Our Iyengar system of yoga requires that teachers are always growing and venturing into new territory – refining our skills and keeping up with our own practice.
The standards are high. Even after we earn our Iyengar certification, we are required by our national organization to continue our ongoing training.
Transformation is a theme. Process and progress always beat out perfection in a daily practice.
You see this reflected in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and the definition of practice: hard work, self-study and letting go of the fruits of our work (my loose translation of Sutra 2.1).
New students often express surprise at how teachers are able to teach 10 or 15 students, while guiding each student individually.
It’s because of our training! Every few months we attend Teacher Training weekends where 
we study all aspects of yoga. We study philosophy, anatomy, and ethics, and deepen our knowledge of the poses. We ask questions of our senior teachers and receive feedback so we continue to grow.
We practice teaching our peers. Some weekends we are fortunate to have student volunteers from that city. Teaching students we do not know helps us become even more skilled with new and more diverse students. We learn to guide people regardless of their experience-level or many other limitations that might come up.
As teachers, we support students as they discover their limitations in their practice. And we help them to transcend those limitations.
This is parinama (transformation).
The students benefit from their interactions with a teacher. The teacher grows. The students have a lot to teach us.
Tedrah, Amanda and Leah are pictured here at some of our last teacher trainings. We worked on exploring advanced poses and refining the basics in even the simplest pose.
The particular teacher trainings in these pictures are at Audubon Yoga in New Orleans and StudiOm in Jackson, Mississippi. We are studying with Senior Iyengar Yoga Teacher Randy Just.