Teacher Training Insights: Finding your personal power

By: Amy Morcom, recent teacher training graduate 

Right now I’m sitting in my old room at my parents’ place in Sydney, wearing my favourite yoga leggings, listening to the “Namaste” playlist on Spotify, and burning some incense that a waiter at Dishoom gave me. I’m trying to get in the yoga zone and transpose what was such a big part of my London life to Sydney, where my partner and I have just moved back to after two and a half years in London. I’m trying to calm down, to tap back into Lumi Power Yoga to channel vibes from my happy place, because I’m feeling slightly sweaty and slightly panicky – and only one of those is due to the humidity here. This was a big move for us and I am nervous because from mid-March, I have no work lined up and no clear path I want to pursue – except for a new possibility, yoga teaching.

I completed my Teacher Training at Lumi Power Yoga in Autumn 2015 and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I had been living in London since 2013, practising at Lumi since 2014 and began the training knowing I would most likely have to move back to Australia at the end of the year. This teacher training fell at the perfect time for me: it not only gave me an internationally transferrable qualification to do something I love, but also developed my ability to understand and appreciate myself, and has left me with tangible tools to manage my experiences and reactions to them – to deal with this fear I’m currently feeling.

I knew instinctively that I wanted to complete the teacher training at Lumi with Ari and Elina as soon as it was announced in early 2015. I was magnetised to Lumi already, as a place where I felt at home, safe to be me, to try things out, to switch off and just be. I want to be the kind of teacher who can offer that to others, so I wanted to train with those whom I consider to be the masters! I knew in my gut that their training would enable me to teach and connect to people anywhere in the world, and it delivered above and beyond my expectations. From the outset, I felt inspired and alive.

The training was intense, stimulating, and practical from day one. It was physical, emotional, intellectual, and so holistically nourishing in way I can’t remember experiencing in a long time. In addition to offering the necessary framework of sequence, alignment, anatomy, history and philosophy, Lumi’s training takes you to the next level by teaching you to access your personal power. Lumi offers a magic ingredient the lifts the training experience beyond the ordinary and offers something unique. The people are extraordinary, the connections created are electric and inspiring, and the way we have been trained to teach is energising and empowering, as teachers and for the students. We have learned to supplement the core of our yoga teaching with our personalities, to infuse them with soul, learning how to be the authentic version of ourselves so we can create space where others feel they can do the same in our classes. We have learned the importance of really seeing people, and supporting their world of possibilities. We have learned the value of community.

I already miss the brilliant Lumi community, the energising environment and the excellent people at the studio. I ache to be able to practice and teach with my fellow trainees. We shared our stories, our goals, our anxieties. We drilled and quizzed and helped each other. We held each other up, both physically and emotionally! We shed our baggage and exposed who we really are. We did in fact laugh and cry together, and were a part of each other’s evolution.

However, the thing I most miss – that rich community – is the very thing that is driving me to get teaching in my new home and to approach this move from a space of possibility and positivity. We witnessed each other’s dawning self-belief and transformation into teachers and leaders, and we will hold each other to account at any hint of drooping confidence! I know my fellow graduates believe I can do it, just as I believe fully that they can. Elina and Ari and my classmates taught me to hold strong to my belief in myself and gave me so many tools that there are no grounds for doubt, no room for excuses. We graduated 100% ready to step straight into a studio and teach a powerful, safe and accessible yoga class.

All the incense, leggings and music won’t give me the courage or power to make meaningful things happen in my life; but what I learned about yoga and about myself from my teacher training at Lumi will. I’m still nervous about restarting my life here, about launching into my yoga career, but because of Lumi I know that I have what it takes to teach and live powerfully.

The Lumi Teacher Training Spring session is starting on 29 April. Be sure to register on our website here. And stay tuned for more Teacher Training Insights  from recent grads!