I have been practicing yoga for 10 years and have been teaching it for about 3.
It's a long and tiring journey, but full of satisfactions and, sometimes, also of doubts.
Very often, when you're leading a class, the question arises: am I doing it the right way? Is there a right way to teach? Do you observe the students coming and going, and you question yourself: will they like this practice? What do they expect from you?
I don't think there is a right answer to these questions, just as I don't think we should teach based on the expectations of the people you are dealing with. One must teach one's own experience so that it becomes a starting point for the students and can thus develop one's own personal practice (svadyaya).
Some people think that the practice of vinyasa is too physical, indeed, very often it's confused as a purely physical activity, like the maximal effort of a sports training.
The chaturanga series in the Suryanamaskar often scares, makes one sweat, tired, it's hard to deal with. Then, perhaps, paradoxically, we are passionate about workshops based on suspension arms and extreme inversions. Does this make sense? How do you think you can mange so-called advanced postures if you don't have the humility to face up the basics of the practice?
An advanced practice is not to do acrobatics. An advanced practice finds its consistency in the awareness of one's breath.
I think very often the approach is wrong (I made the same mistake!).
We must not work only with the body. We must work - as Prashant Iyengar states in his text "Alpha & Omega of Trikonasana" - with body, mind, breath and senses to educate body, mind, breath and senses. In this sense yoga is a heuristic discipline.
Attention to the breath is essential.
One breath. One movement.
This is the motto I was taught and I try to transmit during my classes. Work more with the breath than muscles, expand the posture from the inside out and try not to do the asana, but to become the asana.
This is the key that will change your practice, which will make you more aware, which will allow you to transform your experience from physical to spiritual, because - as is well known - yoga means union. Union of body and mind and, on a deeper level, union of mind and soul.
We travel from the physical body (Annamayakosha), through the use of breath (Pranamayakosha), to the mind (Manomayakosha). The purpose of yoga is meditation, and we cannot sit for long time in meditation if the body is not strong and healthy enough.
Nobody gives us nothing. Yoga requires discipline, sacrifice and effort. On the other hand, the same thing happens inr life. Facing postures and learning to stay comfortable and stable (shtira sukham asanam) means abandoning ego, it means learning to accept our limits by turning them into strong points. In the same way we will then face the situations of life, we will learn to remain comfortable and stable, we will learn to change what we do not like (because yoga will inevitably bring changes!) and to accept what we cannot change.
Finally, it must be remembered that at the base of the practice there are some fundamental principles: ahimsha (non-violence), satya (honesty), asteya (not stealing), bramacharya (control of the senses), karuna (compassion), maitri (benevolence).
Principles that should be applied in everyday life and that are far more complicated than a posture (especially in an era like ours)!
The asanas are the simplest part of the whole practice, what matters is the inner journey that we take when we are on the mat, what counts are our thoughts, our words and the actions we will perform in everyday life .
This is what differentiates a yogi from a person who does yoga.
As long as you want to try, as long as you know how to get up when you fall, you will succeed.
(Paramahansa Yogananda)