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How The Tabu Topic Taught Me To Teach YOGA
 
Something a very successful career as a High School Teacher does not prepare you for … Facing Death & Learning To Teach Yoga!
 
“I have come to realise that I now have to learn a new way of teaching that is about being authentic, breaking down those protective barriers, making connections with people at a deeper level and allowing people to meet the real Kathy Mansfield not the Mrs Mansfield – high school PE teacher”
By Kathy Mansfield (Behan)
 
 What have I discovered about teaching YOGA?
 
I have found enlightenment after contemplating my current teaching style (as “Mrs Mansfield the School Teacher)
I have come to realise that my 15 years of successful high school PE teaching have not prepared me to be an affective yoga teacher. I have to work toward being a different teacher to the one that I am at school. Throughout my teaching career I have intentionally gone into my classes with my poker face on and played a guarded role, rather than allowing students to get to know me as a person. We are taught that this is the right way to approach the teacher student relationship. I have become an expert in the ability to care from an objective place. I have come to realise is that I have never allowed myself to trust my high school students – you would be crazy to trust an adolescent! However, I do need to develop trust in my yoga students, so that I don’t feel that I have to be guarded all the time.
 
What learning to teach Yoga has really taught me …
 
– bring down the protective barriers that separate me from my students
– begin to trust in my students to be responsible for themselves and their practice
– stop trying to control every situation in the yoga class
– begin listening to my students rather than focusing on the curriculum that we have to get through to tick the boxes
– being able to make mistakes without the fear of being open to extensive criticism from all directions.
 
If I don’t work on these qualities, I believe I will end up being a teacher that is very technical, a good demonstrator, attentive to modifications and cautions – but more run of the mill. I don’t want to be a run of the mill teacher;
 
“I want to connect with people and make a difference in their lives”
 
Click here to read Kathy’s full article about:
 
– How  YOGA CAN HELP us cultivate the courage to LET GO
– How Yoga can teach us how to be authentic
– How Yoga can help us turn GRIEF INTO GRATITUDE