Thursday, January 05, 2006

Yoga Teacher Training

So I've decided to keep a journal of my experience with yoga teacher training, and here seems like as good a place as any for such an effort.

Why should a reasonably well-paid lawyer spend time and money to learn to be a yoga teacher, which pays, in the scheme of things, almost nothing at all?

Still working on that one.

For now, though, I'm content with this answer: I want to learn how to teach yoga. I have not decided to stop doing other things in order to learn to teach yoga.

Over the past couple of months, the idea of taking teacher training has been lurking below the surface of my pond, occasionally poking a eye into daylight, then slowly dropping back out of sight. Twice I went so far as to start filling out an on-line application for the training with the studio where I practice, each time closing my web browser without hitting "send." Why not send it in? Time conflicts, mostly. Suspicion that it is too much for "me," in part. A bit of worry that it will bring into daylight things that I've kept comfortably in the dark.

See, the thing is, I've got a pretty comfortable life, all in.

I have a fun and loving wife and children -- or as loving as three teenaged sons can reasonably be expected to emote.

I have a decent job.

I live in a nice neighborhood.

I'm relatively healthy.

So how could teacher training jeopardize those things? Realistically, it can't.

What it can do, I suspect, is mess with my mind.

Yoga has always messed with my mind. It seems to have a way of pushing right through locked doors, rearranging walls, opening curtains. In my life, it has never been very respectful of the "no trespassing" signs that I post, sometimes without even noticing. Absurdity is easier to maintain unconsciously.

So for reasons I'll work to articulate in the future here, I'm trying out a new posture.