our-yoga

Earlier today, I was chatting with a friend at the coffeeshop that I normally hang out and do my work at. He was telling me that he went to bed at 4:30 this morning (I won't tell you why he did that, out of respect for his privacy). I replied that that was the exact time I got out of bed. Which is not exactly true, strictly speaking; I did sit in bed for a few minutes before I finally succeeded in lifting my ass out of bed (seriously, somebody needs to come up with a vinyasa count for getting out of bed in the morning: Ekam, turn body over; Dwe, swing legs over bed; Inhale, exhale there; Trini, stand up...). But I decided I did not need to overwhelm my friend with so much information. "In any case," I continued, "this means that at least one of us is conscious at any given moment of the day. Interesting, no?" Which drew a chuckle from my friend.

This little conversation with my friend brought my attention to one interesting fact: With the exception of trips here and there to study with various teachers, it has been more than three years since I have practiced at home, without the benefit of frequent practice at a shala, and the benefits of continued regular attention from a teacher that this brings. How have I been able to keep up this demanding practice throughout all the inevitable physical, mental, and emotional ups and downs that accompany the journey of practice? Two things stand out to me right off the top of my head:  

(1) Keeping to the vinyasa count to the best of my ability: One benefit of practicing regularly (once a week, in my case) to Sharath's led primary CD is that, over time, you start to get the vinyasa count down. For instance, in the seated postures of primary, you jump through into the pose on the first side on "Sapta", and after doing both sides, you end up on "Vimsatihi" with many postures. In the last few weeks, I have actually been counting the vinyasa count in my head as I move through the postures. I have found that doing this helps to keep me focused and prevent too many extraneous thought (i.e. monkey mind) from intruding. There is something about counting that prevents one from faffing and/or obsessing too much over postures. This is true even if I do end up giving myself one or two more breaths to get into Marichyasana D and Garbha Pindasana. Esepecially the former: I have yet to personally see anybody who can get into Mari D and bind in Sapta without taking one or two extra breaths. But I guess this is not the point: I think the idea behind keeping to the vinyasa count is that it reminds you that the practice is really a flow, and that you just have to keep on moving and breathing.

(2) Keeping in mind my teachers: Most of the time, I do this without even consciously trying to do so. For instance, in the first couple of downward dogs in Surya A, I sometimes find myself imagining one of my teachers (say, Kino) adjusting me. I often also find myself imagining one of my teachers squishing me in Paschimottanasana. I can't help thinking that it is little things like that that show that the practice is ultimately a communal experience; one feels the power of the Ashtanga community even if one is practicing by oneself most of the time. I also suppose that people who have met Guruji and formed a personal connection with him might imagine Guruji adjusting them or talking to them in his heavily South-Indian-accented English ("Why fearing, you?") during the course of their daily practices. But since I have never met Guruji, I can't know this for sure. By the way, this is also one of the reasons why I did not post anything on this blog yesterday (Guru Purnima): Although I certainly owe much to Guruji for being able to do this practice, I can't honestly say that I have a personal connection to him, and writing an homage to somebody I have never met just seems a little disingenuous.

Anyway... I don't really have much else to say here. I just thought I'd record a few practice thoughts here (For what? For posterity? Are a bunch of aliens going to dig this up and read it a few thousand years from now, when I am gone? :-)) before I eat some dinner and watch my nightly dose of Battlestar Galactica (I'm starting season 4 tonight... yay!).

Oh, and just in case this interests you, I made a couple of observations while playing chess with a friend earlier today: Isn't it interesting that the most powerful piece in chess is a woman (i.e. the queen)? Isn't it even more interesting that if you find the enemy queen very close to your king, somebody very bad is probably going to happen to you (i.e. an impending checkmate)? Moral of the story: Having a woman close to you is trouble... unless she is on your side!

P.S. If you think this is a sexist observation, let me know, and I will consider (although I cannot promise) keeping such observations strictly to myself from now on. 

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Dear readers, have you ever considered doing a yoga teacher training? Today's post is a guest post by Elizabeth Emberly, who owns Naada Yoga, a Montreal-based studio that is taking a whole new approach to yoga teacher training. Whatever kind of YTT you are considering, the post below offers some true pearls of wisdom! Read and enjoy, and as always, leave your feedback! What did you / would you look for in a YTT?

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we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

we recommend you to buy some goods below for comfort, safety and ease of your yoga activities

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I usually don't weigh in on the heavy yoga debates, and I'm not about to start now. I have the curse of always being able to see both sides of an issue. But this article about how a woman quit yoga after an injury has been making the rounds and caught my attention.

A few bloggers have criticised the author of the article for quitting, but personally, I don't see that as an issue. Yoga is a personal practice, not a panacea. It's not right for everyone and not everyone will like it. Some people will quit.  So what? The author of the article made her choice, learned something about herself in the process, and found a physical practice that she thought suited her better. It sounds like a happy ending to me.

The issue that I have is that this woman was medically diagnosed with high blood pressure and was not aware, or made aware, of the potential impacts, or told that she shouldn't be doing inversions, especially not intense inversions like headstand and handstand.  The resulting injury she suffered led her to quit yoga, rather than to quit inversions - which is her personal choice and it's really not my place to judge, opine, or argue with that. It's a free world, as they say.

From my perspective, reacting to tales of yoga injuries by denying them, defending yoga, or attacking the injured person or their teacher is not a constructive response. Yoga-asana is a physical discipline and the possibility of injury is always there. Find me one yoga practitioner who has never felt the twinge of over-stretching a muscle, fallen over while attempting a balancing pose, received a bad adjustment, or simply wound up feeling dizzy or nauseous while practicing. I think it's our responsibility to acknowledge that the risks are there and to do our best to become safe and knowledgeable practitioners and teachers. We need to remember that the principles of Ahimsa (non-harming), Aparigraha (non-grasping), and Satya (being truthful), among others, are more important to a yoga practice, or teaching yoga, than the asanas.

Being a pragmatist, I have tried to draw out some lessons from this story, and here are a few that I can think of.

1. If you have a medical condition, discuss it with your doctor and your yoga teacher, and do your own research, so that you can make safe choices - and then make them! (Ahimsa!) Don't make the mistake that this woman made, of keeping silent about her new medical condition and finding out the hard way what the consequences were. If neither of them know what to tell you, find a new doctor or a new teacher! And of course, do the research yourself - including drawing on your personal practice - so that you can make safe choices. Everyone is different - it's ok to explore and test your boundaries and find out where your personal limits are - but don't ignore them (Aparigraha - let go!).

2. If you are a teacher, know your contra-indications and always state them. (Satya!) In the reality of teaching large-group classes, we can't always know the medical histories of each and every one of our students. But we can take 10 seconds to make sure we talk about the contra-indications of the classes we are teaching and the poses we are instructing.  Especially with "higher-risk" poses like inversions. [I say higher risk because in a person with untreated high blood pressure, holding a long inversion could potentially lead to serious medical complications, possibly even a stroke. And that deserves to be taken seriously.]

• Because students often come in late, what I have found best is to make a short announcement after the opening meditation or when I bring the class to standing for the first time. I talk about the level of the class, and if it's a physically demanding class (as I usually teach), I warn people that it might not be appropriate if they are pregnant, or have medical conditions or injuries. 
• When I talk about contra-indications, I often say "please". As in, "were going to do shoulderstand now, but if you have high blood pressure, please don't go into this pose straight away - just relax until I can come around to you".

This also means learning about conditions that might affect your students as they age - more and more people are practicing or even starting yoga in their golden years, and it's worth the extra study to find out about osteopenia/osteoporosis, high blood pressure or Type II diabetes, for example.
 

3. If you are a teacher, create a safe space, and actively encourage people to acknowledge their bodies' limitations and explore alternatives.  This doesn't mean you can, or should, force people to stay within artificially drawn boundaries. But you should be able to set the foundation for your students to make informed choices, and create an atmosphere where nobody feels pressured to go too far. (Ahimsa again!)

I'd love your comments and thoughts... Readers, from your experience, what would you add to these suggestions?

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Some readers may have gleaned from a few posts back that I have been absent from the blogging world because I was immersed in another teaching journey: my Level 2 teacher training! Well, I have returned, my 500 hour certificate in hand (300 hours on top of my original 200), and now I suppose I am waiting for it to sink in.

Which has got me thinking, what does it mean to be a certified yoga teacher? In my case, a twice-certified yoga teacher?  It certainly doesn't mean that I have all the answers, although many things did become clearer along the way!

What it does mean, to me anyway, is related to a quote attributed to Krishnamacharya:


That, I think, is the essence of being a teacher. Far from the presciptive trends in current yoga, Krishnamacharya was said to have taught yoga differently to everyone, depending on their goals, their body type, and their age. (Of course, he didn't warm so much to teaching women, but that's another story I guess).

Being a teacher is about far more than teaching asanas in a certain order, rhythm or sequence. It is about teaching the RIGHT parts of the practice - yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana - to the right people. It is about accepting that no two students are the same, and finding ways to make this beautiful practice accessible to each and every one of them. It is about acknowledging that each body has its own shape, that each life has etched its mark into our physical and mental bodies, and that no two yogas are ever truly alike.

To be a teacher, we have to recognise that yoga is a tool to achieve a goal (happiness - liberation - health... the goal will vary!), not a goal in itself. And at the end of the day, that is what my 500 hour certification brought me - more tools in my toolbox. More ways to understand, explain, modify and adapt this practice to deal with the beautiful, fantastic diversity of the human body.

And that, I think, is the essence of being a teacher - is to also be a student. To constantly be learning new things, constantly deepening our knowledge, constantly pushing outside of our comfort zones to study and practice new things.

What does being a teacher mean to you (whether you are a teacher, a student, or both)?

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I just read the following essay on teachers by the Buddhist philosopher, poet, and educator Daisaku Ikeda. Since all of us are teachers in one way or another, I thought that I'll share his essay here. I hope you enjoy it, and find it to be of some use in your life.

(From an essay series by Daisaku Ikeda first published in the Philippine magazine Mirror in 1998)

I remember being set a project one summer vacation during elementary school. We had to make something at home and bring it with us for the new term. Being clumsy, I couldn't get anything together and had to return to school embarrassed and empty-handed.


When asked what happened to my project, I stammered out that I had forgotten it at home. To my horror, the teacher told me to go home and bring it back right away. I returned home feeling desperate and miserable. Looking around, I saw a bookshelf my older brother had made. I presented this to the teacher, who praised my work and gave me a good grade for it. But, looking back, I am sure that he knew what the real story was.

From one perspective you might say that this teacher was rewarding me for lying, but that is not my view. Through the warm, large-hearted way he embraced me, he communicated to me a very concrete sense of being believed in--really what I needed at that moment. And, of course, I felt deeply ashamed, and vowed never to let such a thing happen again.

I believe that education is what remains long after the content of each specific lesson we were taught has been forgotten. The essence of education is character formation, teaching young people how to live in society and encouraging them to think independently. Study is much more than simply absorbing existing knowledge and techniques, and the ability to memorize and reason is nothing compared to the wisdom, emotional richness and creativity which resides within every human being.

Education that does not teach a sense of values turns people into mere robots filled with data but with no understanding of what it is for. Such soulless, over-competitive schooling makes successful children arrogant, while the less academically bright are left with little self-confidence and a deep fear of failure.


Sadly, education is often used to cultivate people who are useful only to the extent that they fit into various slots in society, and school systems in Japan and many other countries actually prevent children from developing their full potential.


In the race to climb the ladder of scholastic prestige and status, we can easily lose sight of the most important question of all: What is the purpose of learning?


I believe that the genuine goal of education must be the life-long happiness of those who learn. Education should never be subordinated to the demands of national ego, or of corporations searching for profit-generating employees. Human beings, human happiness, must always be the goal and objective.

My own teacher, Josei Toda, often said that the greatest error of modern humanity was that it confused knowledge with wisdom. Knowledge itself is a neutral tool that can be used for good or evil. As history sadly proves, educated monsters can wreak far greater horror that their unschooled brothers. At least seven of the participants at the Wannsee Conference where the Nazis planned the "final solution"--extermination--to the "Jewish problem," had doctoral degrees. It is hard to imagine a greater perversion and debasement of education.

Wisdom, in contrast, always directs us toward happiness. The task of education must be to stimulate and unleash the wisdom that lies dormant in the lives of all young people. This is not a forced process, like pressing something into a preformed mold, but rather drawing out the potential which exists within.


I firmly believe that every young person has the power within him or her to change the world. It is the role of those who teach to believe in that power, to encourage and release it.

The relationship between teacher and pupil can be a vital link through which new horizons are opened up and life develops. To me, the essence of education is this process whereby one person's character inspires another. When teachers become partners in the process of discovery, burning with a passion for truth, the desire to learn will naturally be ignited in their students' hearts. And once children feel that their teachers are genuinely concerned for their individual welfare, they will begin to trust them and open up to them.


It saddens me that now this vital bond between pupil and teacher seems to have been weakened by distrust and misunderstanding. Teachers everywhere struggle with problems of control and discipline, and students resent the fact that they must cram their heads full of knowledge which fails to answer their pressing questions about life, the real world and human relationships.

Teachers who do not understand and care for their students, merely parroting stereotyped answers, cannot possibly satisfy children's curious and sensitive minds. It must never be forgotten that the most important people in a school are its students.

I once heard about a Japanese elementary school teacher who was irritated by a girl in his class who was unable to keep up. He gave up trying to help her after a fellow teacher told him, "Human beings are just like fruit; twenty to thirty percent is always worthless and there's nothing you can do about it."


Then, one day during a break, he noticed the girl playing with a puzzle, trying to put plastic pieces together so they fit into a box. Finally she succeeded and yelled, "I got it!," her face sparkling with a delight he had never seen before. The teacher suddenly felt remorse. How dare he give up on her! Wasn't it his job to make sure that each child walked out of his classroom with the confidence that they could do anything if they really tried?

He discovered that the girl's parents, both graduates of leading universities, were constantly calling her "stupid." The teacher resolved to praise her every day, for every little accomplishment, to wash away the stain of criticism from her heart.


After a year, the girl was transformed. Proceeding at her own pace, she came to experience the joy of learning. The key was her realization that if she made an effort to achieve something, she could do it.

This story shows how the smallest failure can destroy a child's confidence, and the smallest catalyst can trigger growth. It is vital that teachers believe in every child's potential and care about their happiness as human beings.

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All around the yoga blogspshere, yoga teachers are lurking! Some of us blog openly, how many others are just reading a bit here, a bit there?


Since moving to Oxford I am on a teaching hiatus, and it has given me time to reflect on the joys and the challenges of being a yoga teacher.  Here are a few things I can say I've learned, in no particular order.  Enjoy! Share! Comment!

1. "Don't make it up": [This is an unforgettable quote from my own teacher.  It's hard for me to convey just how many things are summed up by this, but I'll try to scrape the tip of the iceberg.]  Yoga is a system.  It is tried, tested and it has worked for thousands of people, possibly for thousands of years. There are fountains of knowledge available about it, and incredible teachers who transmit it.  What this quote means to me is: Immerse yourself.  Dig deep.  Get to really know - and experience - what you are teaching and assimilate what you have learned in order to pass it on.  Because when you teach yoga you are reaching into people's sacred spaces - their bodies, their health, their wellbeing, their souls.  Respect that and teach what works, with that honour code etched always in the forefront of your mind.  Don't make it up.

2. Don't be afraid if you don't know: There has been a lot of blogging about the role of the teacher and the pedestals that we risk putting ourselves on or being put on.  When put in the position of the teacher, it's natural to want to be able to answer every question our students ask us.  And they will ask questions - hard questions! Left-field questions!  Sometimes you will be able to answer confidently.  But when a question leaves you with your mouth opening and closing again - don't be afraid to say those 3 little words: "I don't know".  Maybe even follow them by: "but I'll find out for you!".

There is also another type of question that yoga teachers get asked - deeply personal questions, the soul-searching ones that really, nobody can answer except the student themselves.  When confronted with these I've found that the best answer is to reassure people that what they're feeling is normal, and remind your student that yoga is experiential, that their personal experience is just as valid as anything I could offer, and that it's up to them to make their own choices and decisions.

3. Speak up!  I think this one is self-explanatory: when teaching, project, project and project some more! As with the theatre, when you teach yoga, especially if you teach to music, remember that when you speak you should be facing the class (not the floor or the wall!) and to look up and back while you speak to make sure everyone can hear you.  If you do always teach to music, try teaching without it (even an imaginary class will do) - you will suddenly be aware of just how important your voice is, both in speech and in silence, in creating the mood and energy of the class.

4. Demonstration is a tool, not a teaching.  Demonstrations are great and valuable tools.  But demonstrating every single pose in front of the class is not the same as teaching!  If students want a guided practice, they can get a DVD - your role as a teacher is to teach, not just to lead.  (Hey, we all start out there... it takes time, too right?) A good example is downward facing dog.  If you are leading your class through this pose and at the same time demonstrating it, who benefits from this? After all, from this pose, you can't see your students, and they can't see you (or hear you, likely)! So use demonstrations as a tool, but let it be just one of many tools in your teacher's bag of tricks.

5. Smile.  Laugh! Play! Be silly! And encourage your students to do the same. Yoga is supposed to be relaxing, and people relax when they are having fun and feel comfortable.  Let your sense of humour shine through and have a good time - the chances are that if you do, your students will too.

6. To adjust or not? - Have the discussion.  This is such a huge question for teachers, students and the yoga community in general.  What I have learned is this: whatever you choose, share it with your students.  If you are going to adjust, explain it to them and give them a chance to opt out of it if they want one.  If you are not going to, explain it to them also, and give them other ways to get your feedback on their asanas.

7. Don't ignore the core! Core strength is fundamental to every yoga pose.  Whether expressed through a subtle understanding of mula bandha or a rocking navasana, the key is always in the core.  And yet, so many teachers shy away from core strengtheners because we dread the pained looks on our students faces!  Something that works for me is to work the core into verbal cues in standing poses like Tadasana, Warrior II, Utkatasana or Tree pose.  Also, if you teach Vinyasa or any type of flow, you can integrate your core work into a vinyasa so it doesn't feel like such a slog.


8. Stay rooted in your own practice.  As I said earlier, yoga is experiential.  We can only teach what we know about yoga, and we can only know by doing.  When we first start teaching we have to struggle to maintain our own practice, and many teachers fall into the trap of using their classes as personal practice times.  But as a teacher we still need to be taught, to learn, to grow, and to explore.  The more you practice, the richer your teachings will be, and the more you will evolve as a teacher, keeping your students interested and constantly learning as well.  Maybe this is the most important thing of all!

9. Teach yoga, not just asana.  We all know that yoga is so much more than asana.  But do our students?  I'm not saying that we should all get preachy every class.  But I do find that when I am inspired to branch out onto a yoga philosophy tangent, people are interested and want to know more.  So many teachers I know are afraid of bringing a spiritual element into their classrooms.  And if yoga isn't spiritual in any way for you, then that's how it should be.  But if yoga is transformational for you, share it.  It doesn't have to be a philosophy lecture.  Teach the little things - like stress-busting yoga poses you do at work or pranayama for road rage.  Talk about how santosha can manifest through everyday acts of kindness, or how ahimsa might lead you to improve your diet.  Just as yoga creeps into every aspect of your life, let these aspects feed back into your teaching

10. Be yourself! By far the most important of all - teach what you love, and teach from the heart.  We all have teachers that we aspire to be like, but at the end of the day, yoga is really just all about being yourself.  So dance if you love dancing, chant if you love chanting, play music if you love music, or don't if you love silence.  The best teachers are the authentic ones.


Well, those are some of the things that have been on my mind about teaching...  Readers, can you add any lessons you have learned from teaching or being taught, or relate from personal experience?

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This post was inspired by the discussion on It's All Yoga Baby around the ad featuring Jivamukti teachers from a NY studio posing naked for PETA.  Roseanne ends her post asking:

A commenter on her blog, Dharma teacher Frank Jude of Mindfulness Yoga (yay, new blog!), left this insight that touched me profoundly:  


Which brings me to muse...  When we are teaching yoga, it IS a role we are enacting for a specfic period of time.  I personally can feel it pour down over me like a cloak when the clock strikes the start time.  It's like a switch goes on, it's a muse, it's a groove!  And when the final namaste is said and the lights go on, I feel it lift again and I become myself.  And thinking about Frank's comment, I don't want my students to put me on a pedestel, to think that yoga teachers are somehow elevated people, that we don't have flaws and beliefs and good days and bad days.

In Donna Farhi's book Teaching Yoga: Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship, the author talks about keeping "healthy boundaries" and maintaining a "necessary distance" between the teacher and the student.  In her view, maintaining this distance is a way of honouring the deeply transformative process that the student may be undergoing, and keeping it sacred by maintaining the formality of the relationship.  She also says that casual relationships with students are often more serving of the teacher's needs than the students.

Farhi goes on to say: "I have come to recognize that when a student becomes a personal friend, my ability to serve her as a teacher has effectively ended."  The key concept here is service.  Farhi isn't suggesting that you can never be friends with your students, just that the changed dynamic of the relationship and the recognition of the student as your "peer" will diminish your effectiveness as a teacher. Farhi suggests that the student may or may not decide to seek another teacher, or may be quite happy to maintain a "student-peer" position in class and a friend outside of class.

This example is specific to the student who becomes a friend.  But what about the friend who becomes the student?  When I was first teaching, I felt awkward about having my friends in my classes and found it hard to find my groove as a teacher, or would refrain from chanting at the end of class thinking "what will my friends think?".  As I have grown as a teacher I have become more comfortable with my role as the teacher and more able to easily slip into it.  And my friends who come to my classes also seem comfortable and respectful of my role: I have never had anyone try to use our friendship to modify what they get in their yoga class!

My musings also lead me to this question: as yoga teachers, how do we see ourselves?  In my yoga class, I strive to create an atmosphere that allows people as much choice as they want, a place that embraces all body types, beliefs, ages, sexualities as equals.  But outside the classroom I still have my own beliefs, body type, age, sexuality etc. that define me as a person, and that are important to my own identity. While I would never press these on anyone else in a yoga class, outside the classroom they give me guidance in my choices and make me who I am.  Where the boundaries exist are different for every different person I guess.

I live in a very small community and I teach classes to my friends, and some of my students become my friends.  Beyond these friends, I also see my yoga students at work, at the beach, in restaurants, and at parties. And (after the initial shock of seeing someone in another context!) I have never felt weird about that (I mean, this town is so small that it would be weird if I didn't see them!).  I think that if we are uncomfortable with our students seeing us outside the classroom, it's partly because we might be uncomfortable with ourselves. Perhaps we feel like we aren't living a "yogic" enough life.  So are we ourselves are holding ourselves up to some unrealistic ideal?

What do you think?  How does Farhi's "necessary distance" contrast to the notion of not putting the teacher on a pedestal?  Can you be friends with your students or teachers and still be effective as their yoga teacher or student? How do you feel about seeing your teachers or students in social spaces?  Do teachers have a responsibility to their students to live a "yogic" life off the mat?

Or should we all just go for ice-cream? ;)

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