Your Ideal Teacher Self

Welcome back. How did you enjoy revisiting, refining and working on your inner beliefs and truths about [inaudible] yourself and the the subject of [inaudible] teaching? If you are a teacher, what was it like to teach with that at the forefront before you started remembering how great it was to be taught, how important it is to teach this subject. I hope you felt good doing that. Today we're going to start exploring your ideal teachers self.

What kind of a teacher do you really want to be? You know we all have multiple of emotions and experiences running through us all the time and we all have our high self, what I like to call the high self and the low stuff. You know that type of person that maybe you really don't like very much. And then there's the type of person you are when you are at your best. You really like everything about yourself and yes, that's it. So this is about exploring who you want to be and what kind of a teacher do you want to be.

There is a marvelous quote by Maya Angelou that I love and would like to share with you right now. People will forget what you say. Forget what you do, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Isn't that true? This cuts to the chase about human relations feel, feel, feel, you know, I was with them and it felt great. I love this. This is a very, very primal and key element of what you resonate with and who you want to be.

What do you want to make other people feel? And I like to reflect on the fact that in the field of [inaudible] or exercise in general, this is a double edged sword because you are also making people feel with their bodies, feel sensations and qualities and capacities that maybe they never felt before. You're really bringing life back into them if you teach exercise. But beyond that it's how they feel emotionally. So this is very key.

We've all had teachers that affected us deeply. People that affected and inspired us made a difference in our lives. And I would like you to reflect on the kind of teachers that did this for you. In a moment. I would like to share with you an example of a teacher that had a profound effect on me in my life. Uh, she really marked and changed me and I bring this up because as a teacher you have this to really influence people.

You are actually being an educator and this is an honorable, an important job and you want to really understand how valuable it can be. So there are people that really changed your life, changed the trajectory of your life with their influence. In my case, I was a ballet dancer. I was, I'm originally from Israel and as a teenager I went to London to study ballet. I was very, very dedicated. But the sad part was I wasn't very talented and I wasn't very good and I really knew it. I turned up to all the classes, I worked very hard. I was stumbling around at the back of the class.

I was not interesting and more than that, I was emotionally tied up and a, and I had no talent. I was definitely not the kind of person that if you go to an audition, they would say, I wanted that person and no teacher that would say very nice, good job, made a difference because I knew I wasn't good and they knew I wasn't good, so I was quite depressed about it. To be honest, deep down inside, a new teacher turned up at the center. I took classes. She had a very bizarre and negative reputation. She was from Russia. First of all, she screamed nonstop from beginning of class to the end. I heard that she would rip apart everybody's technical abilities and if you took her class, it would be on your back for a week.

And I decided that I needed drastic measures because I was going nowhere very, very slowly. So I turn up at this teacher's class and true to form. She shouted at all of us. There were only six of us who went to her class and she was really asking us to do this, asking us to do that. And at the end of classes, it's moment where you're supposed to do what's called big jumps in ballet. You go across the floor and you do this combination, and I'm standing there and she looked at me and she went, you, she screamed. You have so much talent and you are using 0% and at that moment I died and went to heaven. I've told this story and some people say what a nasty thing to say, but no, it was the truth. I wasn't talented.

No one could see anything about me. But she recognized that I had talent. She saw in me what I dreamed that I had in myself. And from that point on I thrived with this teacher. I went to every class, I did everything she told me, and she transformed me.

In six months I went into a level of talent and ability that I dreamed of having those years before. So she changed my life. She saw something and she gave me the skill to do it. All of us have teachers that impact us and even if they're not at the forefront for you, you even have maybe people now on the Internet that deeply affect you, talk to you and inspire you. So I would like you to make a list. Have a look at your life. Who is it that really affected you?

Who inspired you? Who raised the bar for you, who opened up something in you that was not there before was dormant. So pause the video now and write down all these moments or these people or these mentors that came across your path and mark your life. [inaudible] all right. Now let's go a little bit deeper. Look at this list. You've just created these people that affected you in some way and let's dig and deconstruct what was it about them?

What impacted you? What was it? Was it what they said it was? How they looked at you? Was it the, the way they were? What was different there? What did they see in you? What's the wisdom here? There is something. There's a formula. There were moments. So as much as you can see, if you can really pinpoint these qualities.

In the case of my teacher, she first of all recognized the spirit and the desire, this deep, deep hunger in me for something I didn't think I could do. And then she very specifically gave me steps. She was actually very technical and very, um, mechanical and very basic. So in her case, she was a technical monster. Yeah, I don't have another way of putting it. And she could articulate with great detail and she could with her hands, put my body where she wanted me to be. Those were her qualities. I loved them. I will die for them.

So please pause the video now have a look at your list. This is your life. These are the people that touched an impact. You, what was special about them? How did they do it? What happened there? Um, now that you look there at these qualities that these different ingredients that made up these moments for you, can you see that this aligned somehow with what you believe, believe about [inaudible] believe about movement. Believe about exercise. Believe about yourself.

There is a link between how they were and what you believe. So let's go even deeper about all of this because you also have teachers. You did not resonate with people that you couldn't wait to get away from. You were not inspired by them. There's the negative or the dark side of the bright side, and we have a lot to learn in that area as well.

An example that I can bring from my past, I was in the ballet world extensively. A lot of teachers were very critical. They look at you and they come over and they touch you and move your body into the right place so they'd slap you in a way that made me feel very ugly. I had a lot of insecurities about myself. I was very apologetic about myself.

I was very uncomfortable in my own body and they accentuated that in me and made me feel discomfort and embarrassment and ashamed of myself and my inabilities. So these are qualities that I did not admire. I to this day, don't admire them. So this is gold. This is gold in the rough. And I would like you to pause the video now.

Enlist moments and times that you had really negative experiences with teachers because you can take a lot from that [inaudible] have a look at these lists of teachers or moments in time in your past and experiences that bore in the negative people, teachers that made you uncomfortable and look at what you did not like or did not approve of and how would you do it differently? What kind of teacher do you want to be that would not make those sort of mistakes? So for example, for me, I want everybody to feel beautiful. I want them to feel that they are willing to have their physical process of learning completely safe, welcomed. I want people to enjoy discovering how to use their body better and being completely unconscious or like I'm comfortable with the fact that they're beginner and they don't know and they're doing things badly. This is fine. It's wonderful that they're here and I am very aware in alert that no one is uncomfortable about their physicality as a teacher.

Cause I never want my students to experience those moments the way I had them when I went through being a student myself. So take a moment now and put together a blueprint, taking all the good out of the teachers that made a difference for you and taking the opposite of what you didn't like from the negative people and create a blueprint of what you consider an ideal teacher. This is to great extent, something that you want to aspire towards. And we're going to look at that even more closely in a minute. So pause the video and write down your first draft of a vision of a blueprint for the vision for your ideal teacher self [inaudible].

Wonderful. You are starting to design this blueprint for the type of teacher you want to be. Do you notice that there is a harmonic and a relationship with what you believe linked into the quality's there? It's magical. So let's just connect with us on an even deeper level. We'd like you to close your eyes and imagine being this teacher with all of these qualities that you've written down about what you would admired. How would you sound? What would you look like?

What kind of qualities would you be having with your students? So I hope your eyes are closed right now and you're feeling, what's it like to be this kind of a teacher? What kind of reaction and impact are you having on your students? How are they responding back to you? How do you hold your body? How do you feel?

What sort of inspiration is motivating you? And there isn't. Maybe you're being very restorative and calm and loving. Maybe you're being very bootcampy. Whatever is true for you as far as these qualities. This is what you want to be having as an ideal, as a vision and inspiration. So feel into it, see it, hear the sounds of it, make it your own.

And now take a deep breath in. Take all these wonderful sensory qualities. Place them in your heart. You are growing and embodying them with this process. Breathe out and open your eyes.

And I know as you go through this process, you may have some negative self talk going on. You may have some criticism or you may feel ridiculous. What a fake I am. What an imposter. That's stupid. I don't believe I can be that kind of a person. We all haven't kind of talk going on inside of us all the time.

We're part of the time and very important that you learn to navigate this inner world of yours and actually have a constructive relationship so that you the visionary or the boss over this chaos of occasional dances out of the road, you're walking down to be a thriving teacher. So a wonderful technique I love to apply to myself is called killing ads. Whenever I'm feeling like I'm not good enough, I go out and kill some ants. No, just joking and stands for an acronym, a. N, t. S a stands for automatic and sends for negative t stands for thoughts and es stands for self-talk.

Automatic negative thoughts, self talk. So what are you going to do when this is going on inside of you? You will do some magic and magic. Abracadabra. And that too is an acronym. Abra. A stands for acknowledge.

Notice that this is going on. Acknowledge it. Don't resist it. Just recognize it. B, breathe into that place inside of you that's having this turmoil and discomfort in an XT. Breathe in also what you believe is really true about you, about what's going on, about your intention, about the type of person you want to be in your aligning with our release. Release the negativity. Let it go. Let it pass on and a align come back to center.

Come back to what's true for you. Come back to what you believe. So this is just a little skill that will help you navigate these waters because you know we all are human. We all have self doubts, we all have insecurities and participation and one step after the others. What's going to get you there? So fun progress exercises for you to do to progress yourself before our next lesson. Revisit everything you wrote down, refine it, work on it. Put some more thought into it. Make it for yourself.

The more you spend time now designing it in a blueprint for yourself as your ideal teacher self, the more it will come to pass. You want to also spend time connecting with this emotionally just like we did. What does it feel like to be this kind of a teacher? Very important. The more time you put in on this part, the quicker it's going to happen. You're going to turn up and be that person before you know it.

Kill ants whenever you have doubts coming on your way and of course if you're going to teach, if you're already teaching, step into this before you teach, step into being this high teacher self that you would admire and want to become. You may find it's happening right now and most importantly post and share what you're finding out with the community. Read what they have to say. You may find qualities other people are posting that you want. Yes, I want to be that kind of a person as well. This were Rick. Enrich a personality in ritual, character, character, personality, ideal teacher self is something we work on. It does not happen by the grace of God.

It's by the grace of our sweat, creativity and choosing consciously we want to be so I have fun with this. I can't wait to see what you share and see you in the next lesson. In the next lesson, we're going to start looking into how to make you be the center of your life. You apply what you care about. See you then.