We Are All Teachers - by Mehtab, Yoga Yoga's Founder

Have you ever thought about being a yoga teacher? You should. Because already you are one.

You may not be standing in front of a class, telling people how to move their bodies. You may not even know that much about yoga. But you are teaching it everyday of your life. Like it or not, conscious or not, you are a yoga teacher.

I am lucky because I get to spend a lot of time hanging around the yoga centers and see people going into class and then coming out of class. Going in to class can be a scattering experience - you are thinking about the traffic you drove through, the work left undone, what you have to do later, or just getting in to the restroom and out again in time to spread your mat on the floor.

Coming out - you are different. People float out the doors, sipping tea, serene, wordless, content and with a little smile of self-satisfaction because you know something many other people do not. Yoga works. It changes you. After one class, you are different. And it is a good different. And people notice that. Your family knows it when you come home. I remember one woman telling me that after an initial period of skeptical indulgence, her husband started to insist that she get herself back to a yoga class. And then her kids started to tell her she needed to do more yoga because they liked her better after a class.

And then people at work hear that you are doing yoga. Or they notice that you are not as stressed out as they are. Or just that you seem to be in a better mood. So they ask you about yoga.

You always teach by your presence, 24 hours a day. Who you are teaches others about your life and how you encounter that life. When you are happy, you teach others that it is okay to be happy and that you know the secret to being happy.

Yoga changes you. It is guaranteed. People will notice those changes, sometimes before you do, and they will want to know how it is that you are a different person. And you have to tell them - it's the yoga.

When people hear you are doing yoga, they are curious. They may even ask you to show them what you do, to teach them "some yoga." They want what you got, or at least they want to make sure to check out they are not missing out on something good.
So you teach them or you show them or you talk to them about yoga. And that is the way yoga has always been taught, for hundreds of years, someone does yoga and then they pass that spark to the next person and inspire them to change.

The experience of yoga is a very personal thing. It requires, as they say in cyberspace, "face to face time." Hardly anyone gets excited about yoga from reading a book or seeing a video or surfing the internet. It is only when they are in the living presence of a yoga student, a yoga teacher, do they get it, do they see what yoga can do for a person.

My teacher Yogi Bhajan, the master of Kundalini Yoga, said "the only reason a teacher exists outside yourself is to remind you of the teacher within yourself."

And so we need to remind ourselves and remind each other that we are all teachers. We are here to help, to serve, to elevate each other and make the difference that only a teacher can make.

I would like to invite you to consider the possibility of taking the training to become a certified yoga teacher. We have two open houses scheduled over the next two weeks to discuss our Fall Yoga Teacher Training Programs. Please come if you wish to inspire others, transform yourself, and learn the techniques of yoga in a structured classroom environment. Click here for more details.