OM_Yoga_UK_June_2017

om yoga teacher training guide

Zethyn McKinley shares the experience of teacher training with Siddhi Yoga

M

y relationship with yoga

has been a difficult one. I

first tried it as a university

course over 10 years ago

... and I hated it. With

the class located in a huge gymnasium,

I felt disconnected from my teacher and

the teaching, and by the time we entered

the half-hour mediation at the end of each

practice, I had to work with everything I had

to keep from hyperventilating. Simply laying

still made me that uncomfortable.

Looking back, this seems extreme.

Still, I can see why the relationship

started so poorly. My anxious and

My

yoga journey

obsessively compulsive nature made yoga

uncomfortable; I couldn’t connect with

myself or the teachings.

I left yoga behind, thinking that it wasn’t

for me. However, a seed had been planted.

Years later, after facing hip and back

pain, I remembered several poses from

my prior yoga practices and begrudgingly

began incorporating them into my morning

‘loosening-up’ routine.

Regular practice

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months,

and before long I realised I had been doing

yoga almost every day for a couple of years,

starting with a few poses, turning into more

elaborate practices.

So when my husband asked me one day

while on a long drive, ‘What do you want with

life? What do you want to do?’ I responded,

‘I want to learn more about and teach yoga’.

He was shocked, but I gained so much from

practicing yoga that I wanted to share it. So,

I began researching teacher trainings and I

found Siddhi Yoga.

It ticked all my boxes: a registered school,

positive testimonials and reviews, the course

outline covered what I wanted to learn, and

it was on the beach! I chose to go to Goa,

India, where I could do yoga on the beach