Ravings of a Textual Deviant

I’m not a yoga teacher.

That’s what I keep telling people, anyway. “I’m just a slightly more advanced student,” I explain. I’ve only been practicing for, oh, five or six years. Still, that doesn’t stop people from asking me questions (and darned if I don’t have an answer occasionally) or asking me to show them a stretch for this or that.

Fine, maybe I’m a yoga tutor.

Sure, I’ve been doing yoga long enough to know what I’m doing, and there is that subscription to Yoga Journal, and my basket full of yoga props. And the fact that I’m on a never ending quest for decent music. (I’m well aware of the Yoga Music Paradox, which is that any CD with “yoga” in the title is guaranteed to suck.) I even have an extra mat in case someone wanted to do yoga with me. Not that I would be teaching, or anything.

So, a little more time goes by, and next thing I knew, I found myself agreeing to drive to another state and show some new friends some poses and techniques, some of them for specific areas that need work, like hip flexion or shoulder stretches. Maybe do a little workshop or something. I don’t even know how that happened really, because I’m not a yoga teacher; I don’t have any teacher training or certifications. I’m not qualified to teach.

That doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, though, and I keep finding myself thinking that I have to show this person a way to modify viparita karani for tight hamstrings, or wiggling around, trying to see if twists will help with side extensions. So I find myself buying a book on how to modify yoga poses, and another one on yoga and anatomy. Next thing I know, I’m standing outside a work friend’s cube in 2.5″ heels, showing her how to do tree pose, and not even realizing that the look on her face is because…I’m balancing in that pose in those shoes.

I keep thinking about it, and thinking about, and finally, last night, I asked my instructor about teacher training. After all, if I am going to help my friends, I ought to at least learn enough to keep them from getting hurt. Because I’m not a yoga teacher. At least, not yet.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 9th, 2005 at 7:00 am and is filed under Yoga Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.