don't want to go". But if all of us warriors out there stopped when we were tired, no one would be left to fight the good fight. Keep your heart & mind strong, dig deep, and keep going!

Namaste'