In our Washington, DC yoga classes, an instructor will often gently remind students that someday they may find themselves in his or her shoes. That's because Dahn Yoga espouses the philosophy that enthusiasts will eventually learn so many mind-body techniques that they'll be perfectly placed to be teachers themselves.
This transition from pupil to master forms the subject of an article recently published by the Washington Post. The newspaper featured a group of yoga students who went through rigorous testing to prove that they were ready to be instructors.
The gauntlet they ran (or really, posed) their way through included strenuous postures and difficult stretches.
One student, Gale Koritansky, told the news source that her session lasted four full hours.
"Whew!" she exclaimed. "That was longer than the GRE!"
While we certainly agree that it's important to test budding yoga teachers, our rites of passage at Dahn Yoga are much less physically taxing. Instead, they concentrate on imbuing practitioners with a deep, complex sense of the connections between body and mind.
Once we see that a student is ready, we are all too happy to ask them to help run one of our DC yoga studios!
