you better work

Anybody wanna learn some yoga?  I got some yoga over here! Great yoga! Moving and breathing and smiling and loving yourself just like you are kinda yoga!  This is premium shit! Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?  

Good lord the yoga teacher hustle is exhausting.  I’m sure anyone who works freelance can feel me here.  I absolutely love what I do and I believe that I am walking my path.  And I know lord Ganesh is playing hide and seek right around the corner and he is going to stomp all over some mother fucking obstacles.  Any minute now.   Any minute . . . now!   

Any minute.

This is a difficult line to walk.  I just want to be able to practice my craft, but in order for me to be able to do that I have to do things like “network”, and I am now one of those phone people, constantly glued to it in case there’s a last minute cry for a sub.   I need to teach to live.  Not just because I am starry-eyed in love with yoga enough to believe that I can teach yoga full time for a living, but I mean teaching keeps me sane.  Teaching is the thing that reminds me that we are all one.  The surprise and joy that radiates off students when they do something for the first time is a little glimpse into the light behind the world, peaking through the curtain at the bundle of pure love in the center of us all.  It is one of my very most favorite things to do and it just so happens that I do it for a living.  So it puts me in the really weird place of have to peddle my spiritual practice.  As the great yogi, Ru Paul, says; You better work.    I’m interested to know how other teachers deal with this conundrum, because to be honest I kind of feel like an ass most of the time.  In my head, the studio owners see me coming and run and hide so they don’t have to listen to me say “you know I’d love to sub for you, if you ever need anybody!” for the 30^th fraking time.  “I swear I’m not trying to bug you!!” I want to shout, “I know what it’s like!”  I’ve been on the side of hiring and firing and scheduling people for classes and I know it sucks, because you can’t give everyone you like all the classes they want, there’s just too many of us, especially in Austin. You can’t swing a yoga mat without hitting a yoga teacher around these parts.  But I don’t know what else to do, and it’s not like I’m going to give up. So I’m just caught in this sticky patch for now.  Here’s the thing though, I think as a teacher, even if you get your dream schedule with your favorite studios and all your bills are paid and you can afford your teacher training habit, even then, I don’t think you can to stop striving for more.  Not grasping or getting greedy kind of more, but how do you reach more people with the practice so that more people can live happier, better lives kind of more? 

You. Better. Work. 

I tell my daughter everyday, that she can do anything she puts her mind to, and as a mama and a teacher I’ve got to practice what I preach.  So . . . anybody wanna learn some yoga?