Be Your Own Best Student

Success in teaching yoga has nothing to do with how many students you have, how many classes you teach, or how many private clients you have. 

If you want to teach, you only need one student: YOU.  You need to motivate that student to get to their mat.  Not go to a class and let someone else take control, but to actually roll out their own mat in their own house and get to it.  You have to motivate that student to push their learning.  Not just doing more fancy poses but reading scripture, doing japa, sitting still for meditation, singing the Name, serving others. You have to motivate that student to show up to practice whether they feel happy or sad, tired or awake, feel like doing it or not.

I have great respect for the guru-student relationship.  All true gurus teach you how to discover the truths that they have already experienced for yourself.  They give you tools--you have to do the work.  So we honor our guru by motivating ourselves to practice in the way we were taught.

A teacher can only take their students as far as they themselves have gone.  A teacher should encourage their students to surpass them.  A teacher’s goal is to make the student self-sufficient enough to not need the teacher anymore, because the true teacher is housed inside all of us. 

It takes a lot of practice to discover that truth.

If I am ever blessed to discover this truth, I mean really internalize that the teacher is within, I will have no need to practice.  Until then I am rolling out my mat, twirling the beads, singing the Name to the best of my ability. 

Be your own best student. Schedule a class for yourself.  Do not miss it.  Do not slack off during it.  Because the teacher will be watching.