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When I finished my 200-hour yoga teacher training (YTT) almost 15 years ago, I remember feeling inspired and eager to share everything I’d learned with the world. But looking back, I can recognize that I didn’t actually know much of anything. And I wasn’t sure that teaching classes to newbies was going to give me the experience that I needed to learn more.
I think many recent graduates of YTT feel the same way. In the West, we tend to place an emphasis on going it alone, under the false impression that training for 200 hours has given us all the skills necessary to guide a student’s yoga journey. So as I searched for service-oriented teaching opportunities where I could learn firsthand how to lead others through their practice, I also apprenticed with several yoga teachers.
In Ashtanga, apprenticing under the guidance of someone who has been teaching for years is a time-honored tradition. It’s how yoga wisdom has been taught and transferred for generations. Mentorships are becoming increasingly popular these days as folks are realizing that YTTs on their own aren’t quite getting new teachers far enough. While some mentorships seem grounded in this authentic transfer of experiential wisdom, others seem like money-making ventures designed mostly to further elevate the teachers leading them. Whether it’s called an apprenticeship or a mentorship, what we should be looking for is a sustained connection with a seasoned teacher over a long period of time, during which we can get hands-on experience and constructive feedback.
When I first started assisting, I would mostly observe classes and take note of how the teacher offered verbal feedback and the qualities of her physical adjustments.
After several weeks of observation, and with the permission of the lead teacher, I became more involved by offering simple adjustments to students. Over the course of many months, I became more enmeshed within the practice room and was able to attune to the students’ needs without much direction or oversight. Once the students began to trust me, the teacher gave me the opportunity to sub for him when needed, and that’s how I gained the confidence to handle a room of students on my own.
5 Things I Learned in My Yoga Teacher Apprenticeship
I had the fortune of repeating this yoga teacher apprenticeship process with a few different teachers and learned quite a lot from each one—not just about how to teach but about why we teach and how to make it sustainable for the long haul. Learning from those who were more experienced was instrumental in instilling in me the skills and confidence to make yoga teaching a viable option. Here are some of those lessons distilled.
1. It’s Not About You
As a new teacher, it can be tempting to put a lot of energy into amassing a following, thinking we have all the answers and that’s what we need to do to build a career. When apprenticing, it’s important to remember we are there to humbly learn. It’s not a time to be the star or to try to get students to prefer us over the lead teacher.
Following someone else’s lead when we interact with students is an exercise in humility that serves us well. It reminds us that each time we enter a practice space, we are stepping into service.
2. Mistakes Happen
Apprenticing is also humbling because we inevitably make mistakes. During those first few years, I wasn’t able to help students into challenging postures the way my teacher could. I also remember times when I taught postures incorrectly or incompletely or offered adjustments in a way that made the student feel unstable.
But those were all valuable opportunities for me to sharpen my skills and find my vocabulary, both physically and verbally. For example, if one teacher was six feet tall, I learned that I couldn’t help a student with a drop back the same way that he could because I’m barely five feet three inches. I had to figure out how to do it with my own body. (Hint: Use a scarf.)
Because I apprenticed with more than one teacher, I got to see how different people approached the same challenge. I eventually synthesized not only what would work best for me but also what was most effective for the students.
3. Deepening in Relationship
Another benefit of an apprenticeship is the deeper relationship you cultivate with your teacher. This is likely someone with whom you’ve practiced for some time, so you already have a familiarity with them. But when you become an apprentice, you step outside of a conventional student-teacher relationship and into a more nuanced dynamic.
You get to witness how the teacher prepares for class and how they release any energetic residue afterward. You’re able to ask questions about how they run the business side of teaching. You can observe how they integrate their teaching with their life outside the studio. And you will see that teachers are just as fallible as the rest of us.
All of this is vital information that you cannot learn from a yoga teacher training. It comes through the power of relationship.
4. Learning through Collaboration
I’ve also had a few apprentices of my own over the years. This always happened organically, when there was genuine interest from a student as well as space in their life to maintain a committed practice in addition to the time and energy it takes to assist. I made it a point to dedicate time in my schedule as well to study together, discuss issues as they came up, reflect, and generally make myself available as a support during the learning process.
The line between student and teacher blurred in the best of ways as I learned from their experiences and questions. As teachers, we may tend to cling to our authority. Working with an apprentice reminds us that learning generally happens best through collaboration and not a top-down approach.
5. Getting Real about Teaching
For a new teacher, perhaps the most useful lesson to come out of apprenticing is an exploration of whether a yoga teaching career is viable for you. And if so, what you want the shape of that career to be.
Teaching yoga as a profession is not for everyone. It is physically and energetically demanding, requires years of dedication, and will likely require external financial support. Apprenticeship gives us a glimpse into all that teaching yoga demands so that we can make an informed decision as to whether it should be part of our life trajectory.
If the answer is no, then you may find other ways to share the practice, perhaps to small groups of friends and family or simply via your way of being in the world. And if the answer is yes, then you get to learn firsthand how to create the conditions for the kinds of teaching experiences you want.
How to Apprentice With a Yoga Teacher
If you find yourself uncertain which step to take next after graduating from YTT, or if you’ve been teaching classes but still feel unsettled or even entirely unprepared, I encourage you to find a teacher who you feel inspired by and connected to. Express your interest in being mentored and ask them what a yoga teacher apprenticeship under their tutelage might look like.
As we embrace yoga’s roots, let’s also honor how the practice was meant to be passed on—from person to person, through connection.
