I didn’t train to become a yoga teacher because I had some sort of grand plan; I trained because before I truly started my yoga practice, I was in pain, most days, from a desk job that had quietly rearranged my body without asking permission. Following along with a DVD in my living room every day did more for that pain in a few weeks than anything else I’d tried (shoutout Rodney Yee + Gaiam; the video’s trash but the audio on that DVD still works fine, and I still practice with you from time-to-time).
That’s it. That is my whole “origin story”. There was no grand calling, no five-year plan, no nefarious idea to train in a popular modality after one practice to rinse people of their hard-earned. I was just someone trying to feel less awful, one evening at a time; and once I did, I wanted to help other people feel less awful too.
Seven years ago this month (in fact, right about now), I was mid-training – and if I’m honest, it didn’t actually make me feel ready. I remember expecting some kind of arrival: a point where teaching would feel like a role I’d fully grown into rather than one I was still finding the edges of. That point never came; but what came instead was a much sharper sense of how much I didn’t know – about the body, about breath, about how differently all of it feels for different people. While I already knew I didn’t know very much, it turns out that’s closer to the actual point of training than certainty ever would have been.
You could just do two hundred hours and run yoga classes for the rest of eternity; or you could do your 200 hours, then add on with various courses & CPDs in the area(s) that interest you most.
I qualified on November 1st, and every year since, this week has quietly become the one where I take stock – not of how far my business has come, though it has, but of whether I’m still teaching the thing I actually believe, or whether I’ve let it drift into something more performative.
I could throw on yoga shorts + a sports bra all year long and post a fancy-looking shape, or I could drone on endlessly about handstands and splits…but is that who I really want to be?
This year, that stock-take has an extra layer to it, because my own practice has changed shape. An injury I gave myself in a moment of off-mat clumsiness that I ignored for too long has meant working with a physio, and modifying my practice (and teaching) from actual information instead of gritting my teeth and carrying on.
It’s slower in places, and arguably less impressive to look at, if I’m being honest about it (though we both know the looking isn’t the point). But it’s reminded me of something I’d have benefited from hearing on my living room floor seven, twelve, even sixteen years ago: an adapted practice isn’t a smaller version of the real thing. It is the real thing, responding to reality – which is what the practice is supposed to do anyway.
If you’re newer to Rest & Rise, or to yoga full stop, here’s what I’d actually tell the woman on that floor, rather than the tidy version I sometimes tell in an Instagram caption: you don’t need to have it figured out to start. You don’t need the pain to be fully explained, or the discipline to be consistent, or your body to be un-injured, un-tired, some magical, perfect thing. You just need time, and a willingness to be led by what’s actually true for you that day, rather than what you think a “good” practice is supposed to look like.
Seven years after qualifying, that’s still the whole philosophy. It just took me training as a teacher to be able to say it with any confidence.
If any of this resonates – if you’re in a season where your practice, your body, or your life generally isn’t matching the tidy version you’d planned – the Thursday classes at Rosehill are built for exactly that. Ten spaces, on purpose, so there’s room to actually be seen rather than just present. Details and booking are linked on my website if you’d like to join. Or if that doesn’t work, I work online in a few ways – get in touch and let’s chat about it.
