Day Four

I cannot believe we are more than half way through the training already. The days seem to fly by. The group spent the morning on sequencing toward peak poses and using the various loops as the key actions. It was cool to see so many ah-hah moments where lightbulbs seemed top be coming on inside people's minds. For some reason it is very hard to really get across the fact that while we have an alignment lesson, we also have to sequence to a peak pose and we are certainly going to need to include other salient features and alignment details of the pose that may not be our key action or UPA that day. But, it seemed to me today that we have crossed the threshold of understanding what it really means to emphasize something. It is not exclusive, it does not stand alone, it just is a point of emphasis. It was a cool morning.

We spent the afternoon on the business of yoga and Darren led a discussion about all that is involved in making ja living as a yoga teacher. He said, at one point, that he hoped ton strike a balance between inspiring (go for your dreams and follow your heart) and realistic ( don't quite your day job unless you are independently wealthy or have a mate who has a great job because this is a very difficult way to make living.) I do think we found that balance and there were many moving and poignant moments throughout the discussion.

One thing that I realized is kind of a blinding flash of the obvious. All the time I say, "why do so many people think they can make a living teaching yoga? I never thought that when I got started teaching yoga. I didn't make a living at this for ten years!" well, in tho n years more and more people actually are making a living at it ( or trying to) and so it does appear more and more as though it is a viable option to consider. Very few of us when i got started did this for a living. Very few people owned studios and very grey few people traveled and taught yoga. Now that more people are doing it, well, it gives more people the impression that they can do it! Makes perfect sense.

I want to state again for the record that while I lovey job and would not want to do anything else, I do not think that teaching yoga full time is a great aim for most beginning teachers nor do I think that we should confuse one's heart's calling with one's vocation. It may be our dharma to teach yoga but we may need a supplementary source of income to pay the bills. If we cannot pay our bills teaching yoga, it is not a sign that we should not teach, that we are not being supported in our dream or that we are out of alignment with the universe or any such thing.

Dharma is not necessarily vocation, regardless of what the new-age career guides all say. And yes, I happen to make my living doing what is aligned with my dharma as far as I understand it, but keep in mind that I started teaching yoga in 1998 and didn't make a living at it until 2007. I had my first invitation to teach out of town in 2003 and it was not until 2009 or 2010 where that was my primary source of income. So it takes time to build a yoga teaching career- just like any career.

The other cool part from the afternoon was Jessica's contribution with her passionate talk about branding. Check her out on www.RuDesigns.com and see what she is up to. She has lots of help to offer and list of insight on the topic of branding, marketing and authentically showing up in the world. More on that perhaps later- it's getting a bit to late for me to recapture the potency of what she offered.

Must sleep.

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