I Am a Yoga Teacher Training Drop Out

Photo courtesy of the author

Disclaimer, this is super rambling, but it is honest and real…

Recently I was afforded an opportunity to take a yoga teacher training course. I was so excited. I asked for a new matt for Mother’s Day. I made posts all over social media. I told everyone I came into contact with about this opportunity. To say I was beyond excited might not even have been an understatement. It felt like a next logical step on a path towards…?

I arrived to class early. I rolled out my fancy new matt, and sat expectantly. We were given our materials, professional looking binders and activity cards. Introductions were made. Yoga buddies were assigned. A sun salutation series and awkward conversation ensued.

Then reality set in, and so did ego

It was clear that in yoga terms I knew more than the rest of the class. I thought “Fine. Great! This is a learning opportunity for me. I like learning. School is my jam. I need to be humble” Then the real teaching began. Again, I felt like I was 45 steps ahead of my classmates, most of whom were school counselors with little to no lesson planning experience. With almost twenty years of teaching experience, I know how to plan a lesson, and reviewing it was frustrating. Yes. There are aspects to teaching that vary from subject to subject, but teaching is teaching. Ego took over as I felt so above what the instructor was saying.

In teacher world I know how to plan a lesson, and according to my boss, and my evaluation this year, I do it well. I know how to structure time with students. I’m positive that there are things I don’t know, but I am confident in my abilities as a teacher. Being a teacher is a huge part of my identity, and probably one of the things I take the most pride in doing well.

Boredom, followed by tears

I spend the majority of my 9–5 day to day life trying to meet the needs of advanced learners. It was clear on the first day of yoga teacher training that I was in the position that most of my students find themselves in, and it was awful. I was bored. I felt like the course was beneath me. (It wasn’t, but I will get to that later. I fully admit that I am so beyond full of ego.) I have never empathized more with my students. That take away alone was probably worth my time that weekend.

My yoga practice is evolving, but I do have a practice that involves 3-4 classes a week. I do know how to follow a flow. I know some yoga terminology. I know how to listen to my body and give it what it needs. That is where this is taking me. Listening to what my body needs.

I don’t know is all that much about the eight limbs of yoga. I don’t know about mudras, or the sanskrit names for poses. I don’t know about yamas and niyamas. I know just enough about those things to know how hopelessly little I do know. That was what I hoped to learn. That was what my body needed.

It wasn’t what it got.

So, I did what my students do. I completely disengaged in class. I snuck my phone in. I acted like a jerk. I sent texts to friends. I scrolled through Facebook and Instagram. I planned my grocery list. I waited to be called out. I wasn’t. I went to the bathroom and cried. I claimed I had a stomach ache. I refused to do the assigned work. I did everything except go to the nurse and call my mom to come get me, because I am an adult and I drove myself. I texted friends about how miserable I was.

I gave it until the end of the second day, then decided to quit. I hate confrontation. I really hate it when I am tired and weepy, and just want my house and my dog. I waited until I got home. After I ate dinner, and talked it over with a friend, I sent the text: “Hi this is Sarah from the class this weekend. This just isn’t working out. I need to drop. What is the policy for refunding course tuition?” I followed it up with an ego riddled email about what I expected versus what happened. My email felt bitchy. It was probably more passionate, and matter of fact, and yes, completely full of ego.

There was a back and forth between myself and the course organizers. I was admittedly an asshole. I didn’t use my words in a kind way. I put all of my shit on display. I held my bullshit up like a prize winning tomato at the state fair. I own that. I’m not proud of being an asshole, but I was and it’s done.

I vomited my bullshit all over friends. It has been a bullshit hurricane in my life. I’m not sure if I have a single friend who has been spared my drama this week. I don’t like how I behaved, but I am learning to accept that even with this shitty behavior, and possibly because of it, I am one hundred percent human. I’m learning to own my shit, and even better to accept my shit. This has been humbling for sure, and earlier this week I totally hated myself. Now? I’m a little closer to self acceptance of all the parts, even the ugly ones.

I’ve done a lot of thinking this week. I’ve done a lot of talking, and looking and really exploring those places where I feel uncomfortable. The phrase that gets to me the most are “it probably just wasn’t the right time." I sit here four days post nuclear explosion on my future as a yoga instructor and wonder if there will ever be a “right” time. I was told going into yoga teacher training that it would uncover things that might blow my lid off. It totally did. This experience pulled back the veil on yoga teachers and it has me questioning the whole practice.

The other phrase that gets to me is “if it doesn’t feel right in your body then don’t do it" that has been my most often repeated response to those who tell me it just isn’t the right time. This course at this time doesn’t feel right in my body and I have to honor that. I have to be okay with it looking like I failed, like I let my emotions get the best of me, like I quit because it was hard. Nothing about this has been easy. Owning my shit in all of this has been hard.

But here’s the thing, this experience opened my eyes to the westernization of a beautiful ancient practice, and I’m not sure that I can continue to ignore that. I work with students from incredibly diverse beautiful backgrounds, some of which come from the part of the world where yoga originated. When I reflect back to where I first wanted to run away from class it was the moment where the opportunity to learn about those origins was glossed over. It was in the making up of cutesy white kid friendly names for mudras. It was in not taking a deep dive into those origins so that we, as instructors honor it.

I was told by yoga teacher friends that yoga teacher training is just a jumping off point. They told me it was up to me to take my practice where I want to go, and if a deeper dive into the origins of yoga is where I want to go, then that is on me. That is where the inner conflict is sitting. Why is it on me to do that when I paid tuition to someone to teach it to me? Why am I paying someone for a piece of paper but I have to do all of the research and all of the learning on my own? Why not just do all of the learning and walk away from their piece of paper knowing that it really doesn’t represent much of anything beyond a willingness to pay my money and sit in a class for 95 hours? (There goes that ego again…)

I must inherently have an issue with the western practice of yoga, I think? That feels where this is taking me. Or maybe it’s taking me to a place where I seek an authenticity in my practice. I need to know about the roots of yoga. I need to honor where it comes from and I need to know it. If I’m going to teach it, like learning about art history in conjunction with learning the “how” piece in art school, I need to learn yoga history in addition to learning the “how” piece in yoga.

Sitting with a curriculum that doesn’t do that deep dive, that doesn’t give teacher’s that foundation feels disrespectful in my body. Taking it into a classroom with the potential to gloss over a student’s culture, and more or less ignore it, feels harmful. It feels a little like stealing or cultural appropriation. It doesn’t feel equity informed.

When I took these concerns to the CEO of the organization who ran the course her reaction told me all I needed to know. I know I came to her after a big emotional blow up, and she probably wasn’t as receptive as she might be under different circumstances. Still, when I questioned why I wasn’t seeing the original roots of yoga in her curriculum, she defended herself. She claimed it was there. When I raised my concerns about the potential to harm students, she denied that was a possibility. We had to agree to disagree. See here’s the thing, I didn’t want to go after her business, though I’m sure it looked that way to her. This isn’t just a “her” issue this is a systemic issue.

I sat in a lecture last fall and listened to an incredibly brave Asian student tell a room full of adults that the removal of her culture from general high school curriculum was harmful. Removing an Asian perspective from an Asian practice? I can’t even with that one.

I didn’t expect a full refund. I did get a partial one. I’m taking it. I did learn a lot. I’m not sure it was worth the cost they charged me, but I am frugal. Maybe it was worth more?I’m working on my own ego in all of this. I am human. I am messy. I’m okay with that.