Yoga works. That's my humble opinion from my experience and what I've seen happen with folks who continue to dive into their yoga journey. If you stick with it long enough, you'll start to feel the effects. And by long enough, for some, that may mean practicing for at least 5, 6, 7 years or even a lot more. 

Yoga is.

That's it. Yoga simply is.

Just like you simply are. We add things like roles and emotions/feelings to the end of ourselves such as:

I am a teacher.

I am a mother.

I am a father.

I am a sister.

I am anxious.

I am tired.

I am happy.

I am flexible.

I am weak.

I am strong.

And we focus on the latter part of the sentence.....the role or the feeling. And we forget about the 'I AM'.

Your roles may come and go, shift and change. Your feelings and emotions will come and go, shift and change.

But what stays present through it all? 

I AM.

No matter your role, emotion, feeling etc., you always 'are'.

So now knowing this, no matter what yoga pose you do, no matter how grand or how unspectacular the pose may feel to you in the moment practicing it, you always 'are'. 

No matter whether you can touch your toes or not, can clasp your hands behind your back or not, or can do a split or not, that's not the point of yoga.

The original context of yoga was to develop practices for spiritual development; to unite body-mind and become aware of our True Nature. As someone I highly respect put it:

'Yoga is Consciousness of Spirit, manifesting itself as physical, through body movement.'

So let's get back to finding the 'BEST' teacher. 

Have you ever gone to a doctor because they were highly recommended and then you had the worse experience ever?

🙋🏻‍♀️ I did.

I have a back issue from birth. Years ago I went to an orthopedic doctor who was highly recommended. I had the worse experience. He hardly acknowledged me. He asked me a couple questions, looked at my images and then talked for about 5 minutes into this hand-held recording device (no, not a smart phone...they weren't around yet LOL). And that was pretty much it. 

Was he a bad doctor? No. 

Was he the doctor for me? No.

Are there a ton more doctors I could go see for my back? Yes.

Just because I had that experience, doesn't mean he's a bad doctor. He just wasn't one I resonated with.

It goes the same for many types of professionals, including teachers, personal trainers and yes, yoga teachers. 

When I first started yoga 25+ years ago, it took me about 5-6 different classes with different teachers to find the teachers I resonated with. 

When I found the 2-3 that were the ones I resonated with, it didn't mean the other teachers were not good teachers. 

So when someone asks 'Who's the best teacher here?', no one can answer that question for that person. One person may love a teacher and another may take their class and not love it as much . That's why there are so many teachers. 

Let's take a look at another really good example of an area where there are so many teachers; Spiritual Guides/Teachers/Healers.

There are so many spiritual teachers (and books they have written) out there in the world.

Why?

Because even though they are all saying and pointing to the same thing, each one explains the path or journey etc. in a different way. Some people will resonate with some teachers and some will not.

There are many Spiritual teachers I've encountered along the way. I read some of their books, listened to some talks etc. Many I did not resonate with and some I did. Does that mean the ones that I did not resonate were not good guides or teachers?

You guessed it....no.

But I still gained a few nuggets of wisdom here and there from them. Same thing goes with yoga teachers. Each have their own life experiences, their own way of saying things, their own way of teaching, and that's what makes them all unique and special. 

Each teacher brings her/his special gifts to the yoga room.

💜

You will have your own experience with different teachers. Let others have their own experience too. Yes, bring your friends to yoga. That's probably the greatest gift you can give them, besides being with them in Full Presence.

And when you bring your friend, maybe they will love the class and teacher you brought them too. Maybe not. Maybe they need a different teacher or class to begin with. Let them have their own experience. 

It's ok!

You did your job by getting them to yoga! And now you can let them have their own unique path through the amazing, transformational, awareness-raising practice of yoga. 

One last thing about wanting to know who the best teacher is (and hopefully now you are aware that there is no 'best' teacher for every single person and that's why there are so many), is to notice where that question is coming from - and the answer is 'the ego'. That's a whole other conversation we can save for another day. 🙏🏽

Namasté on my friends!

gina

💜 

Ps. Share your love of yoga with your friends! We have a first-time-purchase only, $39 for 2 weeks of unlimited yoga intro offer which is a great way to try all the teachers and classes for those brand new to Hope Yoga. 

If you are already a Hope Yoga client, you can refer your friends to a class by using your refer and earn link within your Momence account.

Click here to learn how to do that.