62 • PART I: A MODEL FOR SELF-REGULATION AND ENGAGEMENT
I offer my own story to suggest that you can do this too. Along with what is required for
your district and state, you need three things: (a) ongoing, active practice; (b) good foundational
training; and (c) continuing education to keep your skills sharp and your knowledge current.
The Mindfulness and Yoga Teacher as a Practitioner
If you ask yoga teachers like me, Kellie Love, or Sarah Herrington (author of Om Schooled:
A Guide to Teaching Kids Yoga in Real-World Schools; 2012), “Should teachers of mindfulness
and yoga practices be required to have an established, steady personal practice?,” you will
get a resounding, “YES!” For thousands of years, teaching mindfulness and yoga has been a
mentoring process in which a well-practiced mentor passes down knowledge and practices
to the mentee. More, beyond being a tradition, it is a form of self-care (Cook-Cottone, 2015;
Herrington, 2012; Rechtschaffen, 2014; see Chapter 14 of this text for more on self-care). In
Herrington’s book (2012), she describes how important it is to live your yoga off the mat
while teaching yoga on the mat. She explains that teaching yoga in schools can be stressful,
takes a lot of energy, and requires you to be steady and fully present no matter what kind
of energy, feelings, and struggles the children and adolescents bring into the yoga space.
Herrington, like many others, found that maintaining her own practice was essential. She
found that, in her daily practice, she was inspired and restored: “I was viscerally reminded
of the gifts of yoga; I could release, relax, regain myself, and start the next day from a point
of center” (Herrington, 2012, p. 143).
As you read through the following chapters, I ask you to contemplate your own experi-
ence and your own practice. I use case studies and examples to illustrate points and chal-
lenges. As we move to Parts II and III of this text, we also shift to seeing the mindfulness and
yoga teacher as an additional source of wisdom and insight. That is, you and your experi-
ence with mindfulness and yoga are integrated into your teaching of these methodologies
(Cook-Cottone, 2015). As a mindfulness and/or yoga teacher using these techniques, you
can speak from an authentic experience of practice and struggle (a part of practice; Cook-
Cottone, 2015). As a result of your practice, when you speak, you speak from a knowing of
this journey and the challenges it holds (Cook-Cottone, 2015). McCown et al. (2010) call this
authority. This authority comes from a living it, loving it, and knowing it that can only come
from dutiful practice (Cook-Cottone, 2015).
What does this mean in your day-to-day life? It means that you have a commitment to
consistent, formal practice that mirrors the frequency, intensity, and duration you would
hope for from your students (Cook-Cottone, 2015; McCown et al., 2010). It is important to
note that there may be a dose-related response to these practices. That means that in order
to get the full benefits of meditation, mindfulness, relaxation, and yoga practice, you may
need to practice every day. For example, it is believed that in order to glean the therapeutic
benefits of yoga practice, one should practice three times a week for a duration of at least
an hour for a period of more than 6 weeks (Cook-Cottone, 2013). To teach yoga, certification
is recommended with a foundation of steady practice of 2 years (Cook-Cottone, 2015). See
Yoga Alliance (www.yogaalliance.org) for questions about yoga certification and registra-
tion as a yoga instructor. Yoga Alliance also sets standards and provides for yoga teach-
ers and teacher-training programs. To effectively teach mindfulness and meditation, one
should engage in some form of meditation or formal mindfulness practice daily for at least
90 days prior to teaching meditation or speaking about it from any sense of authority (Cook-
Cottone, 2015; McCown et al., 2010).