kikuka

Hi everyone.

I am new to hot yoga, but I hope you don;t mind me making an observation. I don’t doubt that there are teachers and studios that are less than excellent and I am sorry for those with bad experiences. I send my best hopes that they have better experiences in the future.

I am lucky – my studio does hot yoga rather than Bikram, but it suits me, the teachers are wonderful (and all different) and I am learing so much. One thing that does seem important to me at least, within this debate is personal confidence. I was not physically confident, having been very overweight for a long time, and could easily have been bullied into pushing myself too far based on secret inner thoughts that I was not worthy to be in the class, that it was only for fit, slim people, etc. Fortunately, my lovely teachers aproached me in the right way, with a combination of encouragement and correction, and my physical confidence is growing. I am learning that I am OK to say no when I can’t go any further without judgement, and if they do judge – so what? I am more confident to lie down if I feel I need to without those negative thoughts I was plagued with before.

Perhaps this is the essential (and most difficult to define?) skill a yoga teacher should have – the ability to instill that personal and physical confidence into his/her students so that they can set their own challenges and limits based on what they feel on the day.