Our Own Yoga, Not Our Teachers'

If our teachers are inspiring, it is because they are authentic; they teach from their own personal experience. A good teacher passes on what is absolutely true and pure to them, not a dogma or a tradition but real and immediate and personal.

If we are to be authentic we can't possibly teach what our teachers taught us. We must teach the yoga as is true to ourselves. We can try to copy our teachers by imitating their expressions, sequences and even word for word, but that yoga becomes stale quickly. We become puppets or copies or foot-soldiers.

We must take our own inspiration and hold it dearly. We must nurture it and help it grow. We must explore our own yoga - what feels good, what feels right, what pushes us deeper, where are our blocks, how do we get past them? Then we must teach that. It will not be the yoga of our teachers, it will be our own.

We must always practice yoga, always explore, always move deeper. Then we can teach from true and immediate experience and inspiration.