This question comes up quite a lot. And it’s mixed in with some bigger questions, which maybe come first. What is a teacher? How do you value your self? Let’s explore.
When you’re just getting started with something new, it makes sense to practice quite a lot, for quite a while, maybe some years. This cycle of education, practice, and life experience takes time. To get good at anything substantial, so what you do works, in a variety of contexts with a variety of people, takes time.
And once you get there, there’s not much change. You’re still a student, a teacher, a mother or father, friend or colleague, a professional, a beginner. You’re all of these things. Always learning, sharing, creating. Without all these things, there’s no life, no energy. Life grows.
What you give to other people is always what you have in your own body, your own life. Words only make sense, and have a real impact, when they agree with who you are, and what you’re doing. So a good teacher isn’t telling people what to do. They are embodying what to do.
This creates a different kind of teaching. Telling without embodying teaches you to copy me. Same look, same steps, same life. Embodying teaches something different. What do you love? What are you good at? Here’s the way. It makes you into you. This is embodying.
So it takes time. Often people take a few years of this practice, at first on their own and with friends, not charging for this. And then when you have some experience with more situations, and a wider range of people, you’ll feel ready for more responsibility, so you charge some money for this.
How much you charge makes sense when it lines up with what’s usual in your area, for the people you’re working with, and the kind of work you’re doing. It’s not a matter of asserting what you’re worth, by making up a big number.
As a living being, your worth is without limit, and has nothing to do with money.
As a professional, there’s a different measure. It has something to do with the role you’re filling, and the kinds of experience you’ve had. So what you’re paid has some connection to what you’re able to do in this work, what you’ve accomplished in this role.
For all of this, give yourself time. You’ll know where and when it makes sense to charge people for what you’re offering, and how much makes sense, for where you are.
More important, you’ll know about you. You’ll know when what you say and what you do are the same. You’ll know when you’re doing what you love, what you’re good at. When you’re making you into you. And you’ll know who you are. A leader, a mother, father, son, daughter, friend, colleague, teacher, student. All these things, always growing.
-Mike
About Strala Yoga Training
Strala combines the movement and healing wisdom of tai chi with the form vocabularies of yoga, tai chi, qigong, and Traditional Chinese and Japanese Medicine, to help people release stress, move easily through challenge, and live radiantly inspiring lives.
It begins with a mindset, that says our best way to get where we’re going is to feel good along the way. It also works miracles for whole health, helping us to find ease in our bodies and minds, and create the right conditions both for healing and optimal performance.
In our Strala Training Courses, you learn to shape your destiny on every level that counts, from your psychology, chemistry and neurology, to your chromosomes and even gene expression. The unique set of skills you develop – for connecting with yourself and others, unblocking your energy, healing what needs healing and accomplishing challenge with ease – uncovers your ability to create the life you want, and be an inspiring leader to the people around you.
Who’s What’s and When’s of Strala Yoga Training
