In about 3 hours I’m going to teach a small group of friends some yoga. It’s part of a resolution I made around this time last year. I never expected it to take this long. 

I’m not prepared. I don’t think you can be prepared to do something for the first time. When you face a real challenge, there’s no exact amount of preparation that makes it easy. The distance from zero to 1 is the greatest leap.  You just have to do it and have no attachment to the results.  That’s my mantra – it is what it is.

I could try to prepare the whole hour like a choregrapher and get flustered because nothing is going right.  I’m choosing to under-prepare. Yoga is supposed to be fun. That’s why I like doing it. I want to show a few friends some of the things they can do that are easy and make me feel centered.  I’m still going to get flustered.  But it’s more likely because I get too excited about how much I like doing yoga.  If I cry, it’s only because I’m happy to have people in my life that support me.

I think approaching yoga teaching from the Iyengar tradition has held me back.  They have a very precise method of teaching that only comes from continual dedication and self study.  I love the approach Mr. Iyengar so dutifully laid out during his life, giving everyone a chance to learn.  Unfortunately, the recent bureaucracy that sprung up around BKS Iyengar’s death changed the tone of the teachers.  I find it counterproductive to my practice of yoga.  It’s a moot point anyway.  I couldn’t get assessed as an Iyengar teacher for at least another year even if they’d take me.

Who knows where I’ll be by then?