The Sword polisher
What is the meaning of life?
Reporter: Yanti, what is the meaning of life?
Yanti Amos: I recently revisited a documentary film about the meticulous craft of a traditional Japanese sword (katana) polisher. His daily work requires immense discipline, patience, and skill to reveal the full character and potential of each sword entrusted to him. Each stroke is an act of reverence and precision, balanced between technique and intuition. This, I realised, mirrors my journey as a yoga teacher, karate sensei, and mentor.
Like the polisher, a teacher’s role is a blend of craft, art, and service. Teaching demands perception, humility, and a profound understanding of the student as an individual. It’s about seeing potential - sometimes hidden behind uncertainty and struggle - and coaxing it forth while honouring the beauty of seeing the “sword” as an ever-evolving work in progress, and in respecting, by definition, that imperfection.
Teaching is both a delicate and intense act of creation, and it is within this duality that I find meaning. As I age as a teacher, I’ve seen in this past year that one of the key skills we hone is judgment. What does the student need to hear right now and how should I deliver those words? How I describe it for Sally the 7-year-old with learning issues or Ellen who has dementia, will be different from the neuroscientist John or the cancer researcher Sue. And so, the subtle acts of discernment continue daily to challenge us in the classroom.
The polisher’s work reminds me, too, of the forge from where the katana is born. The heat must be constant, the rhythm steady, the process unforgiving yet nurturing.
This is akin to the space we create for our students, be it in the dojo or on the yoga mat. We light the fire of curiosity and discipline, guide them through the hammering of fundamentals, and witness the transformation as they shape themselves into something extraordinary.
As a mentor, I have learned that teaching is not only about transmitting knowledge, but about building confidence. It’s about helping instructors develop their unique voice—whether they’re leading the peak pose in a yoga class or teaching a 54-move prearranged karate sequence. It’s about showing them how to step into the immense responsibility of teaching, not just with technical skill, but with clarity, empathy, and using their own choice of words. And perhaps most importantly, it’s about empowering them to sustain themselves, both spiritually and practically, in order to navigate the business side of their vocation. That’s where resilience and persistence can be key.
When we have a free Sunday, my husband and I find solace at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we often find ourselves standing before the “Fudodachi” statue in the Buddhist art section. To us, this imposing figure represents an ideal - a balance of external strength and internal grace. His power lies not just in his physical form but in the hidden discipline reflected in his stance and presence. This duality of strength and subtlety is what we strive to embody and pass on to our students: the ability to be rooted in the earth while reaching for something far beyond the Self.
I’ve found that the essence of teaching is in the layers - the visible and invisible - the external technique and the internal transformation.
Whether mentoring a yoga instructor to create an alignment-based vinyasa sequence, or guiding a karate student toward understanding the mechanics of kata Enpi (the Flight of the Swallow), the work tends to go well beyond the physical. Every time you show up to teach, you set the standard for what kind of ethos you want in your learning environment. Is it one of fear or one of compassion? For me it’s always been about cultivating a relationship with yourself and with others that is steeped in humility, curiosity, and shared growth within a class community.
I often reflect on how teaching connects us to something timeless. As recipients and custodians of lineage - whether it’s yoga, karate, or even the principles of leadership - we become conduits for knowledge that is both ancient and living. This responsibility calls for, not just exacting standards, but it also demands grace, humor, and adaptability. That’s why I take from my personal experience and I am glad to have my decades of professional life as a lawyer, business owner and teacher to fall back on. In telling tales of how I rode the less than glamorous challenges and obstacles of the daily grind, I try to show that growth isn’t linear. Growth is found in the practice, the plateaus, and the perseverance. You have to be able to laugh at yourself at times and not take yourself too seriously. If you share your stories generously, students aren’t afraid to try something and, if at first they don’t succeed, it’s no big deal. There is always tomorrow.
The challenges of running a business, mentoring others, and balancing a personal practice with professional obligations are as much a part of the journey as the joy of teaching itself. Like the sword in the fire, it’s in the heat of the seemingly messy moments - the crucible of missed steps, the difficult questions, the creative blocks - that we often find the greatest opportunities for growth. The direction we take our challenges can often surprise us. And through all the frustrations, the quiet certainty of purpose sustains us. The belief that what we do matters, not just to us, but to those we teach and to the sacredness of the traditions we uphold.
The meaning of my life as a teacher lies in this interplay of giving and receiving, striving and yielding, being beaten down and getting up again. It’s a life lived in service of others, yes, but also in service of something larger: a shared journey of discovery, discipline, and connection to the ideas of our teachers and our teachers’ teachers. It’s both as simple and as complex as that.
In the dojo, on the mat, and in the studio, we are both teachers and students simultaneously. This hybrid existence is not just a vocation, it is a calling. It’s what connects us to the divine spark within ourselves and in each other. For me it’s what makes the life I’ve chosen an endless journey full of signs, signals and messages which I decode into what I find has meaning in any given week. I then digest them, integrate them and pass them on.
This article is part of a wonderful book, YOGA Full Life: 100 Yogis Speak on the Meaningfulness of Life, by Nicolae Tanase
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