A Sticky Note Guide To Being A Yoga Teacher: The Treacherous Yoga Teacher Training Canyon
For some reason, I have a hankering to draw stick figure scenes on sticky notes to reveal the strange goings on in the mind of a yoga teacher. Crazy, I know. I firmly believe the medium of crudely drawn stick figures on 3×5 yellow sticky notes is the best way to guide my fellow yoga teachers (and trainees).
Actually, that’s not true.
My sticky notes will be found woefully wanting in all things to do with guidance. I draw them as a way to avoid real work, such as putting out flyers to promote my yoga classes.
OK, without any further ado, here is sticky note numero uno…
The Treacherous Yoga Teacher Training Canyon
Sticky Note Guide To Being A Yoga Teacher
As you stand there, looking over the treacherous two years of yoga teacher training ahead of you, the wet-behind-the-ears version of yourself is saying, “It’ll be a walk in the park“.
But the more astute, worldly version of you instinctively knows that down every slippery crevasse is a pile of endless homework, behind every insurmountable boulder is impossibly difficult anatomy and Sanskrit to be learned, and at the top of every tricky peak is a yoga sequence with a peak pose to master.
However, once you haul yourself by your fingernails to DAY 730 and kick off the mud of forgotten Sanskrit, forgotten yoga anatomy, late homework assignments, and supremely embarrassing mock yoga class teaching sessions from your boots…
Before I carry on, those that have already gone through a yoga teacher training course will know what I’m talking about, but for those who are thinking about training to become a yoga teacher, I feel you ought to know what happens during these “supremely embarrassing mock yoga class teaching sessions”.
As part of your teacher training, you will teach yoga to your fellow yoga teacher trainees and be observed by God, your yoga teacher trainer. And you’ll do this several times during your training.
Here’s how it will go…
God (your yoga teacher trainer) will sit on a chair, shake her head, sigh deeply, sigh loudly, come close to tears, and scribble vast swathes of red text into an official-looking notebook as you stumble, fumble, flummox, um and uh your way through your core yoga themed lesson plan that took you 38 hours of blood toil tears and sweat to write, rewrite, re-rewrite, re-re-rewrite and re-re-re-rewrite until you collapsed into a quivering heap (that resembles child pose) and forget for a few hours that you belong to Planet Earth and that you embarked on an irrational two-year journey to morph into a yoga teacher.
OK, back to the sticky note…
Once you’ve crossed the treacherous canyon and become a yoga teacher, you will immediately discover that the small, safe, flat ledge you’re on is temporary. Another treacherous canyon looms close that goes by the name of:
“How the heck am I going to make enough money as a yoga teacher?”
Weird name for a canyon, I know.
And it’s filled with just as many slippery crevasses and insurmountable boulders as the “Becoming A Yoga Teacher” canyon was.
If you’ve crossed a canyon to become a yoga teacher (congrats!!!), but…
WAIT.
You’ve proven you can do…
HARD.
It’s time to prove you can do…
EASY.
So, trek over yonder to my Yoga Teacher Business Kit. You’ll immediately have all the resources you need to grow a yoga teacher business, including a yoga business plan template, a yoga marketing plan template, lots of yoga class flyer templates, and loads more time-saving resources.
And yes, the yellow sticky note drawing was an elaborate ruse to lull you into parting with your money, but it really is a lovely Kit.
George Watts
BWY Yoga Teacher
Lover of sticky notes, crude drawings & wasting his valuable time in front of sticky notes.
