Time is a funny thing. The other day someone was stunned to find out I started yoga well over 30 years ago. Honestly, I started pretty young, but I’m stunned too. And then in talking to someone from my teacher training, we couldn’t remember how many years ago that was… I blame recent events because these last two years have been weird with time moving both oddly fast and shockingly slow.
As a yoga teacher, I belong to Yoga Alliance and honor their system of tracking the mix of certified training and teaching experience before you can become a teacher of teachers. I rolled from my original 200-hour training and happily registered as a “RYT-200” (Registered Yoga Teacher with 200 hours of training). I layered on a 300-hour training over the next few years and moved on to being an “RYT-500”. Every few months I log my teaching hours, working towards the addition of an “E” (for Experienced) to that designation. This may not mean much to most of my students – I’ll continue to offer the best I have at each moment, but it opens a new door so I can teach yoga teachers, and be able to offer them continuing education credit for it.
In November, in a fit of optimism, I though perhaps I would track my classes closely enough to know when my 1,000th class would be and plan a special class. But the month got busy, and that idea slipped off a to-do list that was filled with workshops and family and classes and holiday things.
And with me not holding on so tight to how I thought it ‘should’ be, the universe took over.
On the evening of December 18th I was invited to teach my Mala Making Workshop to all the teachers at Sunny Street Yoga as their end of year gathering. I shifted the content a bit, knowing I wanted to offer more to these teachers, and offered what could (and hopefully would) be shared out somewhere along the way to their students. I offered what I hoped was not just a foundation for practicing, but a foundation for sharing.
It turns out that halfway through that evening, my first evening of officially teaching teachers, I completed my 1,000th hour of teaching, reaching the milestone that says I can teach teachers. Thank you universe for putting me in the right place at the right time.
AND thank you for every single student and every studio that gave me the space for each and every one of those hours. Thank you to Korsi for being my home for so long and for being the space I completed that 200-hour training. Thank you to Firefly Yoga for being the first studio to hire me. Thank you to the North Georgia Yoga Center for being the sacred space of my 300-hour and to Akasha for helping me become the teacher I am. Thank you to Dragonfly Yoga for being the first studio to bring me in to teach my workshops. Thank you to Oya Yoga, A Mindful Movement, and Jameela for all you did to stay flexible when the world shifted and teaching yoga got so much harder. Thank you to The Mountain Top Lodge for fully believing in me and supporting me when I started offering yoga retreats. Thank you to the Yoga Hive, The Zen Den, and Sunny Street Yoga for inviting me in to lead events and classes in each of your amazing spaces. Yoga Studios are my favorite places in the world and I thank every studio owner for breathing and sweating these places into existence. Not all these studios have survived the last few years, but I will always carry each in my practice and my heart.
AND thank you to each of you who were students with me in the 200 and 300-hour programs, I will never stop being thankful for how each of you helped me walk the path – sharing the moments of joy and getting through the tough, vulnerable, honest, moments that now sit at the core of my yoga practice.
Standing on the backs of all who have come before me, and all who have taught me, I now have this very complex official designation, and my first continuing education trainings are coming very, very soon.
Maybe I’ll plan a celebration class when that “E” eventually moves in front of the 500, or maybe I’ll just keep celebrating every single time I get to teach.
Alison Gurevich, E-RYT 200, RYT 500, YACEP
