What if I don't want to teach?

Our number one, most frequently asked question about our 200 hour training is definitely: WHAT IF I DON’T WANT TO TEACH?!?!

Here’s the thing: many, many folks take our 200 hour training just to simply learn more. You’re curious about the training because you adore your weekly yoga classes, and suspect there’s a whole lot more to the practice that you love. 

That curiosity and love for yoga is a definite pre-requisite for the training; a desire to teach is not.

When I took my first YTT (hi, it’s Erin), I had no intention of becoming a yoga teacher. I had fallen madly in love with yoga, and couldn’t get enough. I figure I’d learn more, spend lots of time on the mat and muddle through any teaching exercises. All of that was true, but eventually, I subbed a few classes and here we are.

Our 200 hour training is a great way to glimpse the big picture of yoga. We cover a ton of topics so you can sense the full spectrum of the tradition, and we hold space for critical thinking and discussion. There will be moments where you try your hand at leading, this is a way of exploring your understanding of the topic.

Our big intention for the 200 hour is to provide our students with time to learn, practice and develop a deeper relationship with their yoga practice. So while this would be the first step for someone who wants to teach, it’s also the first step for anyone who wants to foster a lifelong connection to a yoga practice.

I asked our recent grads for their thoughts on this, since I knew that many of them joined with this same reasoning. Mary told me, “I took the 200 hour training primarily because I wanted to deepen my practice, challenge myself, and learn more about the philosophical basis of Yoga. What I did not anticipate, but what turned out to be the biggest gifts of the training, were myriad opportunities to examine how fears were STILL hiding in sneaky places, new ways of relating to those fears, and expanding capacity to be even more kind and accepting of myself. Also, completing the training, honestly, felt kind of badass!”.

Claire said, “I would DEFINITELY encourage someone who may not be interested in teaching yoga to take the course! I'd say as long as someone is feeling any sort of pull to learn more about yoga beyond where they're currently at, this class could be wonderful. I was lightly toying with the idea of teaching yoga — but not at all fully committed to it — when I signed up for the course, and I realized pretty quickly that teaching yoga was not the relationship to yoga that I was seeking. What I found instead was that while I enjoyed our deep-dives into asana and challenging myself with practice teaching, the parts that stick with me the most from the trainings were (1) the community of caring, thoughtful, engaged people I got to connect with in the class (teachers included), (2) an exploration of yoga philosophy that felt both collective (a group activity) and deeply personal, and (3) alllllll that I learned about myself throughout the entire experience. Broad strokes for me: working on letting go of perfectionism and outcome-oriented thinking, embracing my and others' personal agency and non-conformity, and focusing my actions on supporting the people around me.

I don't think any of this learning would have happened in the depth that it did if we hadn't also been pushed to step out of our comfort zone and try teaching occasionally — in ways that also felt very supported and approachable! But teaching, for me, was never "the point," and the personal growth I experienced was beyond what I thought I was signing up for. I'm so grateful!”

Jordan was our scholarship recipient last year and had some insights about this as well. She said, “There were a couple of things going through my head when I got the scholarship.  I like the idea of having the option to teach in addition to my other work, but I didn't know if I would want to. Mostly, I really just wanted to explore how I felt in yoga, and it was such a cool opportunity to explore that while integrated in normal, daily life. The training could be seen like a filter feeder, you can use it to filter your thoughts about teaching: Do I want to teach? Do I want to just practice? Do I want to teach eventually?”.

Thanks, Mary, Claire and Jordan…and all of our previous cohorts for joining us in our community of learning yoga!