My friend Bob plays guitar every morning from 5-7 AM.  He tells me, "There's no fast road to excellence so you might as well enjoy the slow journey."  I like that and I've decided to apply it to the way I offer teacher-training programs.  Taking three or four weeks out of one's life and trying to digest the huge meal of a 200-hour yoga teacher training can land us with a belly ache. So we're going to take it slow.  We're breaking it into baby steps that will eventually lead to a giant leap.

I have reorganized the yoga teacher trainings into 6-day modules called Immersions.  We will offer six Immersions each year.  Attending four immersions within a one-year period will qualify you for 200-hour Yoga Alliance Certification. 

Students attending their fourth immersion with the intent to become certified will act as interns during that final immersion week.  They will teach at least one of the asana classes each day and will act as tutor to new students and assistant to our teaching staff.

The immersions are organized into half-day workshops.  So each 6-day event has 12 workshops sequenced to take students deeper and deeper into the practice.  Those of you who want to dive deeper into certain aspects of the practice without pursuing a teaching career can do so by selecting the half-day workshops of their interest.  With this flexible and accommodating structure we can take digestible baby steps towards the “giant leap” that is just right for each of us.

So whether you are an aspiring teacher or a curious yogi ready for more, please explore our Immersion Schedules and register for a life-enhancing experience.  We look forward to witnessing your unfolding.

I've completed four Yoga Teacher Trainings in my 20 years on the yoga path.  None of them left me prepared to teach.  They did help me deepen my practice and my understanding of yogic philosophy, but when I tried to stand in front of a class and share what I'd learned... I couldn't find my voice.  At first I thought it was just me.  Then I heard countless stories of other certified Yoga Teachers leaving their training programs feeling proud of their certification, only to be overwhelmed and humiliated when it came time to teach in the real world.  Those who teach or speak for a living understand the importance of learning to organize and articulate information for maximum revelation.  It is an art form.  And one that needs to be added to Yoga Teacher Training Programs.

I found my teaching voice by recording myself giving instruction to no one in the privacy of my home, then listening back to the stuttering, pausing, and bumbling.  I did this over and over for weeks until I felt I had improved enough to be called a teacher. 

An interesting yogic paradox is that we can't teach anyone anything yet we all seek guidance; we want to learn and are attracted to experts.  But what is an expert?  We usually think of an expert as someone who is experiencing success based on the mastery and intelligent application of a field of knowledge.  We are attracted to their success, we want some it for ourselves and so we hang around them and try to get a good look at what their secrets are.  In the yogic tradition, this is called “the guru effect”.  One of the definitions of guru is “weighty one”.  This doesn’t mean the guru is chubby.  Rather, it means s/he has a gravitational pull that is so strong; people tend to orbit around them.

We can all think of people who have been our teachers without even knowing they are.  We are watching them, asking questions about them, they have something that looks good to us and we want to know more about it.  This is the guru effect and essentially the seat of the yoga teacher.

The effectiveness of a yoga teacher rests in her ability to live as a shining example of vibrant body, sharp mind and compassionate heart.  She also must be willing to have those who are orbiting around her, examine her closely.  Yoga students will want to know all about their teacher.  What does she wear, eat, and read.  How does she spend her time?  What is she like as a mother, lover, and friend?  How does she handle life’s challenges?  Does she ever fall apart or get mean?  A teacher must be willing to receive this close examination.  It is what keeps us present and committed to the philosophy we teach.  In this sense, the students become our teachers by quietly demanding that we prove the effectiveness of our teachings.

If we are not living with devotion to the yamas and niyamas, our teaching will not be powerful or transformative.  We can only truly teach what we are living fully.  This is the seat of the teacher.

Another humble aspect of the teacher’s seat is that we never teach a student something they don’t already know.  It is our example that awakens something that is already within them.  And it is their own inner awakening that directs and drives their studentship.  Our living example can continue to be a strong beacon, but we are not the cause of their growth.

From this humble vantage point the yoga teacher can see that she will always be a student and her students will always be her teachers.

Without direct experience, we cannot know anything.  We can talk about how to build something but we won’t feel satisfied until we do it.  We gain the wisdom from a process when we take an idea and, with our own hands, make it into something we can touch or see or hear or feel or taste or smell.  That process is life: love flowing into action, into reflection.  And the nectar is the joy of that dance and the wisdom gleaned from it.  Yoga is a playful study of this dance of life.  Yoga is an experiential, hands-on, juicy and tangible study of energy moving into and through matter.  Yoga is an artful study of the energetic self continually becoming and renewing the physical self.  It is also a scientific study of how the physical can adjust to allow for greater flow of our energy; our love.  Wisdom Flow Yoga blends the science of how the body works with the beauty of how the spirit moves through it.  The spirit inspires the body; the body adjusts to invite more spirit into it, through it, and beyond.  We hope you will join our Wisdom Flow Yoga classes and Yoga Alliance Certification teacher training programs on Maui, Hawaii.

Yoga with Jennifer Lynn / 494 Aulii Drive, Makawao, HI 96768-8214 / (808) 573-6734