Why an Experienced Yoga Teacher Keeps Practicing
- nawaldoucette
- Jul 7
- 5 min read
Recently I earned my E-RYT 500 designation. Woooooo!
On paper, it’s another certification. Another acronym. Another milestone.
Behind those letters are hundreds of hours of formal education, thousands of hours of teaching, and nearly two decades of showing up to my mat through seasons of inspiration, grief, travel, injury, growth, celebration, and everything in between.
The designation itself isn’t what matters most to me.
What matters is what those years have taught me.
If you look at my social media, yoga isn’t plastered all over it. It isn’t my identity. Never has been. You won’t find me chasing impossible poses or building a brand around looking like the perfect yoga teacher.
Because that was never why I began.
I started yoga because my back pain.
Most people who know me personally know I’ve lived with chronic back problems for most of my life. Pain has been a familiar companion for many years. Some days are easy. Some days aren’t.
Even as I write this, I’m hunched down in one of my New Brunswick stays, waiting for my flight to Montreal this afternoon. I’m already thinking about the toll that twenty hours of flying from the Middle East to Eastern Canada takes on my back. This past week, I made sure to stay somewhere I could practice Yoga and train other methods that help relieve the tension and keep me functional. This is the reality of my body—and exactly why I continue to practice.
Without my practice, I have no doubt I would be living in a much different physical—and mental—state today.
Yoga became the system that continually brought me back to myself.
It taught me how to breathe when I wanted to tense.
How to lengthen against gravity instead of collapsing into it.
How to notice my body before it screamed for attention.
How to move intelligently instead of forcefully.
Over time, it became far more than stretching.
It became maintenance.
And honestly, that’s what I think yoga is.
Not performance.
Not aesthetics.
Maintenance for being human.
We spend so much energy trying to optimize ourselves.
Gotta grow my glutes!
Train my core!
Hit my protein!
Count calories or macros?
Take this supplement?
Try that peptide?
Follow this new trend?
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things. I enjoy learning about performance, longevity, nutrition, and movement as much as anyone.
But we also live in an age of overwhelming information.
Sometimes the greatest gift is returning to a simple system that has stood the test of time.
For me, yoga has always been that system.
Religion aside.
Philosophy aside.
It is simply a structured way to reconnect with the body.
To breathe.
To become aware.
To remember that before we are entrepreneurs, artists, parents, athletes, performers, or professionals, we are bioelectric animals living inside remarkable bodies that require care.
We aren’t machines.
As much as we’d like to produce more, achieve more, level up, conquer, and constantly expand, our nervous systems still need regulation.
Our joints still need movement.
Our breath still matters.
That has never changed.
People often ask me how I maintain a lifestyle that has taken me around the world.
The answer isn’t glamorous.
This year alone I’ve spent months traveling between countries. Hotel rooms. Guest rooms. Airports. Tiny apartments. Different beds every few days.
No matter where I am, I know I can find enough room to stand.
To sit.
To squat.
To breathe.
Sometimes that’s all I need.
Yoga has become the one constant in a life filled with beautiful unpredictability.
It grounds me wherever I happen to be.
When I teach, I’m not trying to create Instagram yoga teachers.
I’m interested in creating thoughtful teachers.
People who understand bodies.
People who know how to observe before they instruct.
People who can adapt instead of simply repeating cues they memorized.
Everything I teach has been shaped not only through my own teachers, but through nearly twenty years of embodied experience.
I’ve refined it through thousands of teaching hours.
I’ve modified it working with children, adults, seniors, complete beginners, athletes, dancers, and people recovering from injury.
My background extends beyond yoga into dance, ritual movement, somatic exploration, coaching, and cultural studies, but again and again I return to the same place:
Breath.
Awareness.
Bones.
Before we explore choreography, philosophy, strength training, flexibility, or complex movement patterns, we reconnect to the body itself.
Because every practice is built upon that foundation.
If you’re considering beginning your yoga journey, there is no wrong place to start.
Earlier this year I shared a free 28-Day Yoga Habit series filled with small, actionable practices.
Some days were only a mindset reflection.
Other days were five or ten minutes of movement.
The point wasn’t perfection.
It was consistency.
Small practices repeated over time become transformation.
If you’re feeling disconnected from your body, that’s still where I’d recommend beginning.
Not with advanced poses.
Not with expensive equipment.
Not by trying to become someone else.
Simply by becoming more familiar with yourself.
People often ask me why I continue teaching after all these years.
The answer is simple.
Because it works.
Even when someone comes to me for coaching…
For dance…
For movement mentorship…
For performance…
We almost always begin in the same place.
Breath.
Awareness.
The body.
I’ve watched this process change lives too many times to dismiss it as just another wellness trend.
There is something else yoga has quietly taught me.
Every day feels like a small act of resistance against gravity.
Against time.
Against aging.
We all know how the story ends.
None of us outrun time forever.
But perhaps that isn’t the point.
The point is that life continually reaches upward anyway.
A blade of grass pushes through concrete.
It gets stepped on.
Bent.
Buried beneath dirt.
And somehow, with every bit of life it possesses, it turns itself toward the light once again.
Maybe our practice is the same.
Not because we expect perfection.
Not because we believe we’ll someday arrive.
But because reaching toward vitality is part of being alive.
If this philosophy resonates with you, there are many ways we can work together.
My 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training is offered fully online, with the option to complete your studies during a 10-day retreat in Egypt (2027 dates coming soon).
For teachers ready to go deeper, my 300-Hour Advanced Teacher Training is currently in development, bringing together advanced teaching methodology with the movement systems I've spent two decades refining through yoga, dance, ritual, and cultural immersion.
Beyond teacher trainings, I continue to offer one-on-one mentorship, coaching, workshops, and movement retreats around the world.
Whether you're hoping to teach, move with less pain, reconnect with your body, or simply build a practice that can travel through every season of life with you, I'd love to be part of that conversation.
Movement has shaped my life. Perhaps it's time to see what it can shape in yours.
Nawal
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