Yandara

Teaching Yoga from the Intuitive Heart
Craig Perkins

Preface

How does one become a great yoga teacher? 

We’ve all experienced a great teacher.  In fact as we carve our own paths as teachers we often emulate bits and pieces of our best yoga experiences.  We try to capture the sequences of our favorite classes or even the language of our favorite teachers.  Why? Because we want to be great too.  But, despite our best efforts to recreate a past experience for our own students, something is inevitably missing.

Great is a subjective word.  Greatness, in the eyes of the student, depends on need, personality, music tastes, style preference and the list goes on.  Although I know this to be true from my own personal experience as both a student and teacher, I also know there is something universally great about all great yoga teachers.  That universal quality is radiance. 

To radiate is to exude energy.  Perhaps your favorite yoga teachers radiate peace, strength, wisdom, inspiration, joy or even love.  It doesn’t matter how we qualify this radiance.  It simply permeates our experience on the mat and leaves us feeling more:  more open, more peaceful, more joyful, more loved. 

In other words, a great yoga teacher assists students along a transformational journey.  The transformation can be big or small.  It might be physical, emotional, or spiritual.  As teachers, it is not our role to demand transformation from our students.  It is our role to allow yoga to transform the students on every level which they choose to engage.  The more we can love and support the student, the more engaged they become and the greater the transformation.

That might feel like an impossible goal, to radiate love.  How can we be expected to know how to teach asana and meditation as well as make our students feel love?  And if this loving radiance is the definition of a great yoga teacher, how can we ever be great?

What if I told you that you already have the knowledge and capacity to do just that?  What if I told you it's simple?  It’s as simple as letting your heart guide you instead of your head.  Your unique version of loving radiance can’t be recreated.  It is your truth. Your gift.  It’s the missing piece.

This book offers a comprehensive guide for all yoga teachers you endeavor to be great.

What does it mean to be a great yoga teacher?  A great yoga teacher guides through loving radiance, in turn teaching their students to practice from their own heart space.