On Choosing a Teacher

One of the most difficult yet important matters in studying yoga is choosing the right teacher. We live in a very individualistic culture where many people believe that a teacher is not really necessary and that yoga can be learned solely from books or videos. However, these static tools do not provide the personalized feedback that a teacher can give, and therefore they cannot address the dynamic needs of each individual student in the way that an actual teacher can.

While it is theoretically possible to learn yoga on one’s own, in reality it is extremely difficult to do so. Practicing yoga is a bit like climbing a mountain: it would be unwise for an inexperienced climber to attempt to summit a challenging peak without an experienced guide. Even if the aspiring climber has read books or seen videos on climbing, without a guide who has been to the top it is too easy for the novice to get lost on paths that are dangerous or simply don’t lead in the intended direction. The role of the yoga teacher is similar. Just as the guide cannot climb the mountain for you, a yoga teacher cannot do your practice for you, but he or she can help keep you on the right path while avoiding danger and unproductive detours. The teacher can also give you a helping hand when necessary, as well as determine when a path that initially seems impossible is actually passable (and perhaps even the best route).

In most styles of yoga popular in the West, teachers guide students at the level of an individual class by leading them through a sequence of postures. This can be thought of as a kind of “guided tour” approach to teaching yoga, in which every student visits the same places at the same times together with everyone else in the group. While this can be useful for some purposes, it has the obvious limitation that the class must be targeted to the average level of the students in the class, and therefore cannot be ideally suited to the many students who are above or below that level. The teacher also must spend most of the class time describing what to do and thus has relatively little time left over to assist students individually.

In Ashtanga yoga, the sequence is fixed, so it is not necessary for the teacher to guide students through it each class. Ashtanga yoga is instead taught through Mysore-style classes, a unique format that allows the teacher to focus on working individually with students to help them progress on their own path up the mountain, even if each student in the class is at a different place on that mountain. The teacher in Ashtanga yoga does not take the role of a “tour guide” for a single class but that of a long-term partner in the student’s yoga journey, gradually guiding the student’s practice over time.

Once a student has decided that a teacher is necessary, the next step is finding the right one. It is often difficult for students to determine which teachers will lead them in the right direction, especially when they are inundated, and perhaps confused, by promotional advertising and marketing from the many teachers and schools competing for students and their money in the modern Western yoga environment. Yoga has become a big business, and with that comes the greed and questionable ethical behavior that have become such a common and accepted part of our implementation of market capitalism.

In the US, a relatively recently formed organization called the Yoga Alliance has been very successful in marketing themselves as an authority on yoga teaching. This group is not directly involved with the training or certification of teachers but instead maintains a fee-based online registry of teachers who have received a certification through any one of thousands of so-called teacher training courses that they recognize. While the Yoga Alliance does have guidelines as to the overall curriculum of these courses and minimum amount of class time spent discussing subjects such as asana, anatomy, philosophy etc., they have no specific requirements as to the nature or quality of what is being taught about these subjects.

One of the core principles of the Yoga Alliance is to accommodate all styles of yoga, and different styles can have widely differing, even contradictory, theories and approaches to teaching yoga. It is impossible for the Yoga Alliance (or any other group) to dictate any stylistically-neutral standard knowledge base to be taught in these courses, or to require passing any kind of standardized exam, as either of these would entail making choices between different ideas and traditions in a way that would prioritize certain groups at the expense of others.

There are groups in yoga that do have substantive standards for the qualification of teachers, and these are the individual yoga traditions themselves, including those that are based in India and the newer styles created by Westerners. As these traditions are solely responsible for maintaining the integrity of their own teachings, the standards they set must be based on demonstrated knowledge of the tradition and ability to teach it, as determined by the leaders of that tradition. Some traditions have very high standards for teachers that require many years of study and sacrifice while others are willing to certify teachers who have taken as little as a three-week training course. However, any teacher who holds teaching credentials from an established yoga tradition is, by definition, qualified to represent that tradition according to its own standards.

In the Ashtanga yoga lineage of Sri K Pattabhi Jois, the primary requirement to receive formal permission to teach is to study at the KPJAYI in Mysore. Even the lowest level of authorization requires several extended trips (several months at a time) to Mysore, while the highest level of certification requires closer to ten years of annual trips to India as well as completion of a very challenging series of advanced asana. In some major cities, like New York and Tokyo, there are many authorized or certified teachers of Ashtanga yoga to choose from, all teaching daily Mysore-style classes. In other areas, authorized teachers can be more difficult to find. In the Midwest, for example, there is currently only one authorized teacher in each of Ohio and Kentucky, two in Michigan, and none yet in Indiana.

If a student does not have access to an authorized teacher, then the next best option is to find a teacher who has spent a significant amount of time (at least several years) learning the method as student in Mysore classes from a qualified teacher, and who continues to work with that teacher on an ongoing basis. In Ashtanga yoga, the only way to learn the system properly is through regular practice in Mysore classes over a long period of time with a single primary teacher. Although books, videos, workshops, “teacher training” courses, and led classes following the Ashtanga yoga sequence can all be useful adjuncts to one’s practice, the most fundamental part of the method remains Mysore-style classes, and the system cannot be transmitted correctly without this component.

There are, of course, many other factors beyond lineage to consider when choosing a teacher. Some are intangible, such as the teacher’s sensitivity and judgment in assessing and addressing the individual needs of different students. Others are somewhat more tangible, like the nature of a teacher’s personal practice, which is primarily relevant to the extent that teachers should be (or have been) able to do themselves whatever form and level of yoga they are teaching.

Teaching yoga is also, to a large degree, a matter of personal relationship, which is why it is always wise to evaluate potential teachers in person and reach one’s own conclusions rather than relying solely on reputation, secondhand reports, or teaching credentials (regardless of the credibility of the issuer). Despite the innate tendency for humans to create organizations and build hierarchies of power and control, no outside authority can ever determine which teacher is right for a particular student. Students must consider their own individual needs, goals, and priorities in their yoga practice when making their choice, as they are the ones who will be most affected by that choice.

all photos this page © Govinda Kai

For a similar discussion from the perspective of a certified Iyengar yoga teacher, see this essay by John Schumacher.

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