Maintaining Your Practice After Your YTT
The importance of deepening your personal practice after your yoga teacher training + how to do it
So you’ve finished your YTT…Now what? There are many resources out there on what to look for in a yoga teacher training and how to prepare, but there isn’t much discourse around the unspoken thing we all probably struggle with after completing such a life changing experience: how to maintain your practice and integrate all the things you learned into your life after your YTT. We’re given tips and tools on how to get started as yoga teachers, but many of us come to quickly realize that the most pressing question we have after returning home is how to continue growing as a person, a soul. Not everyone who attends a YTT is looking to become a yoga teacher; some just want to deepen their practice and are in pursuit of the answers to this exact question. And even for those who do become teachers, nurturing and maintaining your personal practice is what will separate you from being a good teacher versus a great one.
Following a routine and developing a consistent practice is easy when you’re in a beautiful location, have carved out intentional time to focus on your spiritual studies, and are surrounded by people doing the same. However, keeping up with your practice when you get home is a different story. How the hell do you weave the lessons you learned at your YTT into your everyday life? Staying rooted in your philosophy and applying those lessons amidst the often busy and chaotic lives we return to is the greatest test of all.
If you’ve just finished your YTT and are wondering what’s next or how to move forward, turn inward toward your personal practice to guide the way. It may take you a while to find open positions at studios in your city and transition into teaching full time if that’s your goal, but as long as you have a personal practice in place, you’ll continue to grow. Your personal practice will help you develop your voice. The time you set aside for yourself on your mat will continue to teach you long after your teacher training is done. That’s the beautiful thing about yoga. This sacred, ancient practice brings us back to our inner guidance and the innate knowledge we hold inside, and a good YTT will help you learn how to listen to that guidance and be a student of life.
Bringing Svadhyaya (self-study) into your practice
Just because your YTT is done and you’ve received your certificate doesn’t mean you’re done learning. Now is the time when you can actually put the fourth niyama, svadhyaya, into practice. Svadhyaya, which translates to self-study, emphasizes the importance of reading, researching, and reflecting. Whether you’re deepening your self study by reading sacred texts, meditating, or simply journaling, practicing svadhyaya will help you make a commitment to your personal practice so you can continue to expand your awareness.
4 tips for maintaining your daily yoga practice
1. Remember yoga is more than just asana
Part of the challenge of incorporating a daily yoga practice into your life after your YTT comes from feeling a pressure to arrive on your mat in the same capacity as you did during your YTT. Many people leave their YTTs thinking they need to practice asana for multiple hours a day to validate their practice; however, yoga is so much more than just the physical. It’s breathing, managing stress, connecting to the earth, showing up for yourself and others – and when we remember this, it takes some of that pressure off. We start to see that practicing yoga can be as simple as checking in with how we’re walking through the world.
2. Don’t bite off more than you can chew
We all do it. We get home from our YTTs feeling super ambitious and make promises to ourselves to wake up at 4am to do a full Ashtanga practice, 30 minutes of pranayama, and 30 minutes of meditation. Then when we fall off the wagon – because let’s face it, this type of practice just isn’t sustainable every day in our modern day lives – we get frustrated with ourselves. Know that you don’t have to do it all for it to be meaningful. Trying to do it all too quickly will actually set you even further back because a lifestyle is built off of small habits not drastic changes. So get realistic with the capacity you have in your life, how you want to incorporate yoga into your schedule, and what that looks like for you. Tune into your intuition to make choices that actually resonate with where you are and aren’t just things you’re doing because you think you have to. Maybe some days your practice will look like stepping on your mat for a full physical practice, but on other days, it may just look like doing a few rounds of Nadi Shodhana, and that’s okay. It’s not about the length of time you show up for. What matters is how you show up.
3. Stay connected
Your YTT has given you one of the best accountability tools of all, a support system, so be sure to use it! Stay connected with your facilitators and the people you met at your YTT. Continue to attend local classes, other retreats, and trainings. This will help you capture the same energy you rode during your YTT and keep you inspired.
4. Remember why you fell in love with yoga in the first place
Many of us were brought to yoga for the same reasons. It was a life saver, a form of medicine. Yoga will always be there for you in that way, so when you find it hard to show up, remember what brought you here in the first place. Pursuing the thing you love can be a tricky thing. Everyone says to turn your passion into your profession, but they don’t talk about how that can change your relationship with that thing. Sometimes that shift is hard. You have to learn how to balance holding space for others while still holding space for and making time for yourself. That being said, even on the dreariest of days, when the nature of your practice feels more like a chore than a treat, the healing magic that you first found in yoga will always be there, so you just have to continue to make your way back to that place.
How Soul School sets you up for spiritual, personal, and professional success after your YTT
Our goal is not only to make you a good teacher, but to also help guide you into living a more spiritually aligned life. Soul School’s YTT curriculum is built around setting you up on the path of deep study to fuel your explorations into who you are and what kind of teacher/soul you want to become. We encourage you to be curious, to be lifelong learners, and to make a commitment to yourself and your growth, so that your practice can continue to flourish no matter where you go after.