Yoga P-plates

Yes! I've passed my teacher training assessments and now have my ‘P-plates’ to teach yoga.

I'm in the last couple of days of my teacher training residential at Mangrove Mountain. Although the timetable seemed full of periods for free time or planning, in reality that time was spent preparing for teaching practicals and assessments. I completed my yoga nidra practical on Wednesday and my asana, pranayama, and meditation class (teaching aum japa!) yesterday, and was assessed as competent in both.

There are still areas for improvement but that's only to be expected from my second and third attempts at teaching yoga. And although I was attached to the outcome, a ‘not yet competent’ would only have meant there were key areas of the teaching process that needed improvement (for example, voice projection—so important in the Satyananda auditory style of teaching). The training process is such a supportive one, allowing us to observe each other's practicals, provide feedback to the student teacher on what we liked or what we felt could be improved, and allowing us to learn from each other and build this feedback into our own practicals. It's amazing the changes that have occured in the three weeks since, for many of us, our first attempts to instruct asanas on the first day.

However, the learning does not stop here. We are always learning—from our teachers, our peers, our students, our community, ourselves. As Swami Niranjan states:

“ ... you are not the teacher. When you think of yourself as the teacher, that thought blocks learning. ... become a more humble student. The humble student eventually becomes a true teacher, because he doesn't close the door of learning.”
Guidelines for Yoga Teachers, YOGA Magazine, June 2006

So, I might be a provisional teacher but I'll always be a learner yogi!