According to worldwide Yoga educator Lizzie Lasater, yoga approach is like grammar. Equally as an author has to discover what an adverb is when to utilize a semicolon before building sentences, every yoga educator must learn the core ideas of yoga philosophy before constructing their very own teachings.

Here, Lizzie shares her thoughts on the significance of the Yoga Exercise Sutra as a foundation of finding out for all teachers.

Yoga Journal: Why do you think the Yoga Sutra is such a vital text for a yoga educator to know?
Lizzie Lasater: The Yoga Exercise Sutra is a crucial structure. For me, there are 2 cores of teaching yoga: makeup as well as the Yoga exercise Sutra.

If you consider the picture of a structure being created, you see the concrete pieces, the columns and the roof– that’s the skeleton. Anatomy and also the Yoga Sutra, to me, are the core aspects that compose that skeletal system of yoga. Each instructor fills up in the frontage, the aesthetic expression and the design of the structure based on their character, experience as well as the stories they inform. Having a strong grounding in the Yoga Sutra is essential due to the fact that it gives a secure structure to back up your teaching.

YJ: Why isn’t yoga viewpoint stressed a lot more in instructor trainings, then?
LL: I assume most yoga exercise instructor trainings are much also brief. Yoga is a large body of understanding. It’s a lifelong research, a passion, a calling as well as an everyday method. If you have only 200 hrs, you have to take a look at how you’re going to divide that up: How much time are you mosting likely to spend on composition? What does it cost? time are you going to invest in viewpoint? Just how much are you going to invest in pranayama, meditation, and also asana?

So I recognize why it takes place that philosophy isn’t really emphasized. And also it’s additionally typically taught in a really completely dry, detached means. Yet the means our program instructs it, and the method I believe instructors need to discover it, is very one-to-one with your method and your life. That, I believe, is extremely relevant.

YJ: How has researching the Yoga Sutra enriched your personal yoga exercise teaching?
LL: It’s been so essential. I remained in London teaching a workshop a week or 2 [after filming the on the internet program], as well as I located that my training was different. When my pupils asked concerns, I found the answers occurring. There’s always that minute when a student asks an inquiry in front of a space packed with 30 individuals, and also there’s a little nervous enigma– I’m on the spot to state something intelligent and also helpful. I was really thankful so often to locate reactions emerging that were attached with the Sutra.

It was practically like I had filled out a tank of this knowledge. When a pupil was asking something, I could promptly connect it to these foundational, core ideas of yoga exercise. A student could claim, “I aren’t sure what does it cost? initiative I should put in and what does it cost? I should let go.” That is a core concern of yoga, abhyasa and vairagya [technique and non-attachment] What does it cost? suffices? It’s not one, and also it’s not the other. The solution would tumble out from there.

This interview has actually been gently edited for size and also clarity.