As many of you know I have been immersing myself in my newest project, 90 Minutes to Change the World. Since last year I have been searching for a way to respond to a trend I was noticing in the yoga community. As yoga's popularity continues to expand, we have seen an increase of international yoga workshops, festivals, and conferences featuring big names in the yoga world. As this expansion is occurring, there is a subsequent contraction in the quality of public yoga classes, and an attitude among teachers that the local public teacher is somehow "less than", since the real goal is to hit the road to glory as a national teacher and leave the yoga studio behind.
No More Chopped Liver!
Since when did the public yoga class teacher become such chopped liver? And when did the visiting international teacher become such a rock star? In my day as a yoga student in NYC, it was the local public teachers who were the rock stars.
This paradigm of becoming a traveling yoga rock star is not unique to any particular form of yoga. Many teachers studying with the founders of various methods feel they must become the key teacher or "who's who" of their given school of yoga, in order to hit the road and reach "yoga career nirvana". Is this the path all yoga teachers are meant to take ? And is this particular path for everyone? I don't think it has to be.
It has been 8 years since I ran the first ever Anusara yoga Immersion in response to a paradigm I thought could serve the yoga community better. Maybe it is the rule of the seven year cycle, but about a year ago I found myself itching again to respond to attitudes or paradigms that have come into being and now need to be shaken up once again...
I think I figured out the next move...and that is to breathe new life into the beauty and momentousness of the local public yoga class, so that it can once again return to its former glory.
This new project launches February 1st, and with it I am hoping to start a movement that will help, through a collective of powerful yoga teachers, to reinvigorate and inspire those who choose to make teaching public classes their passion!
Be sure to visit the event page for 90 Minutes to Change the World, to learn all about the virtual and live teacher trainings that will take public yoga class teaching to new heights!
Presuming this thing flies strong and I am on the right track here, you will make history by being a pioneer and joining this journey for its maiden voyage.
Please leave a comment below and I'll see you at the webinars for some world changin'!