My biggest challenge has been with identity. Being an Executive Director and Yoga Instructor for the yoga school gave me first hand experience as to how I was portrayed as a person. Furthermore, I also learned what the expectations were from me in two positions of power, and as a man, that do not favor each other. The Executive Director position holds expectations that are very black and white, like in a corporate position. Whereas, being a Yoga Teacher - life is much more colorful, and embracing the yoga philosophies that were life saving for me posed a challenge to be upheld, while also remaining professional. This was my biggest challenge. When a stranger is starting small talk, I rarely answer the question 'What do you do for living?' with 'I'm a yoga teacher'. The moment I did that, is the moment an opinion is formed. The challenge of being a yoga instructor is to be comfortable being yourself - to everyone and anyone! There are common challenges that all yoga instructor's face, like sequencing, physical adjustments, teaching safely, understanding anatomy and how each student fits into the poses being cued in a class. These are all pretty normal and will be less of a challenge with more experience teaching. Every teacher wants lots of students, and to see the smiles and good feedback from students to re-affirm that what we are teaching them, is what they want, and that it's helping. But one of the biggest challenges for teachers is knowing how to teach to every body that comes into the room. And here's what I mean by that - not every pose is supposed to look the same in each person's body. Sure we all have the same bones, but they are not all shaped exactly the same. Every student has their own individual physical limitations and not one person's is the same as the other. So it was challenging to be conscious enough to see if a student is really forcing themself into a pose to make it look like someone else's, while reading the room for the entire length of a class. I learned to give options and variations, and most importantly, remind students to take Child's pose anytime In fact, I remind students that, the first person who takes child's pose in my class - is basically the coolest person in the room. Why? Because they just made it Okay, and safe enough, to be the first person who is comfortable taking rest in a room where, sometimes, people feel competition. Basically, what I learned is - to always be a student of teaching.