THE LEAST QUALIFIED PERSON IN THE ROOM

Day One of Pilates Teacher Training, everyone is terrified.

Not visibly terrified, usually. Trainees arrive looking perfectly composed, coffee in one hand and giant water bottle in the other. They introduce themselves, talk about their Pilates experience, compare notes, and generally appear to have it all together.

Then I look a little closer and see the coffee quaking in its cup like the Jello in Jurassic Park.

After four cohorts of teacher training, I've noticed a pattern. At some point during the program, almost everyone becomes convinced that they are the least qualified person in the room, and that everyone else belongs there more than they do.

But if I could collect their worries on little folded up scraps of paper and mix them up in a Yankees cap, nobody would know whose was whose when I read them out loud. 

I don't know enough. I've never done anything like this before. Everyone else seems more prepared. What if I suck?

As it turns out, a surprising amount of teacher training has very little to do with learning exercises (don’t get me wrong - the exercises are very important) and a lot to do with being willing to be bad at something for a while.

Writer-career coach-shaman-mom multi-hyphenate Mandy Tang has been one of my closest friends since seventh grade. She's one of the funniest/smartest/wisest people I’ve ever known, and for more than three decades she's been the person I go to when I need advice, perspective, or someone to tell me when I'm being ridiculous. She just published her first book, Heal Your Career Wounds, (shameless bestie plug) and this passage stopped me in my tracks:

"Here's the secret - in order to get good at something, in order to be truly excellent, at first you must persist through the valley of being just okay at it. You have to stick through things and go through your ugly duckling phase where you're stumbling and wobbly and kind of messing up.

Growth requires that all of this happens, in front of other people, no less, and that you sit with and accept your own limitations.

Do not let the fact that you are not immediately excellent at everything stop you from going after what you deserve."

That's the thing people are actually afraid of. Not the course load or the hard work. But being seen while they're learning. Being seen before they're excellent. Being seen while they're still figuring it out.

But every teacher I know, every person I've ever admired, every skill I've ever learned myself has required exactly that phase. The un-cute, wobbly phase. Nobody skips it. The people who succeed are just the ones who stick around long enough to get through it.

If you've been considering teacher training, or if you're already enrolled and have questions before we begin, Gloria, Luna, and I will be hosting a Zoom Q&A on Tuesday, June 23rd at 7:00 PM.

Come ask us anything.

And if you're sitting there thinking everyone else probably feels more prepared than you do, I can almost guarantee that's not true.

There are currently three spots remaining in our EYT Comprehensive Pilates Teacher Training Program.

You don't need to have it all figured out before you start. You just need to be willing to be a beginner.