This is Part One in the five-part video series on what we need to succeed at teaching yoga.

The introductory article and video is here. This series is designed for new and aspiring teachers—I hope it is beneficial and thought-provoking!

This may seem obvious, but we have to love yoga to teach it. Not only that, but it is essential to have a personal journey that gives us something authentic and meaningful to draw on as a teacher.

This requires more than a weekend or even a month long yoga training intensive—it is about going deeply into our own mind-body journey and falling in love with what yoga and meditation practices have to offer: a profound encounter with our own life.

A dropping-in beneath the surface, to work with our relationship with our thoughts, emotions, sensations, habit patterns, defenses and beliefs.

It is a life-long exploration of the nature of being human, and the more we dig into that process, the more we have to offer our students.

The more we show up and do the work, the more we use our time on the mat for that sincere inner process, the more our love of yoga will be rooted in something that we can express authentically for the benefit of others.

You can see more videos in this series here, or just stay tuned as I share them here on elephant journal! In the meantime I invite you to consider these questions and maybe even take a little time to journal your answers:

How has yoga benefitted you personally? How might the shadow and light, grit and grace, tension and release of your practice and what it has shown you about your life become the very essence of what you share with others as a yoga teacher?

Love elephant and want to go steady?

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Editor: Rachel Nussbaum

Photo: Robert Sturman