Do I have to?

One of the things I’ve dreaded about becoming a yoga teacher is having to teach even when you don’t feel like it. You couldn’t sleep last night; you had a fight with your spouse; you have a cold—but you have to teach yoga at 9 am. Well, last Saturday it happened to me.

My wrist and ankle were sprained from a nasty tennis fall, I hadn’t slept well because I was nervous about teaching, and when I showed up to the studio 45 minutes early to savor some alone time, I couldn’t figure out how to unlock the door.

I took a deep breath and proceeded to wander up and down U street looking for a payphone to call a staff member. (In an effort to keep life simple, I’ve avoided getting a cell phone.) The one phone I found didn’t work. So, I wandered up and down W street trying to remember where Andrea, the teacher training admin, lives. I found her house. She wasn’t home.

Eventually, I walked back to the studio, greeted the first student, and invited her to try to open the door. The lock wouldn’t budge. At 8:57 am, the second student showed up and took a turn, and like magic, the door unlocked. This left all of three minutes to prepare for class.

I always thought this would be the part where I would launch into a panic attack and decide teaching isn’t worth the trouble. But instead, everything flowed just as smoothly, if not more smoothly, than the last time I taught. I enjoyed teaching an intimate class of four and had fun with the uplifting series of poses I prepared. Maybe it was my students, my mellow music, or a mix of both. But somehow, teaching when you don’t quite feel like it isn’t so bad. It’s kind of like how practicing yoga isn’t so bad even when you don’t feel like it.