11/09/2023
Ugh. It's a brutal truth about the yoga industry.
You can learn to protect yourself, offer out what you can to build collaborations, it's a wonderful way to build yoga community as a whole. But it also comes with the realization that some people just don't know how to collaborate without competition. And sometimes they can be hard lessons to learn.
As a yoga teacher, I've had the judgmental looks, the condescending posts and emails, lies, insults. And in the deepest tradition of yoga, I understand that this is actually a reflection of the person throwing shade my way. I take all criticisms as learning lessons, and some can be quite corrective.
In our teacher trainings, we always talk about not only the importance of collaboration instead of competition, but the importance of respecting other yoga teachers and their practices. With over 400 different types of yoga, to say that one person is a better yoga teacher than the other is akin to saying one singer is better than all the rest of the singers in the world. Because it is the receiver's experience that creates the ranking, and every receiver is different, there can be truly no " best singer in the world" just as there can't be a " best yoga teacher in the world".
I truly believe we are, as teachers, there for the guests that come to our studios, sometimes we are exactly what our guests need and other times someone else can serve them better, and to honor the practice of yoga, means that it is our responsibility to guide our guests to their best path.
We can always do better, and we can always be better. In fact, that's another facet of yoga is to be the person off the mat that you strive to be on the mat, spreading peace and compassion
In the past, I have invited a colleague to lead part of my prenatal yoga teacher training. In addition to being a yoga teacher, she is also a doctor of physical therapy and was able to teach us all how to assess ourselves for particular conditions.
