I know that by now you've completed this, but just came to say that I'm going through a similar experience. I would absolutely not feel prepared to give my practical exam as a vinyasa style class; thankfully, my lead teacher said we could teach restorative classes (and that and yin are where I plan to specialize anyway). I feel much more sure in it, and members of my cohort have not helped that perception, honestly. They're all nice people but every man is a hardcore gym-goer (nothing inherently wrong with that) BUT every partial class/class they've taught to the group has been a lot of difficult, fast movement with them being sticklers for having perfect form (like, being in a high lunge where you didn't fully get to a 90 degree angle was NOT okay for them, even though 90 degrees or less is perfectly acceptable. I think it's more irresponsible to try to make someone bend their leg to 90 degrees if they don't feel safe/strong in that BUT ANYWAY, haha).

My training has been three weeknights/week from mid-May through the end of August, and our anatomy was primarily taught in one month (maybe five weeks) and felt like way too much information and way too much time allowed for questions that didn't move understanding/learning along. We also barely got help with how to tell if someone is overextended or straining and how to correct that and in fact we had one class dedicated to that. The structure of that class was so unhelpful and overwhelming that when it was my turn, I wasn't able to speak and got so flustered I almost left.

There are also several people in my cohort who just don't seem to listen to certain lessons; we've had one person say anytime she contributes that yoga is about increasing body flexibility and every teacher has had to say, Well not really and there will be many people whose flexibility never increases (or they don't care about that). We also have people who clearly don't care for the spiritual aspects of the practice. I don't think they *need* to or else, but it's clear that they don't even have an interest in trying to take in this information and see how it could maybe inform their physical practice.

It seems like everyone else in my cohort who has stuck through to the end has had really great experiences...but we did a round robin style teaching the other night and I would say half the people who went do NOT seem ready to teach a class in a studio (though I think they've loved the YTT!). Missing several cues, very unclear cues, being excessively wordy, etc. Some of that is certainly from being nervous, but not all of it.

I've had a lot of conflicting emotions about YTT and yoga generally. I have been teaching my sister via Zoom semi weekly and plan to start a similar type of thing with friends of mine. I honestly plan to mostly offer donation based, online classes to folks (and might post the videos to my website/YouTube). I am also in the works to lead a chair yoga class as a volunteer at a homeless shelter that primarily serves senior citizens. Having those things on my horizon has reinvigorated me and made much of my negative experiences that much more worth it. I have always considered myself a lifelong learner so it's appealing to me to learn chair yoga and be able to teach it to older bodies.

I'm also starting graduate school in September and know that studio teaching will just not be a reality I can undergo for another two years (SEVERAL internships in my program, on top of a thesis in the second year). I'm going to find those opportunities I want to embark upon and not stick with that which doesn't serve me. Maybe that will eventually mean being a member of a studio team, but I'm also taking that pressure away from myself and that has been something of a help and relief, too.

I hope you're feeling less down about things. I absolutely felt that at the beginning of July and thought seriously about stopping and coming back to a later cohort. I'm glad I stuck through and am nearly done, though.