What To Do after you finish your yoga teacher training.
15 Jan 2020 HYN Himalayan Yoga Academy
So Now, You’ve completed your yoga teacher training course, taught your final practical and theoretical class, and had joy in your graduation ceremony. So, the question is What now? Well, first of all, enjoy the moment because ones like these don’t come along very often. You’ve probably worked hard in one of the most intense periods of your life – whether it was a weekend-based two-year yoga teacher training course or a four-week one, you’ve likely felt some changes in your perspective on life permanently and it’s almost time to consider what comes next. Here you will learn What To Do after you finish your yoga teacher training
On your YTTC, you’ll probably have been given some advice on how to start teaching – maybe offering your services as a cover teacher in nearby yoga studios or gyms, or setting up a free community class in a venue like a church hall or community center. Some people are lucky enough to get jobs in holiday resorts almost straight away after their training ends, where they get thrown into the proverbial deep end of teaching and never look back. But if it doesn’t happen immediately for you, don’t despair. It can take a while for the processing of your course to happen and for you to find the courage to start putting yourself out there. Sometimes people get a leg up in the teaching world through people they know. If things aren’t happening on the cover-teaching front, you could offer to teach friends and family, or even work colleagues, for free first. I taught my first class with three friends and I loved it. It’s a great way of building your confidence after the supportive environment of the YTT drifts away and you are out there, contemplating a career as a solo yoga teacher.
Or are you? One of the things about YTT is that it helps to make big decisions about your life, and one of them is allowed to be that you don’t want to pursue yoga teaching as a career. In lots of ways we think we ‘should’ do it because we paid for the course and put so much into it – surely we have to pay that back by becoming the thing it trained us to be? The answer is no. The way you make sense of the course is by being true to yourself and your true nature. The best YTTCs take you on a personal journey of discovery ‘whilst’ training you how to teach yoga. You might be so excited about your journey on your 200-hour course that you imagine signing up for the 300-hour as soon as that course is over. But by the end, you may have changed your mind and that is allowed. This is why it is important to take time to process after a YTTC because you need to give your mind time to adjust to all of the new ideas flooding into your brain.
One of the most important things after a YTTC is not to start comparing your journey with someone else’s from your course. When I think about everyone in mine, some started teaching straight away abroad or at gyms in their hometowns, some took their time and tentatively set up community classes, and some switched careers and pursued academia in a completely different subject. If you only follow someone on Instagram or Facebook then you are only going to see what they are choosing to show you. The picture showing them sitting blissfully before sunset might say “I’ve found my path” but behind the scenes they could be struggling to process their own journeys. Be true to your own spirit and listen to it carefully. It may be the first time in your life that you have discovered your inner voice and you are still getting to know it. Allow it to tell you what it wants to do and don’t be upset if that isn’t yoga. Remember you can always come back to what you’ve learned when the time is right for you – it doesn’t have to be right now.
If you are reading this and you’ve just completed a YTTC, then we at Himalayan Yoga Academy wish you all the best for your own yogi journeys. Namaste.