The reason I became a Yoga Teacher

Why did I become a yoga teacher? It was never in my plans. Unexpectedly, a few months after finishing my first yoga certification, I wanted people to go through the same experience I had as I went deeper into yoga, to experience the positive changes I went through and feel better, more positive, and happy. I never planned or saw myself teaching yoga. It was an absolute surprise, but after a while, all I wanted to do was teach yoga.

I have no idea if it was fate, the cosmos, the alignment of the planets, or coincidental circumstances, but for some reason, several factors came together and led me to teach yoga.

I began to consider yoga as an exercise alternative because someone close to me decided to resume yoga classes he had taken before, and I joined him. I realized I loved yoga, so I decided I wanted to incorporate yoga into my life and decided to hire a private teacher to come to my home and teach me. I wanted to learn how to do the postures well, and honestly, I started for purely physical reasons, and I succeeded. I started classes twice a week.

He would come to my house and we would do yoga on my terrace. During the class, I felt pleasure, I really felt great, and if I couldn't achieve a posture well, instead of getting discouraged, I would encourage myself even more to go deeper into how to manage my body to achieve those postures with proper alignment. Of course, in the afternoon, everything would hurt, but it was a pleasant pain—it was a reminder of the effort, of that encouragement I felt in each class to persevere. Soon, after a couple of months, the pain subsided for good, and my body began to steadily develop strength, flexibility, elasticity, understanding, and unity. My body responded much better to movement, not only within the yoga classes but also outside of them, in everyday life basic things like driving and looking back, walking, stretching for something, going up and down stairs, opening jam jars, etc. I began to be aware of absolutely every single movement I had to make to accomplish an activity, whether they were small or large, and I loved it. I became really aware of my body.

Over time, not only did my body feel better, but mentally, I became calmer, more emotionally stable, more grounded as a person, and more mentally in control. It was as if I now had a filter for my feelings and thoughts. If I felt discomfort or anger toward something, I could filter the emotion before reacting.

This mental shift, my response to the outside world, and this new sense of internal stability made me curious. It was easy to understand the change in my body, but I had no idea what caused this change in me as a person. And that curiosity led me to want to delve deeper into yoga.

I've always been mentally inquisitive and have enjoyed researching, analyzing, and reading about things I find interesting. So I wanted to start really investigating what yoga does, how it works to make you feel better because everyone talks about feeling better when they do yoga, but no one could give me the answers. So I spoke with my teacher and asked him to explain the basics of yoga to me based on his extensive knowledge, and to tell me what was behind all these postures and exercises. I not only wanted to know how to do the postures, but I also wanted to know what effects they had on my mind. Little by little, he introduced me to different topics, the basics of yoga. We always chose a time during class to chat a little about the theory, either at the beginning or at the end of class, and he would explain these yoga fundamentals to me. I went deeper into the yoga world.

After a year of consistent yoga practice, I found a certification that looked excellent. It was offered on weekends, so I could continue working and at the same time study yoga. My intention was curiosity and personal development. So I signed up and began a path I've never left. The constant from week to week was the joy of knowing the weekend was coming, and that I could immerse myself in this world all Saturday and all Sunday. Understanding these fundamentals and navigating the ancient world of yoga was immensely nourishing. After three months, I earned my certification, and it was very exciting. But I still didn't want to be a yoga teacher...

Throughout the certification, during the times when we shared as a group about why we were doing the certification, several classmates expressed that they wanted to be teachers, and others, like me, simply wanted to go deeper into yoga but just for ourselves. I always maintained that I didn't want to be a teacher, and I remember that my certification teacher told me she was sure I was going to end up teaching. A couple of months after completing the certification, I had to agree with her. She saw in me what I hadn't yet seen.

Shortly after graduating, I began to consider the benefits of teaching. What if there were more people out there who would benefit from the change one feels with yoga? What if I could bring that well-being to those people? I continued taking classes with my private teacher, and obviously we were at a much more advanced level of yoga, but I didn't want to lose what I had learned during the certification. One thing is to practice and do yoga, and another is to study the techniques to teach it. So I decided to teach free yoga classes to a group of rural women in the area where I lived on the outskirts of the city. And through this test—because it was initially a test with these women—it turned out that I loved teaching. Once a week, we met, and I taught them what I knew, and every week, for a year and a half, I saw their positive changes, their perseverance, and their empowerment. Yoga doesn't solve problems, but it makes you feel better, and by feeling better, you face those problems better.

I loved teaching yoga so much that I started toying with the idea of ​​making it my source of income. But moving away from a good, stable salary in a company where I'd been earning a living for almost nine years wasn't easy. It meant leaving my comfort zone and taking the plunge...

The pursuit of happiness is worth that risk. It's easier said than done, but it's true. My inner longing was so great that I began to feel absolutely miserable in the workplace. Finally, after several months of inner struggle, I decided to quit and set up a yoga studio in my home. Little by little, I gained students and made progress in the business until I truly had groups of wonderful people. I was happy, earning much less money, but I was happy, and I still am. Being a yoga teacher is my happy place. It's something that makes me feel absolutely fulfilled. Being able to see the change in people, seeing the commitment they make to themselves in pursuit of well-being, and being a part of that improvement fills me completely. Yoga makes people feel better—there's no simpler way to put it.

After a year of being a yoga teacher, I felt the need to delve deeper, to learn more, to acquire more knowledge about yoga and learn what was needed to be a completely trustworthy teacher. Above all, I wanted to take care of my students; I wanted to truly understand the anatomy of the human body because no two bodies are the same and the amount of responsability you have in a class is huge.

I have been in classes where someone might have some difficulty with certain movements. As a yoga teacher, you must take great care of your students' bodies with great awareness and responsibility. Personally, I believe that an initial 200-hour certification doesn't provide sufficient foundation in human anatomy, and a yoga teacher who doesn't understand body alignment could cause a lot of harm. The responsibility of teaching yoga is enormous, since students place their complete trust in you, and as yoga teachers, it's our responsibility to guide them properly.

Therefore, I decided to pursue another yoga certification, therapeutic yoga. The main focus is alignment and it is much more specialized and goes deeper into the mental and physical circumstances that afflict people throughout their lives.

This deep dive into mental and physical illnesses completely captured my attention. I truly wanted to help people with slightly more demanding circumstances, both mentally and physically. The seed of my vocation for service grew, and from there my passion for therapeutic yoga was truly born. Anyone with a physical or mental condition can improve it. I'm not saying you can eradicate it completely, but you can improve it with a good yoga teacher who knows how to guide you. All you need is will and someone to encourage you along the way.

Several, if not many, of my students have had a serious condition, and we've worked on them and improved them with yoga. I became a yoga teacher because teaching makes me happy. Why does it make me happy? Because I see firsthand how people go through the same process I went through: yoga makes you feel better and prepares you to face physical, mental, and emotional challenges, and I love knowing I can contribute to that. I will always have a calling to serve through yoga, and I am infinitely grateful for that.