Learning to Learn

When I enrolled in yoga teacher training, I had low aspirations regarding the teaching part. I was primarily interested in discovering the secret of why yoga makes me feel so good. I wanted to dive deep into the postures, traditions, and philosophy to understand how I could more fully weave yoga into my life off the mat. If along the way I learned how to lead a group of strangers through a sixty minute vinyasa class, that would be the icing on the cake.

I'm about halfway through the program now and my attitude toward teaching has shifted. I am much more excited about sharing my passion and creating opportunities for others to explore the magic of yoga. In fact, I can't wait! The trouble is that the more I learn about teaching yoga, the less prepared I feel to teach yoga. It's like I'm going backwards. Why do I feel like I know less after studying so much?

Early in the program we discussed the challenge of learning something new in psychology class. My teacher summarized it this way: our critical framework about an activity increases at a much more rapid pace than our ability to actually perform the activity. Basically when we first attempt to learn something new, we have very little baseline information about what it takes to do it well. This makes us believe that we will soon be accomplished at our new endeavor. But as we start to study intensively, the amount of information we acquire about how to do it well grows by leaps and bounds. All of a sudden mastery seems like it is so far away, and by comparison we seem to gain so little ground when we practice. This is the point at which many people quit. The goal seems unattainable so why continue to put in the time and effort?

I can relate. I have learned so much about yoga in the past nine weeks–even about the basic postures that I thought I had in the bag–that I now realize I don't know very much about yoga at all! I may have been practicing for eight years and I may take level 3 vinyasa classes, but learning how to teach yoga has forced me to admit that I am still a beginner. I thought that it would be relatively easy to talk someone through the poses I greet like old friends, but I am learning how many moving parts I have to consider as a yoga teacher–all at the same time! There's anatomy, breath work, alignment, cueing, observation, refinements, demonstrations, feedback, sequencing, adjustments...and the list goes on. 

The more I learn about teaching yoga the more I discover there is to learn. There is no finish line up ahead. But instead of being discouraged by this, I am greatly encouraged. I will be able to study yoga for my entire life and there will always be something new to learn–and to teach. 

There is a wonderful anecdote from Ira Glass on this topic that I first heard at yoga school. It's a great tribute to persistence when learning something new. You can find the quote here. Enjoy!