I have always thought that the word “should” is one of the harshest words we have in the English language. It’s almost always followed with opinion and judgement. We shouldn’t even use it

And when it comes to yoga, I hear “should” all the time, especially when someone is just starting out:

“How often should I practice?”

“Where should my knee be?”

“Where should I be feeling this?”

“How long should I hold this pose?”

My answer to all of these questions is, it depends.

I realize this can be frustrating when someone really wants an answer that’s an absolute. It might make a teacher sound more knowledgeable if they answer in an absolute like “you should practice one hour a day” or “you should bend your knee 90 degrees.” Thinking in absolutes can help create guidelines and guidelines can make us feel safe.

But the issue with the absolutes, just like the shoulds, is that they can take us further away from the goal of yoga itself.

If one of the goals of continued practice is to know oneself more fully and to be able to participate with the goings on inside, by continuing to rely on outside opinion we might actually be keeping ourselves from that goal.

The biggest issue I see, and this is why I teach the way I teach, is that it also sets up the role of student as the one who doesn’t know and the role of teacher as being the expert.

BUT YOU’RE THE EXPERT OF YOU. A good teacher just helps you see that.

This has been a hard one for me to come to. I’ve taken many trainings where I’ve been told how I should teach:

You should always/never practice along with the group. You should do at least 5 hands-on adjustments per class. You should partner. You should never partner. You should chant in Sanskrit. You should chant in English…and on and on and on.

The first few years of my teaching, I would leave almost every class feeling like I failed because I was continually measuring myself to these shoulds that were coming from outside of me. Because the truth is, if you hear something like “you should always _____” then when you don’t ______, you feel like you’ve failed.

Let’s look at warrior pose as an example. If all we ever hear about warrior pose is where we should have the knee, we might think of the knee angle as one of the goals of the pose which makes it feel successful when we hit the mark. But, it also makes it easy to miss how much more there is to it. Just like with time and practice we see that there’s SO much more to warrior pose than where you place your knee, there’s SO much more to teaching than how many adjustments you give, how modulated your voice is, etc.

Sustained practice will ultimately lead you to knowing yourself, and a sustained practice of teaching also leads you to knowing yourself as a teacher…not as an expert, not even as a leader, but as someone who, as their authentic self with their authentic voice, can create opportunities for others to have revelations about themselves.

Receive the knowledge and trust the guidance and inspiration from outside you, but ultimately how you should practice is defined by you. Your practice is defined by you. And no one should tell you otherwise.