Integrity

We are all at the moment of closing one year and opening the new, making our resolutions and reflecting on what we learnt from the past. 
Somehow the 2010 was the bit year in my life: I passed from the mat in the corner of the class to the mat in front...as a teacher. This space change brought a lot of new experiences and learning for me. 
One of the most important is about the teacher integrity. Of course it is not obvious to start teach...and I am deeply grateful to all my "students" to give me their trust and their courage to come to the class! I m thankful to Prasad for letting me teach his students during the Canada trip and come' on, you need to have solid plexus to take the class after him! :)

I realized how difficult it can be to go and teach, to share, when I was tired and down. How demanding it is to concentrate few hours s in the row to give my best on mat, out mat. I lived the moment of panic (oh yes): how I will do this? 
And of course, I had also a lot of "You have to..." , "You should not...". Free advices. Comparison. Criticism. I was happy for it as it is always interesting to see some new perspective . It gave me opportunity to answer to myself few questions.

For the while, I believe that the teacher is accountable to his higher Self. He cannot teach to please others. He has to take in consideration specificity of each of his students, and the relationship with the student, if students feels the need and attraction to the path, is going much farer then just 60-90 minutes on the mat. 
As a teacher, I feel true Love and concern for all my students. Some of them will share also in their private life, some of them just come and leave. But I m not here neither to please them, neither to avoid the deeper contact. 

The teacher should give his best, according to the moment in his life, in his day...and let everybody work on themselves, being here when they need. Many will take it, but many will also let it be. The moment for taking, giving and sharing is specific for each of us.

The teacher should protect his students and create a safe environment for the learning...but let them experience independently their own steps. There is not IDEAL situation, environment, moment. Always something happen, but this is the part of the process: learn to stay stable whatever happen. 

And last, but not least, the teacher should stay loyal to his personal integrity. I will not teach like this or like that because somebody is not happy with my teaching or my being. I truly believe that we, as teachers, we have commitment toward ourselves and we are teaching not what we KNOW, but who we ARE. Yes, we have to be flexible, this is what we teach, but we have to keep our Spine straight and whole. Because it is only when we teach who we are, we are in our Heart, in our Truth. And our students feel it..its name is Love :)