Last year I interviewed  my friend Zhenja La Rosa, a New York City yogini and articulate Anusara Yoga Teacher about her path from going to yoga classes, to more serious study in immersions, and to becoming a teacher.

From non-yoga student to yoga student

Perhaps this is the biggest step of all – the adventure of trying something new; the humility of being a beginner. Yoga offers us an ongoing invitation to be a beginner, to open to what we don’t already know. However, for many of us, not being good at something we haven’t tried before is a huge barrier to entry. Like Lululemon’s Manifesto, “Do one thing a day that scares you.” Go to class.

From Yoga Classes to an Anusara Immersion

Before this step, there usually is a weekend workshop with a visiting teacher involved. That step is noteworthy… many students never take the leap to a full weekend of yoga. Many of us have no idea the degree of vibrant health human beings are physiologically constructed to experience. This step into an Anusara Yoga Immersion is a step into the guts of the process of the yoga. We need to sign up to put ourselves in the container of the classroom. Only there can we immerse in the discussion of the “What, the Why, and the How” of the yoga. And if you don’t know this, you can’t recreate it on your own with any guarantee of consistency. Without the Immersions, you get stuck in the circuit of the public class level of understanding. If this is you…. there is world of yoga beyond your yoga. And in that world, who you are and what you experience opens up.

From Immersions to Teacher Trainings

By this stage in the game, you’re a yoga junkie. You love the free, grounded feeling of you, the high, the shift in perspective, the deeper experience of intimacy in community. You want more people to be in the know. If you were to teach you would grow a community around your practice. You’d become a people transformer… you take the leap… not for yourself… but for the upliftment of others.

From Teacher Trainings to Teaching Public Classes

Now you know why you teach, what you teach and how to teach. The huge leap…. teaching consistently and authentically. I often hear new teachers comparing themselves to experienced teachers. It doesn’t make any sense. If you don’t have 10-20 years of teaching experience, you can’t ingest that with your coconut water and kale chips.

Instead, compare yourselves to the students who may come. Do you know more about yoga than they do? Know that gap. Teach in the gap between you.  Narrow the gap.  From there your experience in what is effective will grow you into an experienced teacher.

For students looking for their next step… listen to the interview. Zhenja is a gem.

Download this audio: Path of a Yoga Student. Zhenja LaRosa details the path of the yoga from intrigued student, through the Immersion and Teacher Training Process, and into teacher Mentoring.

Cate’s next Immersion training in the Tetons is August 31-Sept. 4. Anusara Yoga Immersion 3