Yoga Teacher Training

As many of you know, I'm in the process of training to become a yoga teacher. As a part of that training I attend a class every Tuesday night, for three hours, where I learn to break down the poses and teach them to people. I also learn aspects of the philosophy of yoga. The truths of yoga philosophy are deep, yet simple. A lot of people assume that if you're a yoga practitioner, you must be Buddhist or Hindu. Yoga isn't affiliated with any particular religion but encompasses the basic tenets of all religions. I have no real religious leanings. My parents are Southern Baptists, but I never had any interest in tethering myself to a specific religion. I do believe that there is a higher being or a higher state of being. I refer to it as God because that's the easiest thing to do. Yoga philosophy describes God as the divine, whether that be a holy spirit, a figurehead, or the sense of the divine that we all carry within ourselves. Joy, compassion, perseverance, and gratitude are all encouraged in the yogic philosophy. There is no one path to the divine. There are many divergent paths, and it's up to you to choose the one that works for you. In that observation, I see a message of tolerance. We all come from very different places, but for the most part we want the same things.

To make up for the lack of excitement in my last blog post, I'll leave you with a picture from my yoga teacher training class. In the picture I'm in downward dog, and my classmate Elizabeth is giving me an assist to push my hips further up and back.