“Every student deserves a good teacher,
every teacher deserves the opportunity to be a great teacher”
-Teri Almquist
Building an inner connection with yourself isn’t easy. This union, or yoga, is hard work. It’s about trust–first in a teacher when you don’t yet know how to trust yourself and you are overwhelmed by pain, fear, or self-doubt, and then little by little you begin to believe in yourself, then you begin to trust yourself, then you have genuine faith in yourself. You become stronger and more flexible, more balanced through this process. Your teacher is your trusted witness on your unique journey into your inner landscape. It’s important that every student has a good teacher and that every teacher has the opportunity to become a great teacher.
This enormously important teacher-student relationship built on trust can be transformative, life-changing. Teri’s first teacher, Diane Duscharme believed in her and supported her from the very first moment she entered the yoga studio with a badly injured neck and a pack a day smoking habit, and since then Teri has been paying her transformation forward– first by becoming a Bikram Yoga Teacher, then opening her own studio, and now providing continuing education for Bikram yoga teachers around the world.
A Bikram yoga class is an opportunity to focus in the mirror and concentrate on oneself– to travel one’s inner landscape. It’s practicing over and over again, consistently, in order to learn more about oneself. It’s a chance to find that quiet space within us where our truest, most loving self lives— that place from which we can learn how to mindfully respond to life and all its challenges. It’s a landscape for learning.
Please enjoy my conversation with Teri Almquist, “Like” the podcast on iTunes, and feel free to comment! You can find Teri and her work using the links below:
The Toolbox: Tools for Teaching Bikram Yoga by Teri Almquist available HERE (Amazon)
Visit Teri’s Studio at Bikram Yoga Merrimack Valley, North Andover, Massachusetts at https://www.bikramyogamv.com/
For more information about teaching seminars, webinars, and professional development visit: https://www.teachfromlove.yoga/
Webinars for teaching yoga at http://webinars.teachfromlove.yoga/
