As a lifelong athlete, I was interested in understanding what made me perform and feel good about working out.
Teacher training provided the detailed dialogue and wonderful student body to practice my incoming knowledge on. It was a very challenging experience to shift from thinking about what I was going to say next, to actually seeing what the situation was and teaching more in the moment. Three years later, my training skills are still refining and evolving. After discovering meditation towards the end of my training, my teaching (and my self) became much more grounded, and this was the true turning point for me. It happened just one week before I was to teach my first class. Before then, getting the dialogue was a tremendous challenge, but after clearing my head a little I understood how to incorporate what I was seeing in the students with what I had been taught.
Teacher training was a life-changing introduction into the deeper world of yoga. I began to see new diets, new forms of meditation, new people. I was able to change my occupation into a truly rewarding and giving career that will always be a part of any job I take on in the future.
What I've learned at Sunstone Yoga is some of the greatest knowledge of my life. All the things I had learned until then were preparing me for this monumental task of becoming a teacher. Teacher training was a beautiful stepping stone, enabling me to travel further down this path. The path of yoga is not an easy one, but with the support of fellow teachers and students, from a community that continually grows together in a healthy direction, and with a body that can (through practice) handle just about whatever I throw at it, it has become much easier than it originally might have seemed. Anything that puts me into an awkward situation shows me much about myself, as long as I am strong enough to face the situation head on.
On the path there is some darkness, but as I move through the darkness I see that there is much more light all around me than I ever knew before. I am very grateful to be a part of Sunstone Yoga, as student, franchise owner and teacher, and hope that everyone can experience even 1% of the beauty that can be found in teaching others something that you love, and being part of such a dynamic studio and practice.
Chris McGraw