I listened to the talk and all the time I related what he was saying to how we are working with the precepts.
Showing our vulnerability as human beings is valuable in all walks of life, but as a teacher it is so important to be real.
I think for those of us who teach yoga, and sometimes I feel these days that everyone is a yogateacher, which is a bit scary, because what happened with letting a practice mature before passing it on? Anyway, that is probably a diffferent perspective, but for those of us who teach it is so important that we don't perpetuate the projection of the perfect person up there on stage who has got it all together. Whose body never aches, who is always in harmony and never grumpy, who farts and burps and has a bad day as well as good ones.
That the reason that I teach is not because I've got it all together, but that I am walking the path. That indeed we are never going to get it all together.
It is tempting to identify with the role and also lean into the admiration I get from students who just think I am very cool, because I am flexible and strong.
I remember one workshop, where I had been talking about yama and niyama, and I asked whether there was any questions, and one of my students asked: "So how do I get a flat belly like yours?" It was a joke, but part of her meant it.
I think we should acknowledge that yoga has also become a strong marketing item. And what we are sold is the story of the perfect life. The perfect body, the perfect diet, the perfect spirituality. Even being patient and kind can be packaged and sold us.
I saw recently that The Yoga Workshop, Richard Freemans place in Boulder, was giving a Yoga demo. This was something that was quite prevalent during the 20's and 30's in India to draw people to the yogashalas, but in a day and age where we are so competitive and so hard on ourselves, I hardly think it's helpful to equate yoga with intense poses by teachers who have been throwing their bodies around for years, and we don't know anything about the rest of their lives.
How do they handle crisis? Can they let go of what they have with grace?
It would be more interesting with a yoga demo of the precepts. Let's see you perform satya, ahimsa and aparigraha. With the leg behind your neck. With diligent practice you can do it.
Bikram calls itself yoga, but has asana-competition.
That sounds ridiculous, but how are we perpetuating the same idea? How can we avoid creating an environment when we teach that is competitive? It's worth while looking at.
I know that the way I teach changed enormously when my body was injured a few years ago. I suddenly realized that what I talked about was very, very challenging. Accepting what is in life is a challenge. And we shouldn't talk about it lightly.
The way out of that is to do what the Centre of Gravity is doing, not just throw the precepts in to our physical practice as an interesting spice, but to make them the axis. Our relationships is what this is all about, right? How do we relate to the world, inwardly and outwardly.
To show myself more honestly and openly, Michael speaks about giving our faces, which is something I have been practicing since I was as child, not knowing it was a practice, and this is it. Not hiding ourselves and when we let down our defences it gives others the space to do that too.
So back to the role as a teacher. I see that as my role. To be open and not afraid to fail ... on stage.
To encourage my students to honour their inner experience foremost, but not only that, because if I'm not what I say, if I don't really practice this, then there is a discrepancy between my words and the felt experience and bodies sense that.
Intelligent bodies.
So it can't be faked. We can't pretend to be open and humble and loving and kind and patient and forgiving, or rather we can but then we are perpetuating what already rules the world.
So if I mean this, and I do, then as a teacher I have to put myself on the line.
And I have to approach my students wirh due respect and humility, because I can't know their paths completely, I can't know their experience, I can only try to put myself in their shoes: How would that feel to be that body and can I touch them from that place?
After all, the only thing I can really honestly teach is to trust the process. I can't give them anything. I can't promise them that everything will eventually fall into place, and they will live happily ever after. as a matter of fact I can promise them the opposite. Life will always change, and things fall into place and out of place.
This is an item that is hard to sell. And that is a good thing. Michael said that long ago and that stuck with me: Yoga is countercultural. If it isn't, it aint yoga.
Thank you for taking time out to read this.
A grey Tuesday morning in Sweden ... Irene
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