Evolution of a Yogi
.jpg)
I used to think I could only gain by taking yoga classes from teachers who were better than me.
Just in that sentence alone, I make myself cringe. "Better than me" at what? At yoga? What part of yoga exactly??
Yoga is not going to a room with a bunch of other people and doing some postures and going home. It's not all about the asana. It's not about how high you can lift your leg, how bendy your body is, how long you can hold a pose and how cute of an outfit you can wear while doing it.
Yoga is a lifestyle...a way of living. A belief that all things are connected; that all things are one. It's a discussion between ones body and mind. It's the choice to live by Pantajali's eight limbs. A choice to walk the middle path, relinquishing all extremes. Asana is only one facet of a much larger organism.
After having two children, my body and mind have both been overhauled. My priorities changed, and whether or not it's right, my yoga practice became last on a long list of duties that I carry out willfully and with pride.
I continued to teach yoga once a week, despite my practice slowly diminishing. Initially I thought maybe I should hang up the mat until I can "get my body back." The thing about having children is that I can lose the weight, but my body will never be the same again and that is something I have to learn to embrace if I want to move forward; especially in my yoga practice.
I recall my yoga days before children. I remember cramming 65 people into a hot room mat to mat, blasting my music, feeling the energy and thinking that it couldn't get better than this. When I look back, I fear that while I believed I was helping others in my teachings, I subconsciously was feeding my ego and that is where the feel good energy was really stemming from.
There I was, standing in the front of a crowded room in my tiny outfit doing my best postures, not really understanding the person in the back row who couldn't touch their toes. Not truly seeing the new mom struggle with her body image in the mirror and balance on the mat, not honestly catering to the senior who may have once done the perfect standing bow, but now struggles to grab his foot.
Was I a bad teacher? no. I was properly trained. I knew the modifications to recommend, but emotionally I think I lacked something that could have benefited my students in a much larger way.
I was reading an article online the other day that a yoga instructor wrote regarding teaching people who have been through some sort of abuse or trauma. There were things that he insisted on yoga teachers being conscious of ie: asking before touching to make adjustments, or choosing words that make suggestions rather than demands, and being mindful to not assume everyone feels the same in every posture such as relaxed in downward dog or child's pose.*
Personally, I found this article to be informative and helpful. It never occurred to me that these things could turn a person away from yoga who might just need yoga the most. But what baffled me, was the comments I then read below the post. There were advanced yoga practitioners saying that they loved being adjusted and that people who don't have no business attending certain yoga classes. There were yoga teachers who took offense to what he had said, which I thought was interesting. How someone could choose to be offended by this was frankly bizzarre. They said that their students love being told how to feel and love being adjusted and they had never had a complaint as if someone who hated the class would walk up to them and say, "by the way your class sucked."
I think it's very important for us all to get these reality checks. In order for you to be truly great at something, you must always be a student. You can never stop learning because when you stop learning you're dead. Having a closed mind about different perspectives can really limit the people you reach in any profession. Every person you encounter in life can be your teacher. Every person is an expert if only in what it's like to live life in their shoes and that is an invaluable lesson to learn.
So here I sit. Dealing with a stupid hernia and ab separation that I'm supposed to somehow find the time to get surgery on. I'm having to skip back bends and I'm even weary of upward dogs. My hamstrings and hips and shoulders have tightened to a place I am truly unfamiliar with. At any point throughout the flow I just may leak from pretty much any body part at this point. In two words: I've evolved.
Yes, this may seem like a major set back. But in having to start over with a completely new body, I am almost being reborn with a new perspective. I now see my students past the two-dimensional visions I once had of them. It's not really that I can relate to them, but more that I understand their struggles as individuals and I will try to give them the emotional support they might need to feel confident to take that next step in their yoga practice.
While I explore my new self I will not hang up my mat, but instead I will choose to go back to my roots. And at the end of the day, I will constantly remind myself of these rules:
Ahimsa: I will be kind to myself and others despite frustrations.
Satya: I will be honest with myself and my limitations leaving ego outside so that I will not injure myself. I will be mindful of how I speak the truth to others.
Asteya: I will not steal or take advantage of what others have given me.
Brahmacharya: I will act responsibly.
Aparigraha: I will let go of my attachment to my past abilities and embrace my inevitable change with faith in myself to get past these set backs.
Sauca: I will be mindful of my inward and outward health and cleanliness.
Santosa: I will be happy with what I have instead of unhappy with what I lack. There is a purpose for all things.
Tapas: I will be mindful of where my energy goes and use it to be engaged in my children and life.
Svadhyaya: I will be centered and nonreactive by maintaining a self-reflective consciousness.
Isvarapranidhana: I will set aside time each day to meditate for however long or short I can acknowledging that there is a force greater than myself, directing my life wherever it may lead.*
*http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/3-things-yoga-teachers-must-stop-doing-right-now-daniel-flynn/
*http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/yoga/eight-limbs.htm
I was reading an article online the other day that a yoga instructor wrote regarding teaching people who have been through some sort of abuse or trauma. There were things that he insisted on yoga teachers being conscious of ie: asking before touching to make adjustments, or choosing words that make suggestions rather than demands, and being mindful to not assume everyone feels the same in every posture such as relaxed in downward dog or child's pose.*
Personally, I found this article to be informative and helpful. It never occurred to me that these things could turn a person away from yoga who might just need yoga the most. But what baffled me, was the comments I then read below the post. There were advanced yoga practitioners saying that they loved being adjusted and that people who don't have no business attending certain yoga classes. There were yoga teachers who took offense to what he had said, which I thought was interesting. How someone could choose to be offended by this was frankly bizzarre. They said that their students love being told how to feel and love being adjusted and they had never had a complaint as if someone who hated the class would walk up to them and say, "by the way your class sucked."
I think it's very important for us all to get these reality checks. In order for you to be truly great at something, you must always be a student. You can never stop learning because when you stop learning you're dead. Having a closed mind about different perspectives can really limit the people you reach in any profession. Every person you encounter in life can be your teacher. Every person is an expert if only in what it's like to live life in their shoes and that is an invaluable lesson to learn.
So here I sit. Dealing with a stupid hernia and ab separation that I'm supposed to somehow find the time to get surgery on. I'm having to skip back bends and I'm even weary of upward dogs. My hamstrings and hips and shoulders have tightened to a place I am truly unfamiliar with. At any point throughout the flow I just may leak from pretty much any body part at this point. In two words: I've evolved.
Yes, this may seem like a major set back. But in having to start over with a completely new body, I am almost being reborn with a new perspective. I now see my students past the two-dimensional visions I once had of them. It's not really that I can relate to them, but more that I understand their struggles as individuals and I will try to give them the emotional support they might need to feel confident to take that next step in their yoga practice.
While I explore my new self I will not hang up my mat, but instead I will choose to go back to my roots. And at the end of the day, I will constantly remind myself of these rules:
Ahimsa: I will be kind to myself and others despite frustrations.
Satya: I will be honest with myself and my limitations leaving ego outside so that I will not injure myself. I will be mindful of how I speak the truth to others.
Asteya: I will not steal or take advantage of what others have given me.
Brahmacharya: I will act responsibly.
Aparigraha: I will let go of my attachment to my past abilities and embrace my inevitable change with faith in myself to get past these set backs.
Sauca: I will be mindful of my inward and outward health and cleanliness.
Santosa: I will be happy with what I have instead of unhappy with what I lack. There is a purpose for all things.
Tapas: I will be mindful of where my energy goes and use it to be engaged in my children and life.
Svadhyaya: I will be centered and nonreactive by maintaining a self-reflective consciousness.
Isvarapranidhana: I will set aside time each day to meditate for however long or short I can acknowledging that there is a force greater than myself, directing my life wherever it may lead.*
*http://www.elephantjournal.com/2014/09/3-things-yoga-teachers-must-stop-doing-right-now-daniel-flynn/
*http://www.expressionsofspirit.com/yoga/eight-limbs.htm
.jpg)
Comments
Post a Comment