7 Tips for Yoga Teachers Who Don't Feel "Ready" Yet

There is a Buddhist parable I read last night as I was fighting to go to sleep 😴. A water bearer carried two pots to the river each day, one on each end of a pole across his shoulders. One pot was perfect. The other had a crack down its side and arrived half empty every time. The cracked pot was ashamed of itself and one day apologised for being so useless. The water bearer told it to look down at the path on the way back. All along the cracked pot's side of the track there were flowers growing 💐,🌱 and none on the other side. "I always knew about your flaw," he said, "so I planted seeds there. Your leaking is the reason this path is so beautiful."

He went on. "The perfect pot, for all its pride, walked over bare ground. Nothing grew in its wake. It carries water and only water. The thing you keep apologising for is the thing through which your life pours out into the world. You were meant to leak, all the way home, and leave something blooming behind you 🌷. Don't change for anyone or anything. Just be as you are."

I said something similar to a teacher once, back in our Woking days. What you overthink and decide is your flaw is the very thing that keeps people coming back to you 🤔.

And I found myself explaining something similar to someone on the desk just a few days ago. Everyone has the capacity to teach and share. There is an audience for everyone. Even me 🫣. I have more flaws than you could count. I am not a people person by nature. I'm more introverted than even I realised. My perfect night is watching the football with Zaccy while explaining offside to Laura. I can be shy and withdrawn. I wear my heart on my sleeve, so any time I've got the 'ump, you know about it. I'm a male teacher in a (generally) woman's world. And on the whole, I think humans are a little overrated. There is still an audience for me as a teacher. It won't be huge, but am I willing to sacrifice a part of myself at my age for those extra few bums on mats? 😵‍💫

The most common thing I hear from our teacher training prospects, and we get loads, is that they are not sure they are "ready." They feel too imperfect.

So here are seven tips I would give to anyone at the starting point of their journey, wondering if they are "good enough" to teach yoga, or worried about the cracks in their pot. 😵‍💫🍯

Tip 1. Teach what you actually know

When you start out, just be as you are.

B.K. Iyengar was a great teacher, but repeating his words in your teaching does not make you Iyengar. Those words can be repeated by a parrot too. Parroting is a subtle form of harm, even when the teacher's intentions are sincere.

Tip 2. Don't wait until you feel "ready"

Free yourself from this paralysing idea that you must first become "better" or be "ready."

You, as you are, however ordinary you may feel, are the perfect doorway. All great beginnings start in the dark.

Tip 3. Focus on your own practice first. It's your best teacher

To inspire others, you must put your own practice and self-inquiry first. The capacity to guide others with integrity arises solely through your own consistent and dedicated self-practice.

If you struggle at first, it usually means your focus has drifted away from your own mat.

Tip 4. Prioritise teaching over fixed sequences

Learn first to project your voice, as teaching is the art of communication. As your voice develops, the sequences arrive in their own time, shaped by the needs of your students.

This matters more than you realise. The teacher who does not learn from his students is not really teaching.

Tip 5. Reframe your learning as guidance, not performance

Do not think you are "learning to be a yoga teacher." Instead, view your training as learning how to guide people safely through what their bodies can actually do.

Discipline your thinking and the rest follows.

Tip 6. Philosophy is just philosophy

Philosophy is philosophy, not dogma. If the tradition does not yet "resonate" with you, it is better to respect it from a distance and set it aside.

Over time, your own practice and teaching becomes a philosophy of its own, authentic to you and genuinely useful to others.

Tip 7. Be the teacher you needed

Become the teacher you yourself would have benefited from most. Drop the mask, drop the performance, and let your own presence do the teaching.

"What is a teacher? I'll tell you: it isn't someone who teaches something, but someone who inspires the student to give of her best in order to discover what she already knows."- Paulo Coelho

Namaskar

Zahir

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