Why I Quit Being a Yoga Instructor After 10 Years

In this video, I'm going to tell you why I quit being a professional yoga instructor after 10 years. I'm going to talk about some things which generally yoga people tend to avoid talking about, but they are important. So stay tuned. Hey, critical thinkers, and welcome to another critical thinking vlog. As always, I invite you to grab your coffee and let's drink some and talk some together sitting in this wonderful area. And as I already said, today we're going to talk about my yoga career, how I used to be a professional yoga instructor. I studied yoga full time. I went to India and traveled to ashrams, spoke with monks, I did the whole thing. And eventually, after doing it for 10 years, I quit being a yoga instructor, and these days I avoid teaching yoga as much as I can. And so we're going to get to the details of how I got into yoga, and what bugged me in yoga from the get-go, and also what eventually I discovered are the critical missing aspects in yoga. How critical thinking is usually, or many times, missing there. How I realized eventually that, what I learned, and how that led me to quit teaching yoga altogether. So let's grab a sip of coffee and get into it. So I feel it's important to say from the very beginning that I was never a passionate yoga guy. Like, you know, there's some yogis who are just like, they're all about yoga, and that's all they talk about, and that's all they do. And for me, it was never like that. I heavily invested into yoga, I studied it a lot, and as I said, you know, I even went to India, I did that whole spiritual trip. But aside from that, for me, spirituality used to be much more interesting and important than yoga per se, and I was very much into meditation. But that naturally led me to yoga. It wasn't until I moved and started living in a martial arts slash spiritual slash yoga school full-time, and that's a long story how I got there and etc., but the video is not about that. But in this video, we'll focus on the yoga. So yoga was part of that spiritual school's curriculum, and basically alongside training martial arts full-time and meditating full-time, I also was doing yoga full-time. So at least three times per week, but usually more. I was taught by various different instructors, there used to be, like, there would be events happening in that spiritual school as well, like, other yoga instructors would come down, and so I got to get to know yoga quite a bit. But it wasn't until I decided to become a full-time professional martial arts instructor, it was a thing I already told my martial arts instructor, and we sat down once, and when I told him that I want to teach martial arts full-time, he led me to the idea, and he told me that I should also become a yoga instructor, because running a martial arts school, it may be difficult to live from it, to make a profit from it full-time, because you get only a certain amount of students, and then he suggested that if I would also teach yoga, then naturally I would get different students, and some would go to one class and the other, but usually different people do, you know, yoga and meditation, and I said, why not? And I'm the type of person who, if I do something, I do it, you know, like, really devotedly, so I definitely took it seriously, I started reading more books, I started doing more asanas, and so I really got into it, and did my best to become a good yoga instructor. During those few years while I lived in that school, that spiritual martial arts yoga school, some things about yoga were bugging me already. Some of my yoga instructors were super flexible, and I realized that they wouldn't relate with me. Like, so my lower back was round, you know, I couldn't, I did not have the flexibility in my pelvic structure to push the tailbone forward in order to, you know, sit straight in a forward bend, or in a meditation position, and so I needed to work on my lower back flexibility like a lot before I could do that, but my teachers didn't tell me that, they were like, they were pushing me like, oh, you should just straighten your back, and I was like, I can't, you know, I literally can't, it doesn't work, like I need to, I would feel at that moment that I need to stretch my lower back from this position, just sitting here, or in some other position, because that was like the primary place where I needed to stretch, and I couldn't get to the place where they wanted me to be at, but they wouldn't tell me like, oh, let's first work on your back, let's first work on your lower back, let's fix you up, so you would be able to do the other postures correctly, they were like, no, straighten your back, I was like, you know, **** you, I'm like, I can't do this, like how, I physically literally cannot do this, so how can you ask me to do that and tell me this, you're doing it uncorrectly, hell yeah, because I'm not capable of doing it correctly, but why don't you guide me through the process of getting to the point where I can do it correctly, and again, my extremely flexible instructors, most of them just couldn't relate to me, they wouldn't understand, so that shows, you know, how poor knowledge they had of the basic understanding of, you know, the anatomy of the body of yoga and also working with the person where he's at, and obviously, yeah, there were postures where, you know, like this is the level one posture, this is the level two posture, this is level three, but at many times, I couldn't even do like the level one posture, but that was the only option I was given, so that was already troubling for me, also what I was troubled by, which informed me later as a yoga instructor too, was that some postures were, I felt they were bad for me, like I had, initially I had knee surgery because of my martial arts training, and my knees were bad like for a while because of my bad training, and in some yoga postures, my knee didn't feel good, but then in the yoga class, the instructor would ask us all to do the same posture, and I would be like, you know, ****, I was doing the posture which everyone was doing, and I would feel like this is bad for my knee, but then everybody is doing it, and, you know, you would kind of be sometimes suggested like, yeah, you know, if it's too much for you, don't do it, but it's hard, you know, and, you know, you could blame me, but also too, I think many people know that it's difficult when you're in a group, everybody's doing it, and you just kind of feel a pain in your knee, like I guess I can, you know, lift through, maybe this is supposed to be happening, so you just do the thing, and now I look back, and I realize some of the postures were just not good for me, but that's again a downside of yoga which now I like to bring attention to, and to say that, there's some actually instructors who even say that, that yoga shouldn't be a group practice for everyone, it's only for like healthy people, if you're like, you have a specific amount of flexibility already, you're healthy, you don't have any injuries, okay, go to a group yoga, but most situations are not like that, most situations, you know, people come to a class, like a whole group class, and they do whatever everyone else does, and even like it's a beginner's class, rarely there's individuality, rarely, a rare instructor in my experience, in my observation, would say, okay, give me a detailed description of your injuries, and your background, and, you know, let's do the test, like what a good fitness instructor does, you know, they test your limitations, they test where your weaknesses are, and they make sure that you work on them first before you move up to the next exercises, but so basically the story that I want to point out so far is that I was noticing that something is off, I did not like that I'm getting postures which I don't feel are good for me, that I'm telling, I'm being told to do things which are not really working for me, but, you know, I trusted my instructors, I thought, you know, they know what they're doing, they're yoga instructors, they've been doing it for decades, you know, they know the deal, so I just need to listen. And eventually, so yeah, I went to India, I don't think that's a significant story to tell here, it was more like a spiritual trip, and funny thing is too, I actually, so now this is an important part, I actually started teaching yoga already in that spiritual school, so basically I was doing yoga for like a year and a half, like two years I guess, yeah, let's say two years, and I was already like prepping myself to become a yoga instructor, but mostly by myself, I did not get like specific tutoring and specific lessons for being a yoga instructor, I was just kind of like, here's a list of answers you need to know, and some some contraindications, but basically it was about reading books which were outdated, you know, written mostly by spiritual teachers who knew little or nothing about science, and they give indications and contraindications of what the postures do and what you shouldn't do, like really poor explanations. Now that I look back, most of it was pseudoscience, most of this was guessing, some of the suggestions were just, were just like ridiculous, there was no truth in that. So I'll give you a simple example, it's the one I remember best because it's just so ridiculous, in one of the yoga books I was studying to become a yoga instructor, it was written that the chakranasana, the triangle pose, which you're seeing right now, you know, because of editing magic, so in that posture, it was said that the side of your hips, like it's, this posture is good for decreasing the amount of fat in your hip, and it's like, it's nonsense, because if I'm wrong, write me in the comments, explain me the science of it, but in reality, from the science that I can see, from the science that I got to know later on, in order to decrease fat in your body, it's all about, you know, cardio, it's all about burning calories, and yoga, that's the video I'm going to make about, that's one of the next videos I'm going to make about, it's usually like, unless it's like hardcore power yoga, it's usually, it does not raise your heart level enough, where only after a certain amount of heart rate, your body starts to burn calories, like extra calories, and that's where the fat starts to go away eventually, you know, well, there's all that science, but the thing is, unless you reach that heart level, you're not burning any calories, you're not burning any fat, so you're standing in this chakranasana, in that posture, it's completely static, your heart rate is really slow, because you're breathing slow, and you know, just standing there, and for some reason, I was taught through that book, and I was then guided to teach that to my students, like, oh, this is going to burn your fat from your hip, like, what the ****, you know, so, but there's, I don't remember most of the cases right now, because it's been a while, but there were so many things, which were ridiculous, not tested by science, which were provided as answers, and I was suggested to trust those answers, and to pass them on, I wasn't a really good critical thinker at the day, but I intuitively, I felt that something is off, and already, like, after those two years of just practicing yoga, and doing some self-studies, oh, it was, like, kind of a, I was guided into it, like, I taught initially, like, the first 10 minutes, like, the first part of the class, and then the real instructor would teach it, then the last part, the shavasana, then the middle part, and eventually, I was given, soon enough, I was given to teach the whole class, but looking back, that's such a bad ******* decision, you know why? Because I had no ******* clue what I was doing, you know, I knew no science background, this is like, and this is the thing, this is really, and a really responsible thing to teach yoga, you could potentially mess up the bodies, and the spines of people, and you could make injuries, or bring up all the injuries, like, there's so much that's at stake, but clearly, my instructors were not knowledgeable enough to consider that, and they thought, you know, yoga is all safe and good, I actually, you know, I made a specific video about that, you can check it out, it's called Why Yoga Can Destroy Your Body, I think, and so I talked in detail more about that, about the science behind it, but my instructors clearly did not know that, and they were like, yeah, just go ahead and teach, you know, based on your limited knowledge, and no understanding of how the body really works, or any science of it, so that was such a poor decision on their behalf, but again, I was 19, I was, okay, well, I was like 20, 21, critical thinking was not a big deal in that community, and so I did, you know, I taught, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I could feel like, man, I don't really know that much, you know, I don't understand this really well, and so I felt uncomfortable, I felt, I had doubts and hesitations, but my instructors were like, no, no, you're fine, you know, go and teach, and they kept reinforcing that, so eventually, I passed my certification based on that school to teach yoga, by answering the list of questions that I was asked to answer, by basically doing my own studies, and so eventually, I came back to my country, I opened up my martial arts school successfully, and I was teaching yoga as well, and again, I felt hesitations, I felt doubts, and because I felt like I don't really know what I'm doing, I met, you know, a whole number of yoga instructors through my yoga career, and I realized I wasn't that far off from, like, the general typical yogi, most of the yogis that I met that were teaching yoga, they knew pretty much the same amount as I did, I knew, sometimes I knew more than them, especially, like, you know, the historical side and whatnot, like, the spiritual side of it, but basically, I wasn't that far behind from them, and they weren't that far ahead, and we were, we all had our yoga groups, we all were teaching, and we had so many different occasions to f*** up, so, no, that's a really serious thing to consider, but again, I can't blame them as much as I don't think it would be fair to blame me, because the real people to blame here, initially, are the instructors, the certification systems, which guided us to believe that it's enough, and again, one of the people that I worked with, she passed the one month, one of the famous yoga courses, and that was it, and she was like, go and teach, and, you know, again, she knew less than I did, she was taught a bunch of bulls***, and now I can see, luckily, a thing that I admire about her is that eventually, she went on to become a fitness coach, she learned the science of it, and actually, that's one of the inspirations, which helped me realize, you know, I was right, I had great reasons to have doubts, and to have hesitations about teaching, because when I started to learn about the science from her, just naturally talking to her about the science of yoga, or the fitness, I was like, holy crap, there's so much that I don't know, and there's so much I should know, and there's so much stuff which is important to know for a yoga instructor, but nobody talks about that, at least in my circle, or in most yoga cases that I saw, and, but again, so, I have great admiration for her, and I think she did the right thing, she started teaching yoga in a scientific way, based on her fitness experience, and that's awesome, but most yoga instructors don't get to that point, well, yes, okay, there are some courses which, or some schools are starting, it's becoming, I think it's starting to become a bit of a trend, like, more schools are addressing that, but even, like, doing research about it, I searched for books which would talk about it, I found very few, if any, and when I was looking for a yoga course online, it was a few years ago, but I was looking for a yoga course online, which is science-based, I think I found one in New York, but there's hundreds, if not thousands of those courses, which said nothing about the science, so it's really, like, a dark hole. Now, coming back to my story, so, again, I had that doubt for a while, I kept teaching, and I was surprised, I was like, you know, people are coming to my yoga class, like, I had a big group, and people loved my yoga, I was invited to teach other at other places, and I was well known as a yoga instructor in my area, I was even, like, teaching once, like, a yoga class for, like, a hundred people, I was in there playing that game, and I was doing it well, and to a degree, I was surprised, I was like, why are these people coming to my class, you know, I'm not, I don't think I'm that good, but again, I started comparing myself with other yoga instructors around, and I realized, you know, I'm not that much worse than them, in some degrees, I was better, I think, I think a lot is about personality, I was putting some focus on the meditation aspect of yoga, and the relaxation aspect, and the mindset, and I think people loved it, you know, I created a great atmosphere, I think that's why people kept coming back, but in my mind, I was like, I didn't feel so great, and so I was surprised people were coming, but when I started to learn about the science of the body, I started to feel worse and worse about teaching it. Now, I had direct confirmation that I don't really know what I'm doing, but I was also kind of in a vicious circle, because people were coming to my classes, they loved it, and I was like, well, I feel like I shouldn't do this, but they would encourage me, like, no, you're good, you're great, and so it was hard to let go of that position, and I did my best to learn the science behind me, but at the same time, the reason I started off telling you the story that I wasn't entirely that passionate about yoga, there were so many other things I was working on, I was running a professional martial arts school, martial arts were at the forefront, I started running my YouTube channel, so I was doing so much, I didn't feel like I had the space to learn the science behind it, but that's where I came to a realization, you know what, if I'm not devoting to doing the hard work to know the real legit science behind it, and I'm not reading the new articles and the new science reveals about yoga, if I'm not keeping myself up to date, and I'm not living up to the highest standards, I do not, I should not have any permission to teach. Crazy enough, that type of permission, that type of demand was never presented to me, which I think it should be, that's the thing I keep claiming, but that's the thing I started to position myself in, the more interested about the science, the more I started to push myself away from teaching yoga. That wasn't like the last time I taught, eventually I closed my martial arts school, I closed that school, and actually, there's another video I'm making about that right now, right after this one, but eventually I closed my school, and that was a great way, that was a relief for me, because I was like, okay, that gives me a way out of the yoga world, because it was difficult to say no to people, I'm not gonna teach anymore, they wanted me to teach, despite my, you know, my lack of knowledge, I guess, and I guess I came to a conclusion, like, I guess I'll better teach by really telling people, like, I would tell my students, look, I'm not a medical doctor, yoga is not great for everyone, if you have real injuries, don't go to me, don't stay with me, go to a physiotherapist, go to a fitness person, so I started to make those kind of safety measures, and I was really honest with my group, and I would tell them sometimes, like, this is all I know, I would start completely avoiding postures which were questionable, or had at least some sense of danger in them, so I started putting up safety measures, but I didn't go on the route to push myself to the next level as a yoga instructor, so when I closed my school, I felt like good riddance, you know, now I won't need to teach yoga, but then what did happen afterwards was, actually just a year ago, when I moved to this wonderful city of Vilnius, Lithuanian capital, I was invited by a friend to teach a yoga class here, and I was hesitant, but she really, she was really asking me for it, she was like, she told me that she used to do yoga with me back in my school, and she was like, your yoga was the best thing ever, like, I felt nothing like it, and she kept encouraging me, I was like, well, okay, I can try, and then I taught a few classes, like one class per week for like a month, and I just observed myself, and I was like, I can't do this, you know, I'm like, if I'm not, again, putting the hard work, I don't have the right to teach, I don't feel good doing this, and eventually I said to the people, I already have like a few people, and again, they really loved it, and I said, you know what, sorry, I can't do this, I'm not gonna teach anymore, and they were like, holy crap, we just fell in love with your yoga, and we like being in, and now you're not teaching, and I was like, yeah, sorry that I even started it, so I felt bad about that, but I felt like that was the right choice to do, and I came to a strong conclusion that I should avoid teaching yoga at all costs, and there's always temptations, because, you know, I have the experience, I have some knowledge, and I get, still, once in a while, like, invitations, like, oh, come to this, like, recently, I was invited to this kind of a retreat, and the guy said, my friend, who's leading that retreat, he was like, yeah, you could teach some yoga, and I was like, I was tempted, because, you know, I can teach a yoga class, you know, I did it for like hundreds of times, I have the experience, I have the basic knowledge, but I was like, you know what, actually, no, as far as, as much as I'm tempted to do that, I'm not gonna teach it, because, again, I have that standard, if I'm not putting my entire focus on it, and if I'm not like living up to the highest standard, I should not, and I do not give myself permission to do it.