Feeling and Teaching

So, yesterday was the final day of the teacher training. It was beautiful and bittersweet and the gentle culmination of 10 days of experiences, feelings, and realizations for me.

I just met you, and I love you very much :)

I just feel so blessed and so incredibly grateful to have had this experience, and to have come home. Being with such honest, open loving people touched me deeply, and has begun to transform and heal some wounds and insecurities around self-consciousness, authenticity, and relationships. Thank you

I could go on and on about the changes within that have been nurtured by this experience, but that would be a different topic than what I would like to share at the moment.

The experience of the course gently nudged me toward challenging my fears and stepping out of my comfort zone. Though true on so many levels, I wanted to talk about what happened during the course as we were encouraged to share our voices and begin teaching as a group.

The first time we were asked to do this, I was somewhat terrified. Though I was in a group of supportive folks in the same relative predicament as myself, it felt more intimidating than if I were to try teaching a group of people who were actually there as "students". I think this feeling was because of the vulnerability of being in a group of my "peers" and 2 teachers, as opposed to being in the role of "teacher". Recognizing this feeling of greater vulnerability among "peers" than in the "teacher" role is something to really examine more closely because it suggests a level of comfort and security being derived from a sort of power or authority dynamic that would be present in the latter situation of teacher and student. This is potentially problematic because it is a dynamic that I have no interest in perpetuating, and want to actively work to dissolve, but that I find myself drawing some level of security from.

This tendency showed up again at the very end when Kira was suggesting that we be upfront with people that we are just starting to teach and that we will receive generosity of understanding as a result. My response, colored by my fears and assumptions, was that I figured people would be more critical if they knew you didn't have it all figured out. Not that we should pretend to know things we don't (because we shouldn't) but to put ourselves blatantly out there as "new" "inexperienced" and not really so sure--vulnerable-- strips us of some sort of authority that would protect us from people's judgments. It is really funny because I really, truly don't want that dynamic of authority or specialist, I want people to listen to themselves, not to me, but I come from a culture that values authority and specialization, and it is revealing itself as deeply imprinted, even though I consciously don't want it.

This fear of vulnerability and the idea that I need to appear as though I know enough manifests again and again in my life in different forms, and has definitely been a force keeping me in patterns and getting in the way of growth. It is something that I have been processing during the training on a different, interpersonal level which has been just incredible to watch, and without my really noticing, it was also transforming on a more gross physical level as I began to get comfortable with these issues through teaching in the group. Even though I only actually lead the group through a sequence either 2 or 3 times, the way I felt the first time versus the last was remarkable. And that final experience on the final day of the course was what I really wanted to talk about here...

I was the third person to add on to the sequence, following Wanda's opening and Joe's standing sequence. When it came to me, I wasn't sure what to do. So I paused and I waited and I got the go to do a particular sequence that I enjoy. As I started, sweeping the arms up and swan diving in, half arch, fold, half arch...I got the feeling to stay hanging in uttanasana for a bit, so I did. Then, I felt like bending a knee and grabbing that ankle with the opposite hand, stretching through the straight leg side of the body-so i did. Then I continued with the sequence, but added in arm circles in lunges and a couple of breaths of extending and folding in the pyramid and the mini pyramid (does that have a name when you fold over the front straight leg from a low lunge?) as I felt into it. Then, when I ended in dog, I found myself asking that we roll to up dog, down to the earth, into locust, then bow, back down with a thigh stretch holding the feet toward the butt, back to locust, through cobra, to extended childs stretching through the sides of the body, and rolling up, none of which I had pre-determined that we would do.

The first time I led, I just did the salutation variation that I had planned upon doing, the way I'd planned on doing it. This time, I was able to relax and listen and do what I felt. Everything that I did that was not part of the sequence or that was an embellishment on the sequence happened spontaneously in the moment without thinking ahead at all. When I was unsure, I just paused, had them pause with me in a pose, and listened and breathed, and then did as I was guided to do.

Besides this being an indication of how my comfort level had changed in regards to the earlier discussion of vulnerability with others, it really raised another point that was the original reason I set out to write this today.

During the training, Kira had encouraged us to try leading a sequence or teaching a pose without actually doing it ourselves. This was because it is harder to teach without doing it yourself, but is obviously useful if you are to be able to see what is going on in the room and respond to that. And though she said that doing it with the group is useful in the beginning, I think the encouragement was toward beginning to learn to teach it without doing it.

I feel though, that if I had not been doing it with the group today, I would have been cut off from the place I was leading from, and would instead have been leading from a somewhat intellectual place where I would have been teaching what I had planned-- and sticking to it--rather than feeling and allowing what was asking to come through.

I recognize that this would not always necessarily be the case, and that people like Kira and Uschi who have been doing this much longer are able to access that place without being in the practice physically themselves.

So the point is that it seems that doing the practice with them in the beginning can be beneficial not just because it is easier, but because it allows it to also come from a more authentic place of spontaneous flow--at least initially--at least for me.

Assumptions

Assumptions are a funny thing, and can really color communication.

Something occurred to me recently when I was at the Raw Spirit festival.

The festival hosted a spectrum of folks from the die-hard long term 100% raw foodists, to the raw curious, and everyone in between. Most of the long-termers were the people involved in the production of the festival in some way, whether giving talks or running booths where they served food, information or products.

While perusing the vendors, I came upon a stand where the person running it, busy as he was, didn't take the time to find out anything about what I knew about raw food or what I eat, and instead proceeded to launch his one-size-fits-all mini-lecture about the benefits of the raw food diet. I understood his position of running a booth and maybe not having the time to go beyond this informational blurb, but I felt a little like I was being condescended to, like "dude--I know!".

I didn't take it personally, but it made me think about how often this happens--how often we assume we know more about something than the person we are talking to and come from a place of authority without stopping to check in with where they are at, thereby creating a two way dialogue rather than a soapbox style monologue that accomplishes little more than allowing us feel important. Even if the person we are speaking to knows less about whatever the subject may be, this is obviously not the most effective means of communication, but rather is reflective of our cultural bias toward specialization and our willingness to surrender our autonomy and personal power to a "specialist".

But that's another story.

The point to all this is that I swore then that I would be extra conscious of this and never approach people from that place.

But then, something funny happened out side of lulu's at the end of our break two days ago.

I was walking up to the front door where two elder women were standing. I heard the younger of the two (who was probably in her 60s or 70s) say to the older who was using a walker "it's a yoga studio". As I approached, the younger of the women said to me "how are the yoga classes here?" I responded with "Great, we are having a teacher training in there right now". She smiled and indicated something along the lines of "that's nice" as she began to turn to leave. As parting words I continued, "yeah, you should check it out some time". She responded with "I live in Santa Monica" and I said "oh", thinking that she was simply suggesting that she couldn't try lulu's classes b/c she's from out of town. But she continued "yeah, I do it. I have since about '75" without looking back at me and in a tone that said much more than the words themselves.

Her tone and body language indicated that she felt that I had done to her exactly what I was writing about above. I think that she assumed I was just some young whippersnapper who thinks only people like me do yoga, and that she must need me to enlighten her. In actuality, I had made no assumptions about whether or not she practices, and might even have guessed that she did based on the way she asked about the classes!

I felt really weird after this exchange. It was so quick. So little was said and so much was interpreted on both ends. And now she was gone and I couldn't explain myself. Oh well.

It showed me that I am not the only person who dislikes when people approach me from that place, and that some people may be even more sensitive to this kind of thing, and that their experiences with this type of interaction may lead them to project their assumptions upon situations where there was no intention of condescension.

This seems like something for all of us to be aware of in all our interactions, and especially in teaching.

Ok. Here we go! So, this is my first yoga blog post--the start of the journey. I have been recording my yoga journey on paper for quite some time, so this feels not so much like the start of something new as much as the evolution of the path. I'm already a little irritated with the way I am thinking about what I am going to say as though this will be read. There is something about writing in the journal format where you are free to speak in cryptic language and fragmented thoughts that allows a certain freedom of expression. I think I will continue to do that work and that I will use this space to further clarify those fleeting insights. I have done this in my written yoga journals as well, not only recording those fleeting insights as esoteric notes, but also using that space as a place to write about them in ways that I feel would communicate their essence in a teaching setting. This has been a most useful process to me, and the blog format feels like a great way to further explore. And with the added awareness that someone might actually read this, I have even more incentive to practice communicating as though I were teaching.

So this blog will be the exploration and communication of my insights and experiences in the yogic realm. For the next 7 days though, it will more directly reflect the experiences, ponderings, realizations and questions that come up as a part of the teacher training I am currently engaged in at Lulu Bandha's in Ojai, CA.

Yesterday was day 3, and I have some things to say about that. But first, I want to back up a bit to day 1 when I arrived at Lulu's for class. I had returned from the Raw Spirit festival in Santa Barbara a couple of days before where I had really been feeling in the flow. The day before the festival started, my partner Erik and I had just moved back down to Ventura where I was born and lived most of my life before moving to Santa Cruz 3 years ago. We were and are ecstatic to be back in this magical land, and the festival was such an incredible welcome. Vibrant people on the raw food path, open to life, radiating love and light back to you upon encounter. Then, a couple of days later I got to start my teacher training at Lulu's where the feeling of synchronistic flow continued.
I'd only ever been to Lulu's once, many years ago for a chanting class. And though I had experienced Kira's teaching style via internet broadcast, it was still a bit of a leap of faith to sign up for a teacher training. But I always just knew it would be right. Years ago, I had a dream about Lulu's and Kira. The dream had the quality of a lucid dream about it, very vivid with a quality of increased consciousness, but without actually being a truly lucid dream. I knew at that point that the path would lead me there in the future.

So here I am. It feels great. I feel that my hypercritical mind is more at ease than usual, and I feel more able to just take the training as it comes without expectations. I am feeling able to trust that I will get whatever I need to get out of the course, rather than worrying that I am not getting whatever I think I am supposed to be getting. This is big for me--really letting go of control and trusting. Feeling the way I do lately, that I am on the path and right where I am supposed to be, is really encouraging that trust. And though I am letting go and trusting, I do still recognize that I can get the most out of the experience by actively engaging with it and working through insights and information that allow the formulation of questions and further realizations. Last night I reflected a little on insights and questions that came up for me on day 3.

So, back to day 3

I've been focusing on learning when, how, and why to adjust a posture, and after looking at warrior 2 today, I felt I had some clarity about what some adjustments for the sake of safety would look like. But other questions came up as a result. We have been looking at adjustments that work with the natural tendencies of the body, for example turning the back foot inward a little to allow the knee to track over the little toe in Warrior 2 (if this tracking is prevented by a tight hip). But we also have been talking about working the pose in a way that works the body out of its habitual movements. So I ask, what determines when it is appropriate to work with the body, and when do we ask it to move away from its tendencies? When we turn that foot inward to protect the knee, have we stopped encouraging the hips to open? Having never really experienced a stiffer body and not going through the process of significant re-patterning of tendencies, these are not questions I can relate to through experience. The best I can do is inquire about the experiences of others.

Another one of the main topics I am exploring through this training is how to provide instruction in the asanas and ideas for alignment options while encouraging exploration and feeling in the poses from the beginning. My experience as a beginner was that I was hearing the alignment instruction, following it, and not getting anything out of it in terms of feeling. Even now, I struggle with being in classes and having other people tell me what I am going to do. It was not until I began doing a style of yoga that did not focus on alignment, but rather the experience, that I found my connection to and love of the practice. I was doing Sivananda yoga and though alignment was rarely mentioned, there was a set sequence of postures that we would do in every session. So though I found the freedom of feeling what I felt in a pose and going deep, I still had not explored the realm of spontaneity lin istening for which postures to do. I also had not explicitly experienced the idea that there are many ways to do a posture and that they may all be appropriate at different times depending on what you are focusing on at the time. It wasn't until I did a teacher training with Erich Schiffmann that I had this philosophy brought before me. Having this yoga legend validate the fact that we have the freedom and the responsibility to listen inwardly and do as we are guided was liberating and changed the way I did yoga forever.

So, not having the experience of encountering this philosophy from the beginning, and wanting to teach this way to beginners, I wonder how to do this in a way that works. Some things that Kira said today in class really struck a chord with me. The first was the analogy that teaching some alignment ideas as a foundation of what one may look for in the pose is like learning the chords of an instrument that you can later use to improvise upon. She made the point that some instruction is necessary to help folks understand how to get into the pose and to teach actions. She emphasized the idea of action memories which I found useful. In this way, we practice actions such as internal and external rotation of the hips so that we can later recall the experience and accomplish the action in the pose with fewer words. Kira also made the point that alignment ideas are a way for people to get in there and feel and become aware of their bodies to new depths. This also rings true and helps me have clarity around why we'd explore alignment, and with what intention. Doing small simple things to teach actions and experience sensation in the body seems really useful to me, but I also wonder if a newbie would have the sensitivity to feel like anything was even happening, or if they would just feel like the class was a waste of time. The art would be in balancing these tuning exercises with things that let them feel like something is happening--like they are doing yoga--as well as really spending time with the simple action exercises myself so that I can really clearly communicate what one might be able to access in them. In talking about communicating effectively today Kira said that if you are really having the experience of your heart spilling over with divine love, you will be able to communicate what that feels like. It is important to teach from experience.

So as far as communication, it really seems to me that communicating these things to people--that these are alignment suggestions, that different ones may be appropriate for different people and at different times for the same people depending on the intention in the pose, that the are meant to help you feel the actions of the body in poses etc.--would be an effective way of suggesting alignment without having people get mentally hung up on trying to "do it right". I would also emphasize that the practice is really more about what happens in the pose and how it feels than what it looks like. I think being clear about these things would be important for people coming from other practices where they were taught there was a right way, as well as for those who are just starting.

One last thing that was said today that really stuck: "did you ever notice that you don't get good at something by not doing it?" Kira said that the best way to get good at teaching is to start teaching and suggested that we do just that. I am excited to start teaching a small group of friends and possibly others soon thereafter. This leads into topics covered today such as teaching as learning and releasing yourself from the burden that you in fact have anything to teach...more on that later...