Yoga Teachers Must Be...

When I tell people I'm a yoga teacher, I invariably get some sort of response like, "you must be really flexible," or "you must be really fit." That's what the lady in the bank told me this evening.

There are all sorts of things yoga teachers "must" be. We talked about it in yoga teacher training recently but it's funny, the expectations we have of yoga teachers. We expect them to be healthy, thin, fit, tidy, calm, enlightened, vegetarian, frugal, what else? There are loads more. Yoga teachers don't overdo it with dessert, they don't drink, they have perfect digestion, are good with animals and children. They never lie, they are patient, they don't yell, don't move quickly, always have the proper response to a question. Yoga teachers are basically not real people and fit our personal sense of perfection that we project onto them.

And what's really funny is what you hear if you're in relationship with a yoga teacher! John always has fun stories to tell about what people say when he tells them his girlfriend is a yoga teacher. "Nudge, nudge, wink, wink." I guess we rock in bed or have special maneuvers, we yoga teachers.