Dear Yoga Students….A Love Letter
I want you to know that it is only because of you that I am able to successfully teach yoga full-time.
It’s not always easy. I’m not super human, and I am nowhere near perfect. Teaching so many classes and privates a week can be draining on my body and my brain. Some days I wake up in the morning tired or burned out. Some days my body really just aches. Some days I feel completely unmotivated and have no idea what to talk about or what to teach. Some days I wish I could just stay in and not think about yoga. But as soon as I walk into the yoga room, all those feelings disappear. As soon as I see you, feelings of joy and gratitude take over. I immediately feel inspired. And this is not just my big classes; it’s also my smaller classes and privates. You, the yogi’s, are the reason I continue teaching yoga.
I am sincerely happy to see every single one of you; men, women, young, old, tight, flexible, beginner and advanced alike. In many ways, I consider you guys as my yoga teachers. Every day that I teach, I am guaranteed to learn something from at least one of you. It might be a story you share that I resonate with. It might be advice. It might have nothing to do with words. Just watching you practice, watching you move and struggle and find release really affects me in a way that is difficult to explain. I can only describe the feeling as LOVE.
I guess I should simply say it…………I Love You! In all honesty, I sincerely and truly love all of you. Even when you do things that annoy me, like get to class late or text during class. Those things teach me patience. I love you when you are able to nail handstand, and I love you when you decide to take legs up the wall instead. I love you when you fall off of tree pose and laugh. I love when you get super excited because you got your feet off the floor in crow pose. I love watching the transformation that happens from the start of the class to the end, and particularly love seeing you resting blissfully in Savasana. There is not much on this Earth that compares to the vibrations created from that energy.
During class, I see you looking over at me from time to time. I get the feeling that you are wondering whether or not I am impressed or happy with your “performance”. Well, I am writing this love letter to tell you that I am happy the moment I see you. There is absolutely no need to try to impress me with fancy yoga poses. The fact that you showed up and made the effort, regardless of your busy lives is what impresses me the most.
What makes me really happy is seeing you get still. I love watching you breathe deeply, and learn how to find comfort in stillness and quiet. To me, if there was some goal to yoga, that would be it. But even those of you who have a hard time getting still, who are fidgeting during any long holds, I am equally grateful that you are there, trying, wondering what it’s all about. You, the yoga students, remind me that I am doing what I was meant to do, I am living my Dharma.
So I want to thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart. I don’t really know if there is anything else I could do other than this. Next time you come to class, know that I see you, all of you, and that I love you deeply. To me, you are perfect yogi’s!