Why your are not just a yoga teacher or instructor but a Master?

I heard lately that we ought to call ourselves Masters and not just teacher or instructors of Yoga. Seriously! ok really calling myself a Yoga Master sounded presumptuous, really pompous. I started looking up the dictionary for the academic definition of an Instructor, Teacher and Master . So it says that an instructor is someone who teaches arranges something. A teacher is according to the thesaurus an educator, an instructor, a master, a governess, an educationist, a preceptor, a coach, a trainer, a lecturer, a professor, a mentor, a guru, … more and more pretty words that maid me more confused. A master is defined among other things as an expert, someone who has mastered a subject or discipline, he is a leader, a guide, a guru. At this stage I really felt that labeling myself as a Master was not appropriate. So why did I heard such a thing? I did not made it up but I knew deep down that it had been said and heard for a purpose. So I started googling it and there I came to my answer. The thing is that I looked at the meaning of the words from an outside perspective and not from my own and for myself. In fact it doesn’t really matter how the world perceive me when I call myself, a teacher, instructor , guru or master; what matters is how I perceive myself because in the end I am all of the above not to others but to myself. My 1st and foremost priority is to be those to me and me only. The definition I came upon states: “Essentially, a Master is a liberated being. Such a one is a master of himself–not of others” . I am a Yoga Master because I am Master of myself in my yoga practice. I do not pretend to Master anybody else but myself  in my Yoga practice. We am an expert of the self… I would even say that we are the best expert available for the self. Each and everyone are the only true Masters (of themselves) available to lead them to liberation and attain the Supreme that lies within themselves. So here I am:
“HELLO MY NAME IS NANCY AND I AM A YOGA MASTER”
At Tirisula Yoga School we were not just taught to be organizers of asanas, or just teachers of yoga asanas. We were taught to be Masters of ourselves. We meet with the self. We teach for us and not for others because trough our teaching this is how we teach ourselves . We understand that each body, each mind has its own Supreme Individual Uniqueness. There is not just one way to get into the asana there is many ways. The technique matters but not as much as the heart we put in it. We learn to embrace differences, it’s ok to have a different body which is less or more flexible, bigger or smaller, taller or shorter then others. Learning and teaching are the same they are an exploration of the self. It is not how you do it  but how you push yourself to do it the best you can:  your intent.
Namaste to all my fellows Yoga Masters 😉 !