Kung Stina

Having signed up to take a yoga teacher training course last year I knew that I’d have to teach actual people but the thought of this sends shivers down my spine. Until today, I have only given lessons to close family and no more than two people at a time. Today, I taught 13 people and could not be prouder of myself.

About a week ago, the studio I am learning to teach with announced that they had a stall at a back pain event that was happening this Saturday and asked if anybody would like to help out. As a spur of the moment thing, I volunteered to help out. I later found out that this was to teach yoga taster sessions to willing participants. Immediately regretting this decision, I convinced myself that I would be okay and throwing myself in at the deep end was the right thing to do.

In the few days that followed, I started my research into yoga and back pain and made myself a lesson plan. I practiced this a few times with family but mostly by talking to myself in the mirror. Then today was the day, I would show my class to a room full of strangers and convince them all that yoga is the best thing ever for back pain.

We had these taster lessons scheduled at 11, 12, 1, 2 and 3 o’clock. I and a friend agreed that I would teach the 11, 1 and 3 class and she would teach the others. So I was going first to try and get rid of my nerves. It got to 11 o clock and only two people had actually turned up, so I went on to teach them the class that I had practiced all week in front of the mirror. The two participants seemed as though they enjoyed the class and gave brilliant feedback.

At 1 o’clock it was my turn again to teach a class. This time ten people had turned up! I couldn’t believe that I was going to teach all these people yoga. So I started to teach and a few more people turned up. We didn’t have enough yoga mats for everybody so three people stood and watched and I ended up with thirteen students. The pressure was on! Surprisingly, I only got my words mixed up once and everyone in the class left with smiles and a new found interest in yoga. It just goes to show that if you put your mind to something, you can do anything!