Should an Obese Person Become a Yoga Teacher?
Is a good yoga class identified by the body type and appearance of its instructors? Read on to explore an answer to the question.
The way a blind person touching an elephant’s feet defines the animal as something cylindrical in shape and the one touching its tail as a knobkerrie, different people see Yoga from different angles. Yoga is a vast term, a science that embraces the whole universe in it. It is not possible for everybody to have the complete knowledge of Yoga. Depending on the way one has stumbled across the yogic practices, people give their opinions on Yoga that are sometimes like chalk and cheese. Some may call the ancient science as a physical exercise and others define Yoga as a spiritual path to wellness. You might come across a lady calling this a mental or a breathing exercise.
You may be wondering what is the relevance of this here? The modernization of Yoga has made the ancient discipline more a health science and physical exercise by overlooking its other semblances. There is a stereotype working that a thin and muscular person can only be a Yoga trainer which is absolutely not true with respect to Yoga. We should understand that a Yoga studio is not a Gym that requires you to be sinewy for joining as a trainer.
Obesity is not a disease
Has the above sentence taken your breath away? Such is the effect of these wonderful truths. For so long, we have been labeling an overweight person ailing. According to John Hickner, an American doctor, Obesity is more of a risk factor (that may or may not cause a disorder) than a disease. Yoga’s sister science, Ayurveda also believes that every person’s body design and propensity is not the same. It is quite true that ama (toxins) is the major contributor of fatness but that cannot stop a person from taking part in normal activities such as Yoga practice. If you are an obese person, instead of running away from your first love, Yoga, you should take this practice as a new ray of hope for your personal wellbeing. Of course, you need a little more intensive training to become adaptive to the asanas but once you begin your journey, there is no stopping and you could become a fine Yoga trainer in Rishikesh, Spain, Boston, and anywhere in the world.
Yoga and Acceptance
What does Yoga mean? Health, mindfulness, intelligence or Meditation? Actually, Yoga is everything that is present on this earth. Yoga, which means union teaches us to unite our mind and soul with all the animated as well as inanimate objects in this vast universe. To be precise, the yogic science is all about accepting things as they are. It has hardly to do with your body size. To be accepted by the spiritual science, all you need to do is walk into Yoga’s lap.
Yoga is more about inner peace than external practices
There is no doubt in the fact that heavy people face a little difficulty in getting into Trikonasana. But Yoga is not only about the physical asanas. There are other faces of Yoga too. In fact, the final goal of a yogi is believed to be the enlightenment of the soul to attain liberation from the cycle of birth and death. It is a science of controlling the senses, mind, and body. The current scene of Yoga education demands specialization and you can be a Meditation and Pranayama expert, Karma yogi, a teacher of Yoga philosophy, Mantra Guru, including many other things. Yoga has eight limbs of which asana is a part. Not being perfect in one school out of the eight is not going to stop you from attaining the goal of being a Yoga teacher.
The story of Kay Erdwinn from being body-shamed to the nervous moments while joining the Yoga TTC center to becoming a successful Yoga teacher in California is quite inspiring for all those obese people who wish to become a Yoga trainer. You can become a Yoga teacher in Rishikesh with the authentic Yoga knowledge since the Indian town is the birth land of the spiritual science and the world Yoga capital.