The Price of Admission
Have been thinking a lot about teaching since the response to the post on Friday about Dunning-Kruger effect.
One of the first things communist and totalitarian dictatorships do is to purge universities of intellectuals in an effort to counter the spread among writers, artists and other educated people of rebellion against thought control. The clue is in the name, a teacher is an educator, they impart knowledge.
Historically it’s a profession of dedication and passion, and not particularly well paid which is precisely WHY it’s not for everyone. Like anything, the more you do it,the more you improve and then more opportunities come that allow your income to increase but you can’t buy your way to becoming a better teacher, faster.
The first thing I do when someone tells me they want to teach yoga is ask them what they earn. Then I ask them to halve it, or more often cut it by two thirds and then ask if they can live on that.
This profession is almost unrecognisable from when I entered it a decade ago and I can’t even imagine what it looks like now to the people who have been doing it for twice as long as me.
I have done one 200 hour yoga TT, I never joined the yoga alliance and I’ve never participated as a mentor or teacher on a yoga teacher training. On paper my biog is paper thin in terms of famous teachers I’ve trained with. There’s been exactly four teachers I’ve practiced with consistently in over twenty years of practicing yoga. Olof Kuijt, Mark Kan, Claudia Dossena and Alaric Newcombe. Between them they made me into the teacher I am today. I didn’t need to look elsewhere. I still don’t because I continue to learn from them every class I attend.
If you want to be a teacher, teach. If you want to be a globe trotting, author, blog contributor, teacher training facilitator, healer, nutritionist, mental health professional, psychologist, free wheeling jack of all trades there’s plenty of people out there who will take your money to teach you those skills in three to twelve weeks; and as an added bonus when we’re living underground under a dystopian Orwellian dictatorship you’ll be safe.
#yoga #teacher
Special Syndrome
Imposter syndrome is a fear that you don’t belong in the higher echelons or rarified realms of your profession. Michelle Obama has spoken about it and other high achievers who have risen to the top in business, science and the arts.
Instagram and the creeping dominance of social media has allowed something a bit more insidious to flourish. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a psychological phenomenon in which incompetent people overestimate their ability because they’re unable to grasp how much they don’t know.
It’s apparent in the current White House administration- Ivanka Trump according to sources thinks she could someday be President. Her husband considers himself capable of negotiating foreign policy despite having zero experience. White privilege manifested as near sociopathy.
It’s apparent in all areas of society including my own profession. It’s not enough to be an ordinary yoga teacher anymore, helping people to feel better in their bodies when you can be a goddess, a shaman, a witch, an artist, a celebrity, an influencer, a brand or better yet make money telling other people that they are.
The NHS and teaching in state schools are in crisis. There are mass shortages of nurses and teachers and the ones still there are living off of food banks because their wages have been frozen for years under austerity.
Let’s hope that these goddess powers can sustain us when they’re all we have left.
#yoga #ordinarypeople
