I am a yoga teacher. That phrase alone holds an identity of myself I’ve craved for so many years. I’ve always wondered what version of myself would call in this experience and become her – I can now proudly say when the opportunity came, I answered. Nine immersion weekends and 200 beautiful hours later, here we are.

As with everything that is truly aligned in life, the timing of this experience found me at the exact right moment. We had just moved to a new state and I had been missing the fitness community I’d loved so much back in Cambridge. Enter, The Collective Studios in Londonderry, New Hampshire. Having made quite a few geographic moves over the last decade, there is one fact I know for certain when you land somewhere new – walk yourself into a fitness studio with an open heart and you will have generally found your people. Not every gym or fitness studio you find is welcoming but I’m happy to report that this space is the definition of welcoming. They have just about every type of class imaginable – all of which are uniquely wonderful AND they have Yoga Teacher Training (YTT) during the fall and winter months. Say no more, sign me up!

Just like classes at Collective, our 200 hour YTT curriculum was absolutely dialed – every single detail was genuinely so well thought out. Our lead instructor, Shana, brought a wealth of knowledge and first-hand experience to our immersion weekends and created a genuine environment where we felt seen and completely safe to be beginners. Not only is my personal practice much, much deeper as a result of yoga teacher training, I now have nine new soul friends for life who went through every bit of this experience with me. It truly doesn’t get much better than that.

The experience of becoming a new yoga teacher also brought me a few extra gifts from the universe I hadn’t been expecting. One of the biggest parts of our training was a beautiful deep-dive into yoga philosophy, brought to us in large part by Desiree of Yoga Simplified Method. Less than two weeks before jumping into this experience, my husband, Sumit, who is originally from India (the birthplace of yoga) and raised as a Hindu Punjabi, and I had just gotten married. Having fallen in love and married within less than a year and a half and growing up without a real foundational knowledge of either Hinduism or Indian culture, I was filling the gaps as quickly as I could. Then came YTT and in the most unexpected of ways, I was given the most beautiful gift – a real, foundational knowledge of Hinduism through the lens of yoga. During much of my training, my mother in law visited us from India and this genuinely gave me another new way to connect with her.

Without further ado, here are my top five takeaways from 200 hours spent becoming a new yoga teacher:

1. Asana is Just the Beginning

There is a reason yoga has become so widely popularized throughout the globe, most especially in the west. I find that those who are drawn to modern yoga are searching for a way to connect – to connect to themselves, to tune into their body or their spiritual essence, and to share space and energy with other human beings. There is a special kind of magic that happens when you gather in a room full friends, strangers, and community members for the practice of yoga, moving in unison, honoring the cadence of your breath, and exploring the potential to connect to something higher than yourself.

So many of us have retreated to our corners as a consequence of modern life, often left feeling overworked and isolated. The practice of yoga, specifically asana, or the body postures or poses we move through during a yoga class, creates a sacred space for us to reignite our lost connections – with ourselves, our practice, and the ever-fleeting present moment. When we gather for asana, we remember our most sacred connections. However, there is a common misconception among practitioners yoga is only asana.

The third limb of Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga, asana, is just one of the tools Patanjali has given to us to guide ourselves further inward toward the nature of our authentic selves so that we can discover true goal of yoga – the experience of each present moment. Asana is so much more than the poses we move through in class – it is one of the most important tools we can use to get out of our heads and back into our bodies.

The practice of asana doesn’t demand perfection, it simply creates space for practitioners to become curious explorers – with each breath linking one present moment to the next; to observe, release attachment and continue on. Yoga teachers hold a beautiful responsibility to serve as guides for practitioners – to lead them safely and confidently from one asana, one breath and one moment into the next. Asana is truly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the practice and experience of living yoga.

2. Your Breath is the Way

Speaking of breath, how often have you actually observed your own breathing? Take a few moments to simply breathe. Releasing judgement, what do you notice about your breath? Is it shallow? Is it deep? When you ask yourself, ‘well, how actually is my breathing?’, do you find yourself inhaling a little bit deeper? Perhaps you notice your exhale now mirrors the length of your deeper inhale. Does your breath cycle feel fully complete?

The beauty of our breath lies in within the miracle of the parasympathetic nervous system, our rest and digest autonomic responses. For most of us, the body simply ‘takes care’ of the responsibility of each breath, without us having to think about each inhale and exhale; we are not required to consciously direct our body to breathe. Our breath is the foundation that gives way to our life. With our first breath, we enter this world and with our last, we reach the finality of this life experience.

Pranayama, or breath work – the regulation of the breath through certain techniques and exercises – the fourth of Patanjali’s eight limbs of yoga, asks us to direct our consciousness to our breath. As we walked the path of yoga teacher training, I began to notice the cycle of my own natural breath felt incomplete. The more we explored the philosophy of yoga and dove deeper into our own personal asana practice, the more I found myself consciously exploring my breath. The more often I connected to my breath, the easier things became – my breath became the foundation of both my practice and my day. I began with breath to drop into my morning meditation practice with more ease. I noticed how it felt to direct my consciousness to my breathing to transport myself from one asana to the next and to explore the beautiful meditative state that is ‘flow’. In the everyday moments of life, I started directing myself toward a more complete cycle of breath.

Before this experience, I noticed I was borderline self-conscious to fully breathe in public, maybe even subconsciously holding my breath out of fear of being seen. Now, I simply sigh it out whenever I feel like it – and sometimes my exhale is loud. The body already has what it needs when it comes to breath, but with each new conscious breath, we direct more oxygen and more energy back to our selves. 

If you’re looking for another way to explore conscious breathing, try belly breathing! Find a comfortable position, either seated or lying down. Place one hand on your heart, one on your belly and gently close down your eyes. Inhale through your nose and feel your belly expand as you fill your lungs with air for a count of four. Exhale for another count of four, as you feel your belly return to its normal position. Continue to notice the rise and fall of your belly with each inhale and exhale.

3. Adopt a Beginner’s Mindset

Repeat after me: there is always something new to learn.

Any expert in any field started where you are, too. From somewhere – but at one moment in time, it was just as simple as a first step from away zero. And sometimes that’s where you start, too.

This world demands perfection. It expects you to pick one thing and be great at it. To be an immediate expert, to make it look easy. So many self-development books I’ve read preach about “the process”; about failing forward, how making mistakes is such an important part of what really makes you better. I felt like I had a deep understanding around the idea of ‘being OK with failing’. But then, when it actually came time for me to stand in front of a room full of people, albeit, friends, and teach something I was just barely beginning to integrate, my programming kicked in. “You cannot allow your self fail.” Even in a safe environment like YTT, my perfectionism and fear of failure began to govern how I moved and the amount of time I studied outside of our immersion weekends.

Once I came to terms with the fact that it was going to take actual time and many, many logged hours of study, observation and flow to get good, the pressure began to release just a little bit. That, and there were eight other friends being new and imperfect with me learning to teach, too.

There is a concept in Zen Buddhism called Shoshin, meaning ‘beginner’s mindset’. According to this belief, approaching study as a novice, with an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions, however advanced it may be, is the key to learning something new. Yoga provides a lifetime of information to learn and approaching this with shoshin will help us reach acceptance around the idea of “messing up” from time to time.

4. Check Your Judgement (and Your Ego) at the Door

As someone who believes whole-heartedly in the idea that group exercise is for everyone, I’ve made a few observations over the years.

There have been moments I’ve shown up to group fitness classes at my absolute lowest, tucking myself quietly into the back corner of a dark room trying to become as invisible as possible, searching for the tiniest glimmer of my real self staring back at me in the mirror. For 45-60 minutes, group exercise classrooms were the experience that could temporarily revive me from the dark place I’d been hiding that particular day. As someone who is now qualified to confidently lead to a group of individuals through a yoga class, I remember deep in my bones EXACTLY how it felt to show up in that room for the very first time. The attitude of an instructor and the overall atmosphere of group fitness classes can make or break this experience for someone.

Our lead instructor throughout YTT, Shana, mentioned during one of our weekend immersions how she used to invite her students to ‘leave your ego at the door’. The practice of yoga is an invitation inward – it’s not about being the most flexible person in the room. On your mat, there is always the opportunity to challenge yourself within the effort of a pose or a time to explore one’s yogi edge, but yoga is truly not at all about how you look doing something – it’s about how you feel. Many, many of the yoga poses some might consider ‘easy’ can actually be made into some of the hardest.

A great example of this is the option to use blocks during your practice. We heard stories of students refusing blocks in class because they considered them ‘lesser than’. Blocks are not only used for extra support – they are a great way to sink more fully into a pose or deepen a stretch! As instructors, we make a point to regularly provide options with blocks so that our classes are accessible to all bodies and all kinds of students and we make a point to use blocks while we instruct to help students remember the option to modify is always there.

As we began YTT, I absolutely knew that I wasn’t going to be the most flexible or experienced person in the room. I’ve dealing with some upper spinal issues and my endurance definitely wasn’t where it had been even three months prior. Although I’ve enjoyed my own yoga practice for many years, I had been out of consistent practice, especially in a group setting for quite some time, opting for spin and HIIT classes more often in preparation for my wedding.

I like to think that I’m not a judgmental person, but this experience was an eye-opening, major gut-check. While I didn’t walk into the experience with any kind of big ego, I definitely had to sit with myself when it came to feelings of judgement. As I watched sweet friends practice handstands one day during our posture clinic, I caught myself making a face in the mirror that screamed pure jealously, pure ‘I’m not good enough’ energy.

That night, I had to have a serious conversation with myself – do I stop this now because I’m “not good enough” and afraid to fail? Do I try to get my handstand nailed over the next 10 weeks? I still haven’t nailed an unassisted handstand, but once I sat with myself I began to realize, it’s absolutely not about what someone else can do that you can’t. Your practice is your truly own and everyone is on their own journey – yoga is not about inversions or handstands or even asana alone – it’s about showing up onto your mat without judgement or judgement of others, rooting down into the present moment, into your experience, and acknowledging that what ‘felt good’ yesterday might feel differently than it did today – and that’s completely okay.

5. The Yogic Path is Forever

There is a beautiful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that reads, “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.” Once one receives the spiritual knowledge of the Upanishads, there is no going back. Patanjali’s eight limbs provides us with a pathway for a life well-lived; an integration of mind, body and spirit, rooted in the powerful present moment. A yoga-inspired life is forever and yoga is truly, everywhere – and in everything we do.