My first weekend of Yoga Teacher Training!

On the way to my teacher training I was full of nerves and anxiety – don’t get me wrong, I was incredibly excited. But it was those Imposter Syndrome thoughts creeping in. ‘Who am I to think that I can teach yoga?’ ‘I can’t do many of the advanced poses, how am I supposed to teach?’

The studio space was lovely, but calm as it was, those thoughts still swam around my mind. When the lead teacher, Harriet, announced that we’d be starting with an hours practice, more nerves. I love practicing, obviously, that’s why I’m here, but again, those thoughts of Imposter Syndrome crept in. “The other trainees are going to see you modifying the poses.” “You’re going to sweat and you won’t look fit enough to be a yoga teacher”. These thoughts are all rubbish, I realise that, and logically I know none of those things matter. But Imposter Syndrome doesn’t care about that.

Luckily, the practice was just what I needed to bring me onto my mat and into the space. As I moved through the flows and the poses, adding in my own modifications when I needed to, bending my knees more than normal in Downward Dog as Harriet suggested, I felt like I was home. As I’ve been lucky enough to experience in other yoga environments, there was no judgment, no one cared that I was modifying anything, we were each there for our own practice.

I won’t go into detail of what we learned over the weekend, but I will say it was incredible. My fellow group of teacher trainees are amazing. We all come from different backgrounds and experiences and we’re learning just as much from each other as we are the teachers – we are after all, all students, and all teachers. For a part of the Sunday afternoon, we all taught some yoga. We were actually yoga teachers. And it felt amazing.

As I drove home on Sunday night, I just had this overwhelming calm, and the thought of ‘this is exactly where I’m meant to be at this moment in time’.

There wasn’t that feeling of regret, of ‘I wish I’d done this sooner’, as you quite often have with new adventures. If I had done this sooner it wouldn’t have been the same. I’m meant to be doing this now.

For the first time in a very long time, I’m starting to see the reasons behind a lot of things that have happened. As I entered my 30’s, I always felt anxious that I “didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up”. I was in my 30’s and had no idea what I was doing, where I was going. But it was meant to be that way.

I’ve spent the last 15 years learning so much about myself and the world, I was meant to go through all of those experiences because it’s made me who I am today. I was meant to find yoga at a time when I was learning about my body, learning how to appreciate, respect, and even love my body. I was meant to have that desire to do the teacher training, but not actually book anything because the courses I saw advertised didn’t feel right, they didn’t feel like me. I was right to feel lost and confused when things changed at my 9-5 and it made my future feel uncertain. I was right to go to London to practice with Dana Falsetti and learn about accessible yoga and how yoga is connected to social justice. In that space I was right to express my desire to teach yoga but also my concerns, and be open and listen when the group told me I should go for it, and someone even gave me the details of Yoga Quota. I was right to let the fire that started in me that weekend burn brighter and brighter, giving me the confidence to book onto the teacher training when I felt so positive about Yoga Quota and their ethos.

All of those things have led me to this moment. And this is where I’m meant to be. I’m so excited to continue on this journey and eventually become a yoga teacher, but more importantly, I’m excited to be a yoga student.

Sarah