Many instructors offer this as a tool at the beginning of the class, often along with a poem, a quote, a story, or a suggestion for what your intention could be. But no one ever really talks about what an intention actually is.

The Purpose of Intention

Considering we’re still in January, it is a good time to revisit the purpose of setting intentions. Back in 2015, I ran a 21-day healthy habit building challenge that talked about the importance of setting intentions. It’s a great introductory post to setting intentions, but here I’m going to dive deeper.

An intention can guide you back to the present moment. Intentions are not goals. You can achieve a goal but intentions are embodied and integrated in all the layers of your Self. Intentions can be adapted because it’s not about the outcome but how you show up in your action.

How to Set an Intention

The first step towards setting an intention is to get quiet and still. Take a deep breath, do some simple movements to release stored energy in the body and take a few moments to listen deeply to what your body, mind, and senses are trying to tell you.

Ask yourself what you most need. Watch to see if an answer seems to appear spontaneously without you having to analyze too much.

If nothing comes, ask yourself why you showed up on your yoga mat in the first place. Is there something you’ve been searching for?

Try to boil your intention down to one word or one short phrase that is easy to remember. Peace, Love, Quiet, Truth, Breath, Strength, etc. are all great examples. Feeling words tend to be easier for the mind to comprehend.

How to use your intentions throughout class

When you set an intention at the beginning of an asana class, you are choosing to focus on a particular way of being. If you find yourself feeling other than how you wish to be, then your intention can help you customize a yoga posture to fit your needs.

It’s common to set an intention at the beginning of class and then not even remember what it was by the end. If this is the case, the intention you chose is probably not that meaningful to you.

Throughout class, during every posture, every breath, every transition, you can ask yourself if you are embodying your word or phrase.

This is the part that tricked up one of my students. He was trying to reconcile setting an intention for say, peace, and then trying to push himself into and through difficult postures. My suggestion to him was to customize the posture so to help him achieve more peace, but that way of thinking was almost foreign to him. That’s because, it’s more common to hear suggestions such as “push to your edge,” “take one more breath,” or “do XYZ so that you don’t tear your muscles, ligaments, tendons,” etc. While that language does have it’s place in certain circumstances, the beauty of a group yoga class is that everyone can be doing the same physical posture but with a different intention. If one person’s intention is strength, their individual expression will be quite different from the person who’s intention is peace. And that is okay! This is how intention guides your personal practice. This is how you know when it’s okay to go a little further and when it’s time to back off.

A Word on Sankalpa

There is a Sanskrit word called sankalpa that often gets translated as intention. If you set an intention at the beginning of every class, that intention naturally adapts to your changing needs. Sankalpa, on the other hand, is a larger intention you wish to live your life by. Values such as peace, love and strength are good intentions but, on any given day, you might not feel strong, for example. Sometimes, we need to feel supported too.

That is why setting a Sankalpa is important. It is an exercise in understanding our deepest values and desires. It is a vow that we are determined to keep not because we are trying to change something about ourselves but because we need to be reminded every once in a while about our deepest held beliefs and desires and the importance of aligning with them.

A Sankalpa is often more than one word or phrase, but a short sentence — a declaration. Our Sankalpa is beyond the ego and mind. It comes from the heart.

Sankalpas can change over time too. The lifespan of a Sankalpa is best measured on the scale of months and years unlike intention that are usually meant for a few days to a few weeks at the most.

As you practice setting intentions, notice if any patterns arise. Are there intentions that keep popping up over and over again? If so, consider spending some time reflecting on your beliefs and desires and crafting a Sankalpa that you can take with you into every practice. It is possible to have both a Sankalpa, a mantra of sorts, and an intention that changes day-to-day.

Good luck setting your intentions! Remember, it’s called yoga ‘practice’ not yoga perfect.

This blog has been adapted from the original, which appears on the author’s website.

The post How Intentions and Sankalpa Strengthen Your Yoga Practice appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Finding a good yoga teacher, however, is significantly more difficult.

According to a study by the North American Studio Alliance, it was estimated that in 2005, in the US alone, there were 70,000 yoga teachers. The nature of the profession makes it hard to keep track though, as there are no official licensing requirements for yoga instructors. It’s safe to say that number continues to grow at a rapid pace as the popularity of yoga around the world increases. So how can you find a good yoga teacher?

Here are five traits that you should look for in your yoga teachers.

1. Good yoga teachers have good training

Make sure you read your yoga teacher’s bio or ask for it on your first meeting. A good yoga teacher will have trained at a reputable school and will have trained or been influenced by a long list of other teachers. Good yoga teachers are the ones who have studied for a few years at least. Oftentimes, their studies will cross-pollinate with other interests, which allows the teacher to draw on many different experiences to create a solid class plan. A teacher who shares information from his or her own life experiences is one who is more relatable to you as the student and you’ll be able to gain more insight and wisdom from this type of teacher’s classes.

Good yoga teachers are the ones who have studied for a few years at least

2. Good yoga teachers understand how the body and mind work

Anatomy training in many yoga teacher training programmes is suspect at best. The anatomy lectures are not always delivered by someone with a professional background in anatomy and it’s often glossed over so that everyone can get on to the ‘good stuff’ in training. But understanding anatomy is so important for a yoga teacher to help his or her students truly find liberation in their bodies. At the same time, understanding how the mind and body connect through the central nervous system and how emotions play such a large role in our experience as human beings is essential to delivering a well-rounded yoga class that is profoundly healing on multiple levels. It’s not just about the body or the mind or the soul. Yoga is the union of all three after all.

You’ll be able to tell quickly once you’re in an instructor’s class if they understand anatomy by how they cue you into a pose.

3. Good yoga teachers are eager to create a connection

Good yoga teachers genuinely care. They want you to feel better and experience the many benefits of yoga. If your yoga teacher doesn’t want to talk to you before or after class or if they are not forthcoming in answering your questions about yoga, then find a new one who will.

4. Good yoga teachers are students first and foremost

Good yoga teachers maintain their personal practice. Do you see your yoga teacher practising in the studio where he or she teaches? Teachers, just like any other professional, need to be continuously inspired to stay on top of their game. For most, inspiration comes from taking classes, reading about yoga, and experiencing the practice first hand. If you never see your yoga teacher except for when you’re in the confines of the classroom, then she may struggle to find inspiration and motivation to continuously deliver awesome classes.

Anatomy training in many yoga teacher training programmes is suspect at best

5. Good yoga teachers are motivated

In some places in the world, yoga has a bad reputation as being a practice for hippies who just want to spread the message of love and peace. A good yoga teacher who is passionate about what he or she does has to also be super motivated to achieve in today’s modern economy.

The truth of the matter is it’s hard to make a living as a yoga teacher and live comfortably in the 21^st century. Truly good teachers need to figure out how to capitalise on their talents so that they can share more yoga with the world. If they can’t figure this out, they’ll most likely find a new career and the world will lose out on what they have to share.

This isn’t to say that only full-time yoga teachers are good; however, good part-time teachers are also probably very successful in their other careers because they’re motivated to be the best in everything they do. Good yoga teachers are often seeking mastery after all, just like the rest of us.

If you notice your teacher is always trying to improve, offering new classes, retreats, and programmes and passionate about sharing the practice with you in many ways, then you know you’ve found someone motivated to share their talents. Just remember to be on the lookout for the other merits of a good yoga teacher mentioned above. There are plenty of highly motivated people out there just looking to make a buck in a successful industry.

Bonus tip: Trust Your Gut

You’ll get more from your practice if you genuinely like your yoga teacher. Just like anyone else you meet, you either get along with them or you don’t. Not everyone’s teaching style will resonate with you and that’s fine. Find the teacher you like and you’ll enjoy your practice.

The post In search of the perfect yoga teacher appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.