For the past five years, I hung up my running shoes and stretched into downward dog ready to bend into a wheel and flip upside down in handstand. I’ve flexed my hamstrings, my heart, and mind ― working to build my body back up after suffering through triathlon racing injuries for so long before I found my mat.
On my morning commute, I set aside my audiobook of Lore of Running and the vocals of Grammy-award nominee Krishna Das took its place. Pulling up to a red light blasting Krishna Das and singing at the top of my lungs, I soon found out, gets as many strange looks as a teen pumping Ludicrous out of his lowered Honda Civic, so be warned if you follow suit.
Every new year, however, when I sat down to reflect on my life and set intentions for the coming year, joining a yoga teacher training program would come to my attention, yet quickly blow away with an exhale. Trying to calculate just how I would add this on top of my current responsibilities proved impossible year after year after year after year.
Finally I followed my bliss, as Joseph Campbell suggests we all do, and joined Living Yoga’s program under the instruction of Richard Villella and Liz Schulman in New York’s Hudson Valley.
I quickly learned something about yoga teacher training that won’t be on anyone’s flyer. Yoga teacher training is therapeutic, empowering, and life-changing for sure, but that doesn’t come without a fair share of tears, frustration, and emotional baggage. Put bluntly, yoga teacher training is seriously hard work!
Many times during the months of my training, I wanted to quit. Life would be a lot easier without having to reflect on another yoga sutra by Patanjali, I thought. But I’m so happy I stuck with it and wish the same for you.
For those of you feeling a bit overwhelmed with your training, here’s what helped empower my journey. Perhaps it will help you, as well:
1. Sharing Your Journey Through The Group Process
When joining a yoga teacher training program, you’re essentially entering group therapy. The philosophy, meditation, and intense asana practice will move a lot of energy in you: meaning, your emotional or physical foundation may crumble.
The group you enter training with will help build you back up to an even stronger sense of self, much like a soldier’s platoon will build her up after basic training breaks her down.
Make sure to find time outside the regular training hours to have a few beers (if that’s your thing) or go on a nature hike with your group to help work through the emotions that will arise in a training program.
Tears will likely flow in pigeon pose and your group will catch you when you fall.
Likewise, be honest with your instructors when you struggle. A great instructor will, in turn, share with you how they too struggled and help you grow through this journey.
2. Write to Untangle The Mind
Outside of group process, you’ll need to spend a lot of time with the self to massage any emotional wounds that may arise through the training program. Here’s where journaling comes in. Trust me, your spouse will thank you later.
Because writing slows down one’s thinking, it pulls a tangled ball of thoughts into a straight line. Just five minutes a day helps flush out the thoughts and make sense of emotional confusion. This prevents displaced anger from cropping up when you least expect it.
The best way to journal? I like what I learned from Kerouac ― you sit down, set a timer, and write, write, wrtie, without worrying about grammar, spelling errors or punctuation (sic). This helps the right-brain bypass the restricted nature of the left-brain.
Set the timer and go.
3. Forget Everything You Know About Yoga
From day one, it became clear that I knew about as much about yoga as a boy who spends his life sailing a lake and finally meets the ocean. It’s an awakened feeling like what Socrates exclaimed so many years ago: “All I know is that I know nothing.”
Westerners ― Americans in particular ― don’t do yoga traditionally. We do asana practice or, as I like to think of it, gymnastics on a mat. The mind-bending philosophical inquiry, breath work, meditation, yamas, niyamas, pratyahara, dharana, the elusive state of samadhi ― these are the limbs that root yoga into the ground.
Invest in some note cards to help study.
4. It’s About As Hard As That Post You Can Never Do
Teacher training is challenging to put it lightly. It’s not playing on the beach in Bali, nor is it a few weekends with friends camping in a yoga studio, nor days full of bliss in an ashram.
Yoga teacher training ― if you choose the right program ― is about as demanding as a challenging degree in college.
For instance, my teachers Richard and Liz, did not let me through easily. While my physical practice was strong, my ability to convey depth in my teaching was weak. Inwardly, I struggled with my emotions. Outwardly, I wore the confident and strong mask that’s expected of a 6’2” 200lb muscular man. During our six months together, they helped me dig deeper than I would have on my own.
My teachers saw my mask and urged me to dig deeper. Perhaps it’s because, as a former NFL running back, Richard knew all too well the act I was putting on. He himself first came to yoga after blowing out his knee in the NFL in the 80’s, and found yoga to build him back up emotionally and physically. Likewise, I came to yoga after years of abusing my body in the competitive triathlon circuit.
5. Define Yoga on Your Own
In the old days in India, only men could practice yoga. Women were not allowed to. Go a bit further back, and yoga didn’t even involve a physical practice because the body was looked at as a dirty thing that held one back from attaining bliss.
Yoga has changed, is changing, and will change. Westerners have greatly adapted yoga and, while some may find this an act of treason, I see beauty in it.
Language, the internet, even music ― These are just a few of the great things that come when cultures collide. So, embrace your yoga and define it on your own terms.
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What about you? If you’ve been through a yoga teacher training program, tag them in the comments below and share what helped empower your journey.
(This post originally appeared in Mark’s Sunday Newsletter. Get it here. Listen to Mark’s guided meditations here.