We are all Students and Teachers in life.
Life is endless learning based on our life experiences and we teach others how to live based on how we act and feel.
For this reason Spira Teacher Training is for every seeker, lover and wonderer in life. Spend 8 months taking a deeper look at your life. Find new friends and learn some history, anatomy, philosophy and public speaking techniques as a side benefit.
This is one degree that you will use even if you never actually teach in a classroom…. Remember, we all teach someone, a child, a partner or a coworker.
Yoga philosophy helps us live a more joyful life. Yoga is a tool for your life and we can always use some extra tools time to time.
Albert loves Teacher Training!
You may have finished school many decades ago or maybe just yesterday. Either way I am pretty certain that no matter where you are in your life you are still learning. The lessons are endless and if we are not willing to learn a lesson then life has a way of presenting the same lessons over and over again till we find a way to learn. This is how we end up dating the “same” person or getting the “same” job over and over again. We want to learn but something deep within us is not willing to let go.
Most folks start yoga because they want to get in shape, lose weight or recover from an injury. I personally started yoga because of a knee injury but pretty soon I found that the practice helped me not only physically but also mentally. All of a sudden I handled the stresses of every day life much better. I found clarity with my life goals and I improved my communication skills with friends and family. I can honestly say that my practice changed my life.
During the last teacher training there were two ideas that I wished to instill in my students.
1.) Your job as a teacher is to make the students fall in love with the practice.
2.) My job as a teacher of teachers is to make you fall in love with lifelong learning.
You may wonder why I hammer away on these two points?
The answer is simple. If we love the practice we stick with it. The practice of yoga asks us only one thing: keep practicing and be aware of your mind while you practice. Everything else will fall in place. Without practice there is nothing. So why short change your students with limited goals such as a handstand or Sanskrit words? I am not saying don’t teach those, no, no, please do! But their importance is secondary. If there is no practice there is no learning. Love for the practice takes precedence over any other teaching.
You got to reach for your goals!
So how does a teacher teach love for the practice? We do it by learning to listen. Learn to listen to your students. See them for what they are, love them and don’t judge them. And then teach to the student who is in front of you with love, not to the student you would wish to have in front of you. The one thing that is always between us and the person who is speaking to us is, yes you guessed it, us. To really listen one must know the filters of our own mind. This means that a teacher must have self awareness first and teaching skills second. This is why at Spira Teacher Training we focus so much on awareness techniques and positive psychology. Everything starts within you. Then comes to teaching tools: poses, anatomy, history, philosophy, public speaking and communications.
In short, know thy self and then know thy student. Who is the student? Someone athletic, an older person, someone intellectually curious? The trick is to meet them at their level and then to challenge them. The order is very important! Challenge a student too early and you are met with resistance. Never challenge a student and you will never teach. Because too often those who seem physically weak need to discover their own strength and those who are athletic need to find out that strength is not in the body. After all, yoga is philosophy in motion, so one must go beyond just teaching the poses. One must inspire a joyful existence.
Whether you wish to enhance your life with useful tools or you wish to teach one day, learning ways to be more self aware, joyful and a better communicator can only benefit your life.
So what are you waiting for? Sign up, why would you postpone taking care of yourself?