I am visiting a studio in Virginia this week as a guest teacher, and it is really a joy to be here. The teachers and students have been so welcoming. I'm staying with a friend from my teacher training, and we've been staying up well past her bedtime looking through our yearbooks and reminiscing. (When will that get old?)
When I did the "traveling teacher" thing in Lexington last month, I felt that it took me a few days to really get my footing on the podium. It was tricky to learn all the different names, manage the different room, figure out the different atmosphere. For just those first couple classes, I felt like I was starting from scratch!
I'm not sure what's different this time - it's probably just practice - but I felt comfortable teaching here from the very first class. Is comfortable the right word? Teaching is never truly easy, just like the practice is never easy - it's a mental tightrope, a challenge every time. But I felt really good - calm, relaxed, breathing normal, everything under my control. I was able to learn almost every single name within the first 20 minutes. I had some rapport - when I cracked little jokes, people actually smiled and laughed. (It definitely helped that my friend was in the class!) I guess I hit the ground running. This never happened before!
I sure hope I'm not jinxing myself for tomorrow's classes...
There's a great expression that I heard somewhere (and I am probably butchering it here) that goes like this: "It is the teacher's job to hold up a higher vision for the students until they are strong enough to hold it for themselves." And I feel that way now, a little bit. Since all the other teachers here are kind enough to hold up this high vision of me - "Here she is, our special guest teacher!" - I feel myself stepping up a little bit more. Stepping forward. Okay, sure. Here I am, and here is what I do. Here is what I have to offer. If you want it, please take it.
The whole point of teaching is that it's a gift, or a prayer, that you give to someone else. There's nothing to actually hold on to. And it seems like ego, to ever think of myself as a "good teacher," but it's not about me. The further I go, the more I want to keep going and learn more. I'm barely even scratching the surface.
When I was practicing advanced series with some of the teachers this weekend, a little piece of a song drifted into my head, sometime from a tape that I listened to when I was a kid. And that's the real purpose of this post, typing away half-formed thoughts on a late Sunday night - I just wanted to send these words out into the ether, for you to read over your coffee in the morning.
Soon in your lifetime, something will happen
All at once for a moment, it will flash into view
And from that moment on,
It's all up to you.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Ketchup!
Summertime, and the living is easy! Humid days. Iced tea. Warm nights. Afternoons on the porch. Dialogue at the pool. (One of my students is going to the next TT, hooray!) Fireflies. Outdoor music. And summer reading! Oh, how I love summer reading.
I've just finished the newest (?) Malcolm Gladwell, What the Dog Saw. It's a nice thick book of his various works from The New Yorker, and it's been keeping me happily occupied. Yes, XKCD, I am living the dream. In case you're not familiar with him, Malcolm Gladwell has written a string of non-fiction best-sellers (The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers) that all try to make you see the world in a different way. Blink, for example, is about the split second-decisions that happen behind the closed door of your unconsciousness, and it's fascinating. As examples, Gladwell talks about how art dealers instinctively identify frauds, why tall-dark-and-handsome types earn higher salaries, how hospitals should really diagnose heart attacks, and what makes the best car salesman in New Jersey so successful. It's an awesome book, the kind of book that has me telling me friends, "Oh, I'd lend it to you, but I've already loaned it to somebody else."
Anyway, What the Dog Saw is a loosely strung together collection of essays on various topics - hair dye, football, the Challenger disaster, etc. One of these essays is about ketchup. It's called "The Ketchup Conundrum."
Here's the question: "Why are there dozens of varieties of mustard but only one variety of ketchup?"
Never thought about it, did you?!?
For a long time, there was only one type of mustard: French's yellow mustard. Then, about thirty years ago, Grey Poupon launched a really successful marketing campaign to become a household name, and that spawned the whole mustard section that we have in the supermarket today. Meanwhile, we still just have Heinz ketchup, plus a few specialty varieties that never hugely took off. (Apart from Muir Glen at Whole Foods and some supermarket generics, there's not much out there.)
What works for mustard should work for ketchup, right? They're both just condiments! So eight years ago, a guy name Jim Wigon from Massachusetts decided to do for ketchup what Grey Poupon did for mustard. He started a business called World's Best Ketchup, using all sorts of premium ingredients that you can't get in Heinz. Build a better ketchup! This guy Wigon poured his heart and soul into the project, all kinds of research and taste testing, but it never took off. Why not?
Because the flavor of ketchup, as it turns out, is universal. The human palate recognizes five fundamental tastes: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. When the Heinz company developed their ketchup, they ended up hitting every single one of these notes, in a balanced composition. Heinz ketchup is one of the only products on the shelf that pushes every single sensory button.
So how can World's Best compete with this? Jim Wigon made World's Best using different sweeteners and more tomato, but in doing so he changed the balance. The ketchup experts - and shoppers of the world - said that it simply wasn't ketchup anymore. A quote:
World's Best Dill ketchup on fried catfish, for instance, is a marvelous thing. But it also meant that [Wigon's] ketchup wasn't as sensorily complete as Heinz, and he was paying a heavy price in amplitude. "Our conclusion was mainly this," Bhuchholz (a ketchup taster) said. "We felt that World's Best seemed to be more like a sauce." She was trying to be helpful.Ouch! So much for building a better ketchup.
What the heck does this have to do with Bikram yoga? Oh, I bet you can guess by now!
Bikram yoga is ketchup. By a combination of cleverness and luck, Bikram put together a class that hits every single note in the human body, in just the right balance.
When I first started Bikram, I had done plenty of other exercise and yoga in my life, but I remember walking out of class thinking, "I think I just used every part of my body, and half of those were parts I didn't even know I had. What happened in there?!" Because unlike everything else - unlike dance, Pilates, running, sports, hiking, or even other types of yoga - Bikram's class hits every note. You've heard the spiel before - you're using every part of your body, every system, every muscle, joint, organ, and major gland. Inside out, bones to the skin, fingertips to the toes, blah-de blah blah blah. We say it all the time, but man oh man, we say it because it is true!
Just think of it. In 90 minutes, you stretch and strengthen lots of different muscles. That part is easy to see. But there's also tons of stuff happening inside your body, and it's easy to forget about the things you can't see. You're working your cardiovascular system (heart), your respiratory system (lungs), your digestive system, your immune system, and the rest of your endocrine system. You're working on strength and flexibility, plus balance. And you're working all the mental aspects as well - your determination, concentration, self-control, patience, and faith. All of this in perfect balance.
That is Bikram yoga. There can be only one. Bikram yoga is ketchup.
And if you change anything? Take things away, add other things in, try to build a better hot yoga? Well, my conclusion is mainly this: although it might be delicious in its own way, that seems to be more like a sauce.
Just think of it. In 90 minutes, you stretch and strengthen lots of different muscles. That part is easy to see. But there's also tons of stuff happening inside your body, and it's easy to forget about the things you can't see. You're working your cardiovascular system (heart), your respiratory system (lungs), your digestive system, your immune system, and the rest of your endocrine system. You're working on strength and flexibility, plus balance. And you're working all the mental aspects as well - your determination, concentration, self-control, patience, and faith. All of this in perfect balance.
That is Bikram yoga. There can be only one. Bikram yoga is ketchup.
And if you change anything? Take things away, add other things in, try to build a better hot yoga? Well, my conclusion is mainly this: although it might be delicious in its own way, that seems to be more like a sauce.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Six Months of Joy
Hello my lovely and patient (?) readers!
I have some catching up to do here! Let's see - when last I wrote, I was teaching in Kentucky, getting ready to head out to Tennessee for Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. So tonight, I will tell you a little bit about my adventure at Bonnaroo!
Bonnaroo was awesome. I totally loved it and I will probably go again next year. For those of you who aren't familiar with this festival, let me briefly explain. Bonnaroo is a 4-day music festival on some farmland in the middle of Tennessee. And for those 4 days, Bonnaroo is essentially its own city, kind of like at Burning Man - this year, there were 90,000 people at Bonnaroo, and most of these people are camping out next to their cars. (The cars are nicely laid out in grids in camps with names like Camp Chewbacca, Camp Stewie Griffin, and Camp Marsellus Wallace. We got a corner spot in Camp Ed Rooney, which was a prime location, only 10 minutes from the stages.) It is hot and very dusty during the day, and gorgeous at night. We never set an alarm clock while we were there - all the acts start in the afternoon, but also, you automatically wake up at 8am when you start sweating in your sleeping bag. As a Bikram yoga teacher and a fairly-frequent camper, I felt that I was very well prepared for this environment! I wore a hat, a bandana, and SPF 50, my friend and I carried around CamelPaks and gallon jugs of water all weekend, and we both felt great.
The city of Bonnaroo is a fun and happening place, even before you take the music into account. There was a surprising amount of delicious and reasonably-priced food - some of the smoothie stands were excellent, and I had the best iced chai tea that I've ever had in my life. The girl at the chai stand gave me the ingredients but not the proportions, so I will spend the rest of my summer in my kitchen on a quest to recreate the perfect chai. Some booths were just blatantly selling stoner food - hot waffle ice cream sandwich with hot fudge, anyone?! The shopping was great - I bought quite a few sundresses, a new backpack with an Om sign on it, and some feather earrings. There were also rides - a water slide, a Ferris wheel, and a giant slip-and-slide - and lots of hula hoops.
So my friend Slappy and I basically spent the first day wandering around ooh-ing and aah-ing over all this fun stuff before remembering that there was also supposed to be some music involved. And a LOT of it! With 2 main stages, 3 music tents, a comedy tent, and a cinema tent, the big challenge at Bonnaroo is getting to see all the acts you want to see! There were some amazing acts that we missed seeing, either because they conflicted with another group that we wanted to see or because we couldn't make it in.
Here is most of what I did see, in order. (I am consulting my schedule for this.) Thursday: Futurebirds, Karen Elson, Beats Antique. Friday: Bela Fleck and the (Original!) Flecktones, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket, Arcade Fire. Saturday: Old Crow Medicine Show, Alison Krauss and Union Station with Jerry Douglas, Mumford and Sons, The Black Keys, Buffalo Springfield, Eminem, String Cheese Incident, Girl Talk. Sunday: Mavis Staples, Amos Lee, Iron and Wine, Ben Sollee, White Buffalo, Robert Plant and the Band of Joy, The Strokes, and Widespread Panic.
Pretty good!!
That's a wide variety of musical styles (which is the cool thing about going to a huge festival like this) - along with the jam bands (which are a Bonnaroo staple), we had rap, soul, dance, bluegrass, and rock and roll. It was very cool and I'm discovering my latent love for bluegrass music. (The Telluride Bluegrass festival is seriously tempting me for next year, if only Colorado weren't twice as far as Tennessee...)
There were a lot of great acts, but there are two that really stand out for me.
First standout: Mumford and Sons. My god, but those men can play. That was hands-down one of the best live performances I've ever seen. Watching those men jam out, it is impossible to imagine anyone enjoying himself more than that. They are pure energy and joy, and if you ever get the chance to see them, GO!!
Mumford had a 6:15pm spot on the second-largest stage, and Slappy and I essentially camped out at that stage for the entire afternoon in order to get a decent viewing spot. And we did - we were close up enough that we could actually see the faces of the guys on stage!
All told, there were about 50,000 of us jammed onto that dusty little field, standing room only, jostling around each other with our backpacks and water jugs, trying not to end up standing in a ditch or behind someone really tall. We stood around like that for a while, waiting for the band to come on, and I was very proud of myself when I started up a half-decent Eagles sing-along. ("Well I'm a-running down the road trying to loosen my load, I've got seven women on my mind....") And then the band came on. And we sang.
Here's the gorgeous thing about being a fan among other fans. Listening to music is normally a semi-private experience. You listen to an album in your car, in your kitchen, during dinner, on your iPod, on the subway, in your bedroom. If you love the album, then you listen to it over and over again, until you know every word. And that's a very personal thing, right? When you love a song or a band so much that you play it on your iPod all day, until you know the music inside-out...
Until one day, you go out into a sea of people, in the middle of nowhere. And the band starts playing, and everyone else knows the words, too. Everyone in this space has been listening to these songs over and over, in the car, on the subway, in their bedroom. So the private experience becomes a shared experience, and you realize - how can you miss it? - that all these strangers share the same emotions. You know, beyond doubt, that our hearts all keep the same beat. A sea of strangers, thousands of people, stand together, soclose, nearly touching, in a dusty field, at sunset, moving to the music, and singing out: "Love, it will not betray, dismay or enslave you, it will set! You! Free!"
It's just the same in yoga sometimes, isn't it? You come together with these strangers, and you sweat together, you breathe together, your hearts pound together. And you end up kind of loving and respecting each other, even if you never know each other's names, because you recognize that common bond. You're having this intense, private experience (that's called life), but everyone else is having the same experience with you, side-by-side.
Not to mention the other yoga-to-music analogy - you can walk up to a fellow yogi and say "eventually, in the future..." and they will fill in the blank. I know that you guys know the lyrics.
So that was one memorable experience.
Here's the other one.
Saturday night is basically big, loud, chaos. We saw Eminem on the big stage at midnight, who was okay. (He spent an awful lot of time sort of talking about himself and shouting, when we mostly just wanted to hear "Loose Yourself." Which he got around to, eventually, and which was a lot of fun.) Then I ran around and went to the jam bands and dance parties until the wee hours of the morning. There was a big blow-up dinosaur at one, and lots of balloons and confetti at the other - fun!! Then I went to bed at about 4:30am - so early, by festival standards! - because I wanted to go hear Mavis Staples on Sunday morning. I had heard her once before on the radio and I liked her.
Mavis Staples played at 1:00 on Sunday afternoon, on the main stage. The last act to play on that stage had been Eminem, and that field had been trashed, but it all got cleaned up overnight, just in time for some gospel music. There were not too many people there - most people were still sleeping off Saturday night! - so the field was nice and open, great for spreading out the picnic blanket (i.e. sheet), lounging in the grass, and listening to some happier music.
It was a beautiful day.
Mavis Staples. Look her up. Her family has been making music for 61 years, and they - The Staples Singers - were basically the musical voice of the civil rights movement. (Mavis's father was friends with Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Now, according to Wikipedia, Mavis Staples is 71, which I find hard to believe, because she looks about 50 and has the energy of a 25-year-old. She reminds me of a yogi - ageless! And she has a presence. That's the only word I can think of for what she has, and really doesn't even begin to cover it. When she sings, you feel her, right down to the soul. Oh my gosh, that's why they call it soul music. You can feel her soul, and she is talking to you.
She sang some amazing songs. She sang "Wade in the Water," which led Slappy and myself to dance around like fools doing our best white girl impression of Alvin Ailey. She sang a gorgeous song from her new album, "You Are Not Alone," and she sang very old songs like "For What It's Worth" ("stop, children, what's that sound?") and "I'll Take You There." Did I mention that this woman has presence? When she was singing, "I'll Take You There," she called out, "Our family has been taking you there for 61 years, and we ain't tired yet!"
In that moment, I thought of Bikram. Two completely different individuals - Mavis Staples and Bikram Choudhury - but both of them getting up in front of a crowd, tirelessly, for decades, repeating the same words, to lead people to a better life. And I thought of myself and all the other yoga teachers, because what is it that we're trying to do? We'll take you there. We want to take you to a better life, a better way of living.
On top of being a singer, Mavis Staples speaks with magnetism of an old-school Southern preacher and the affection of a mother. When she speaks, your ears perk up and you listen. So I remember, very specifically, something that she said in the middle of her performance. She said, "I just want you to walk away from this performance.... feeling joyful... for at least... six months."
Six months of joy. Gorgeous. What a brilliant goal. What a fantastic power.
Just take me by the hand.
Let me, let me, let me lead the way....
~~~~~~
Next up: How Bikram Yoga is like ketchup! I know you are dying to find out....
I have some catching up to do here! Let's see - when last I wrote, I was teaching in Kentucky, getting ready to head out to Tennessee for Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. So tonight, I will tell you a little bit about my adventure at Bonnaroo!
Bonnaroo was awesome. I totally loved it and I will probably go again next year. For those of you who aren't familiar with this festival, let me briefly explain. Bonnaroo is a 4-day music festival on some farmland in the middle of Tennessee. And for those 4 days, Bonnaroo is essentially its own city, kind of like at Burning Man - this year, there were 90,000 people at Bonnaroo, and most of these people are camping out next to their cars. (The cars are nicely laid out in grids in camps with names like Camp Chewbacca, Camp Stewie Griffin, and Camp Marsellus Wallace. We got a corner spot in Camp Ed Rooney, which was a prime location, only 10 minutes from the stages.) It is hot and very dusty during the day, and gorgeous at night. We never set an alarm clock while we were there - all the acts start in the afternoon, but also, you automatically wake up at 8am when you start sweating in your sleeping bag. As a Bikram yoga teacher and a fairly-frequent camper, I felt that I was very well prepared for this environment! I wore a hat, a bandana, and SPF 50, my friend and I carried around CamelPaks and gallon jugs of water all weekend, and we both felt great.
The city of Bonnaroo is a fun and happening place, even before you take the music into account. There was a surprising amount of delicious and reasonably-priced food - some of the smoothie stands were excellent, and I had the best iced chai tea that I've ever had in my life. The girl at the chai stand gave me the ingredients but not the proportions, so I will spend the rest of my summer in my kitchen on a quest to recreate the perfect chai. Some booths were just blatantly selling stoner food - hot waffle ice cream sandwich with hot fudge, anyone?! The shopping was great - I bought quite a few sundresses, a new backpack with an Om sign on it, and some feather earrings. There were also rides - a water slide, a Ferris wheel, and a giant slip-and-slide - and lots of hula hoops.
So my friend Slappy and I basically spent the first day wandering around ooh-ing and aah-ing over all this fun stuff before remembering that there was also supposed to be some music involved. And a LOT of it! With 2 main stages, 3 music tents, a comedy tent, and a cinema tent, the big challenge at Bonnaroo is getting to see all the acts you want to see! There were some amazing acts that we missed seeing, either because they conflicted with another group that we wanted to see or because we couldn't make it in.
Here is most of what I did see, in order. (I am consulting my schedule for this.) Thursday: Futurebirds, Karen Elson, Beats Antique. Friday: Bela Fleck and the (Original!) Flecktones, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket, Arcade Fire. Saturday: Old Crow Medicine Show, Alison Krauss and Union Station with Jerry Douglas, Mumford and Sons, The Black Keys, Buffalo Springfield, Eminem, String Cheese Incident, Girl Talk. Sunday: Mavis Staples, Amos Lee, Iron and Wine, Ben Sollee, White Buffalo, Robert Plant and the Band of Joy, The Strokes, and Widespread Panic.
Pretty good!!
That's a wide variety of musical styles (which is the cool thing about going to a huge festival like this) - along with the jam bands (which are a Bonnaroo staple), we had rap, soul, dance, bluegrass, and rock and roll. It was very cool and I'm discovering my latent love for bluegrass music. (The Telluride Bluegrass festival is seriously tempting me for next year, if only Colorado weren't twice as far as Tennessee...)
There were a lot of great acts, but there are two that really stand out for me.
First standout: Mumford and Sons. My god, but those men can play. That was hands-down one of the best live performances I've ever seen. Watching those men jam out, it is impossible to imagine anyone enjoying himself more than that. They are pure energy and joy, and if you ever get the chance to see them, GO!!
Mumford had a 6:15pm spot on the second-largest stage, and Slappy and I essentially camped out at that stage for the entire afternoon in order to get a decent viewing spot. And we did - we were close up enough that we could actually see the faces of the guys on stage!
All told, there were about 50,000 of us jammed onto that dusty little field, standing room only, jostling around each other with our backpacks and water jugs, trying not to end up standing in a ditch or behind someone really tall. We stood around like that for a while, waiting for the band to come on, and I was very proud of myself when I started up a half-decent Eagles sing-along. ("Well I'm a-running down the road trying to loosen my load, I've got seven women on my mind....") And then the band came on. And we sang.
Here's the gorgeous thing about being a fan among other fans. Listening to music is normally a semi-private experience. You listen to an album in your car, in your kitchen, during dinner, on your iPod, on the subway, in your bedroom. If you love the album, then you listen to it over and over again, until you know every word. And that's a very personal thing, right? When you love a song or a band so much that you play it on your iPod all day, until you know the music inside-out...
Until one day, you go out into a sea of people, in the middle of nowhere. And the band starts playing, and everyone else knows the words, too. Everyone in this space has been listening to these songs over and over, in the car, on the subway, in their bedroom. So the private experience becomes a shared experience, and you realize - how can you miss it? - that all these strangers share the same emotions. You know, beyond doubt, that our hearts all keep the same beat. A sea of strangers, thousands of people, stand together, soclose, nearly touching, in a dusty field, at sunset, moving to the music, and singing out: "Love, it will not betray, dismay or enslave you, it will set! You! Free!"
It's just the same in yoga sometimes, isn't it? You come together with these strangers, and you sweat together, you breathe together, your hearts pound together. And you end up kind of loving and respecting each other, even if you never know each other's names, because you recognize that common bond. You're having this intense, private experience (that's called life), but everyone else is having the same experience with you, side-by-side.
Not to mention the other yoga-to-music analogy - you can walk up to a fellow yogi and say "eventually, in the future..." and they will fill in the blank. I know that you guys know the lyrics.
So that was one memorable experience.
Here's the other one.
Saturday night is basically big, loud, chaos. We saw Eminem on the big stage at midnight, who was okay. (He spent an awful lot of time sort of talking about himself and shouting, when we mostly just wanted to hear "Loose Yourself." Which he got around to, eventually, and which was a lot of fun.) Then I ran around and went to the jam bands and dance parties until the wee hours of the morning. There was a big blow-up dinosaur at one, and lots of balloons and confetti at the other - fun!! Then I went to bed at about 4:30am - so early, by festival standards! - because I wanted to go hear Mavis Staples on Sunday morning. I had heard her once before on the radio and I liked her.
Mavis Staples played at 1:00 on Sunday afternoon, on the main stage. The last act to play on that stage had been Eminem, and that field had been trashed, but it all got cleaned up overnight, just in time for some gospel music. There were not too many people there - most people were still sleeping off Saturday night! - so the field was nice and open, great for spreading out the picnic blanket (i.e. sheet), lounging in the grass, and listening to some happier music.
It was a beautiful day.
Mavis Staples. Look her up. Her family has been making music for 61 years, and they - The Staples Singers - were basically the musical voice of the civil rights movement. (Mavis's father was friends with Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Now, according to Wikipedia, Mavis Staples is 71, which I find hard to believe, because she looks about 50 and has the energy of a 25-year-old. She reminds me of a yogi - ageless! And she has a presence. That's the only word I can think of for what she has, and really doesn't even begin to cover it. When she sings, you feel her, right down to the soul. Oh my gosh, that's why they call it soul music. You can feel her soul, and she is talking to you.
She sang some amazing songs. She sang "Wade in the Water," which led Slappy and myself to dance around like fools doing our best white girl impression of Alvin Ailey. She sang a gorgeous song from her new album, "You Are Not Alone," and she sang very old songs like "For What It's Worth" ("stop, children, what's that sound?") and "I'll Take You There." Did I mention that this woman has presence? When she was singing, "I'll Take You There," she called out, "Our family has been taking you there for 61 years, and we ain't tired yet!"
In that moment, I thought of Bikram. Two completely different individuals - Mavis Staples and Bikram Choudhury - but both of them getting up in front of a crowd, tirelessly, for decades, repeating the same words, to lead people to a better life. And I thought of myself and all the other yoga teachers, because what is it that we're trying to do? We'll take you there. We want to take you to a better life, a better way of living.
On top of being a singer, Mavis Staples speaks with magnetism of an old-school Southern preacher and the affection of a mother. When she speaks, your ears perk up and you listen. So I remember, very specifically, something that she said in the middle of her performance. She said, "I just want you to walk away from this performance.... feeling joyful... for at least... six months."
Six months of joy. Gorgeous. What a brilliant goal. What a fantastic power.
Just take me by the hand.
Let me, let me, let me lead the way....
~~~~~~
Next up: How Bikram Yoga is like ketchup! I know you are dying to find out....
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
More Cities, More Yoga!
This is just a quick-ish kind of an update, since I am Very Busy and Important. (Name that book/movie.)
I'm doing a little bit of a "traveling teacher" thing right now - I took off a couple weeks from my regular studio in Baltimore in order to go gallivanting around the country. Okay, I really only gallivanted as far as Kentucky, but it was a satisfyingly long drive through the hills of West Virginia. (I think that every single bug in West Virginia is now plastered on the front end of my car.) It always feels good to be out on the open road, just me and my car!
I'm teaching at the studio in Lexington KY right now, and it's pretty awesome. I've taught 4 classes here since Sunday, and they've all been pretty action packed. First of all, I taught the Sunday and Monday morning classes of Memorial Day weekend, which is a big holiday weekend. And second of all, the studio just did a Groupon deal last week, so there is a flood of new people coming in. So it's been hot and humid and crowded and exciting. I taught the two evening classes tonight and had ten new students in each class - I barely learned half of their names! They all stuck it out through the class and did great - it was really fun. Slightly tricky, but fun.
The travel is good for me because quite honestly, the first day at a new studio is always way out of my comfort zone. And I hadn't taught anywhere apart from my "home studio" since December, so I was definitely due to shake things up a bit. I had some butterflies in my stomach before I taught my first class here on Sunday morning, and it's been months since I got nervous about teaching a class. I wonder if this gets easier with practice? I've got some more travels coming up this summer, so I guess I'll find out.
I also had a good feedback session with Jodi, the studio owner, after my class on Sunday. First of all, she busted me on a little phrase that I'd left out of my dialogue, so she gets props for that. I don't get corrected on my dialogue very often. We also had a good chat about the classroom interactions, and as I was talking to her, I put my finger on something: teaching the first class at a new studio is like going on a blind first date. It's kind of awkward and kind of nerve-wracking, because you (the teacher) don't know them (the students) and they don't know you. I'm used to having an easy rapport with most of my classes, but that's because I know all of my students! I know when they started, how much they practice, how they're doing, how their dogs are doing, etc etc etc. That makes it all easy and great. But when you're in front of a room of total strangers, it's such a different feeling! It's harder to read the room, and it's harder for them to read you, too. First class in a new place, I crack a little joke and it's like....... *crickets*...... ooh, tough room.
But happily, that phase doesn't last too long. And already, after only four classes, I'm much more comfortable with the whole set-up. I'm getting to know the regulars (and the repeat newbies), and I'm learning how to assess the room much more quickly. I'm getting used to looking around the room during the first couple of postures and figuring out, okay, here are the rock star regulars, here are the newbies, here are the ones working through injuries, here are the total weirdos.... check, check, check.
I really am loving it here in Lexington and I will have to post about it at greater length later, with pictures. For now, I will just say that two out of my three evenings have been spent at lazy backyard barbeques, and all the yoga teachers spent Monday afternoon biking around Lexington with a huge group of people. I could get used to this. (But don't worry Baltimore, I'll be back.)
There are so many great yoga studios and so many places that I want to go. It's always tempting to just chuck everything into my car and hit the road for a while to go everywhere - but where would that really get me? The students that I love the most are the ones who I spend months with. I guess it's important to have a home base. It's exciting to go to new places, but it's sad to leave them. Very Mary Poppins. ("And what would happen to me, may I asked, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?") I was talking about this with Mike from my teacher training, who has been in Lex for the last couple of weeks. He's been to lots of different studios and he says that he is always really sad when he leaves. I told him, "Yes, but your family is only getting bigger." Every new place becomes a new home.
Apparently this is my idea of a quick update. Watch out for the long one!!
Also, my next stop is Bonnarroo! Anyone else going?!
I'm doing a little bit of a "traveling teacher" thing right now - I took off a couple weeks from my regular studio in Baltimore in order to go gallivanting around the country. Okay, I really only gallivanted as far as Kentucky, but it was a satisfyingly long drive through the hills of West Virginia. (I think that every single bug in West Virginia is now plastered on the front end of my car.) It always feels good to be out on the open road, just me and my car!
I'm teaching at the studio in Lexington KY right now, and it's pretty awesome. I've taught 4 classes here since Sunday, and they've all been pretty action packed. First of all, I taught the Sunday and Monday morning classes of Memorial Day weekend, which is a big holiday weekend. And second of all, the studio just did a Groupon deal last week, so there is a flood of new people coming in. So it's been hot and humid and crowded and exciting. I taught the two evening classes tonight and had ten new students in each class - I barely learned half of their names! They all stuck it out through the class and did great - it was really fun. Slightly tricky, but fun.
The travel is good for me because quite honestly, the first day at a new studio is always way out of my comfort zone. And I hadn't taught anywhere apart from my "home studio" since December, so I was definitely due to shake things up a bit. I had some butterflies in my stomach before I taught my first class here on Sunday morning, and it's been months since I got nervous about teaching a class. I wonder if this gets easier with practice? I've got some more travels coming up this summer, so I guess I'll find out.
I also had a good feedback session with Jodi, the studio owner, after my class on Sunday. First of all, she busted me on a little phrase that I'd left out of my dialogue, so she gets props for that. I don't get corrected on my dialogue very often. We also had a good chat about the classroom interactions, and as I was talking to her, I put my finger on something: teaching the first class at a new studio is like going on a blind first date. It's kind of awkward and kind of nerve-wracking, because you (the teacher) don't know them (the students) and they don't know you. I'm used to having an easy rapport with most of my classes, but that's because I know all of my students! I know when they started, how much they practice, how they're doing, how their dogs are doing, etc etc etc. That makes it all easy and great. But when you're in front of a room of total strangers, it's such a different feeling! It's harder to read the room, and it's harder for them to read you, too. First class in a new place, I crack a little joke and it's like....... *crickets*...... ooh, tough room.
But happily, that phase doesn't last too long. And already, after only four classes, I'm much more comfortable with the whole set-up. I'm getting to know the regulars (and the repeat newbies), and I'm learning how to assess the room much more quickly. I'm getting used to looking around the room during the first couple of postures and figuring out, okay, here are the rock star regulars, here are the newbies, here are the ones working through injuries, here are the total weirdos.... check, check, check.
I really am loving it here in Lexington and I will have to post about it at greater length later, with pictures. For now, I will just say that two out of my three evenings have been spent at lazy backyard barbeques, and all the yoga teachers spent Monday afternoon biking around Lexington with a huge group of people. I could get used to this. (But don't worry Baltimore, I'll be back.)
There are so many great yoga studios and so many places that I want to go. It's always tempting to just chuck everything into my car and hit the road for a while to go everywhere - but where would that really get me? The students that I love the most are the ones who I spend months with. I guess it's important to have a home base. It's exciting to go to new places, but it's sad to leave them. Very Mary Poppins. ("And what would happen to me, may I asked, if I loved all the children I said goodbye to?") I was talking about this with Mike from my teacher training, who has been in Lex for the last couple of weeks. He's been to lots of different studios and he says that he is always really sad when he leaves. I told him, "Yes, but your family is only getting bigger." Every new place becomes a new home.
Apparently this is my idea of a quick update. Watch out for the long one!!
Also, my next stop is Bonnarroo! Anyone else going?!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
"Groundhog Day" Revisited
I just want to point something out.
Most of you probably know the movie called "Groundhog Day." It's an early '90's comedy flick starring Bill Murray as a weatherman who gets stuck repeating the same day over and over and over again. It's one of those movies that frequently gets shown on cable TV over the weekend when there's nothing new to be shown. I re-watched it earlier this year and was surprised at how funny and satisfying it actually was!
When we find ourselves repeating the same task over and over again - whether it's the same yoga class, the same job, the same chores, or the same studies - we tend to exclaim, "Ugh! It's just like Groundhog Day!" I remember when I was halfway through teacher training and all the days started to blur together, my roommate and I agreed that there was definitely a Groundhog Day effect going on - it felt like we woke up into the same circumstances every day and we were doomed to repeat the same day indefinitely.
But here's the thing, the blindingly obvious truth of the matter, the part that we always forget: Bill Murray had a completely different experience every day!
Yes, it was still February 2nd every time he woke up. But the day never went the same way twice.
And more than that - as the repetition continued, Bill Murray learned to live the day better. After a few attempts, he remembered to avoid the puddle outside his front door. He figured out how to get rid of the annoying acquaintance who would always accost him. On a some occasions, he tried to throw the towel in by acting as outrageously as possible, getting himself arrested or driving his car off a cliff. But then he really started to learn. He found out when the little boy was about to fall out of a tree, and he learned how to get to the right place at the right time. He knew what time he had to get to the restaurant in order to save the old man from choking. He learned to play the piano, one lesson at a time, hundreds of lessons, all on February 2nd, until he was able to amaze everyone with his prodigy - "I've never played before today!" He even - naturally, because this is Hollywood - figured out how to get the girl. He got better and better and better, until he finally got the day right - and that, of course, finally released him from the loop.
But that's what Groundhog Day means. It's not just doing the same shit over and over again. (What's that saying about insanity? "Insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results.") Groundhog Day means that you wake up to the same circumstances every day and take the chance to tackle them differently, to live the day better. Groundhog Day is an opportunity. Groundhog Day is infinite possibility. Groundhog Day is a chance to try lots of different things, and sometimes you'll succeed, and sometimes you'll fuck it up, but you still keep going back and trying again.
And if you're clever and persistent, if you just keep trying new things, then maybe - just maybe - one day, you can live that perfect day.
Most of you probably know the movie called "Groundhog Day." It's an early '90's comedy flick starring Bill Murray as a weatherman who gets stuck repeating the same day over and over and over again. It's one of those movies that frequently gets shown on cable TV over the weekend when there's nothing new to be shown. I re-watched it earlier this year and was surprised at how funny and satisfying it actually was!
When we find ourselves repeating the same task over and over again - whether it's the same yoga class, the same job, the same chores, or the same studies - we tend to exclaim, "Ugh! It's just like Groundhog Day!" I remember when I was halfway through teacher training and all the days started to blur together, my roommate and I agreed that there was definitely a Groundhog Day effect going on - it felt like we woke up into the same circumstances every day and we were doomed to repeat the same day indefinitely.
But here's the thing, the blindingly obvious truth of the matter, the part that we always forget: Bill Murray had a completely different experience every day!
Yes, it was still February 2nd every time he woke up. But the day never went the same way twice.
And more than that - as the repetition continued, Bill Murray learned to live the day better. After a few attempts, he remembered to avoid the puddle outside his front door. He figured out how to get rid of the annoying acquaintance who would always accost him. On a some occasions, he tried to throw the towel in by acting as outrageously as possible, getting himself arrested or driving his car off a cliff. But then he really started to learn. He found out when the little boy was about to fall out of a tree, and he learned how to get to the right place at the right time. He knew what time he had to get to the restaurant in order to save the old man from choking. He learned to play the piano, one lesson at a time, hundreds of lessons, all on February 2nd, until he was able to amaze everyone with his prodigy - "I've never played before today!" He even - naturally, because this is Hollywood - figured out how to get the girl. He got better and better and better, until he finally got the day right - and that, of course, finally released him from the loop.
But that's what Groundhog Day means. It's not just doing the same shit over and over again. (What's that saying about insanity? "Insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over and expecting to get different results.") Groundhog Day means that you wake up to the same circumstances every day and take the chance to tackle them differently, to live the day better. Groundhog Day is an opportunity. Groundhog Day is infinite possibility. Groundhog Day is a chance to try lots of different things, and sometimes you'll succeed, and sometimes you'll fuck it up, but you still keep going back and trying again.
And if you're clever and persistent, if you just keep trying new things, then maybe - just maybe - one day, you can live that perfect day.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Driving Lessons
When I had just turned sixteen, my dad drove me down the street from our house, maybe a one mile distance, to the corner of Spring St. and Pine St., where there was a mostly empty parking lot. Then we both got out of the car, he handed me the keys, and I got into the driver's seat of the car for the first time.
I remember the surprise I felt when I pressed the gas pedal and the car started to move! I drove the length of maybe 5 parking spaces and shouted "Whoa!!" and my dad said "Brakes!" and I braked. We cracked up for a minute, and then my dad took advantage of the teaching moment. He made an excellent point which I will always remember. He said, "Next time, when you feel like saying 'whoa', what you should do instead of saying 'whoa' is use the brakes."
This was my first driving lesson: gas pedal and brakes.
(Later in the day, I drove on the actual road out in Haydenville, a teeny Massachusetts town with a population of barely a thousand, and I got pulled over by the one cop in Haydenville for "erratic driving." I told her somewhat tearfully that it was "my first time," while my dad helpfully pulled out the license and registration, and she kept a mostly straight face when she told me to "keep practicing.")
In yoga, I think, we need to learn the same lessons. I don't mean the bit about erratic driving (although if you flail about too much at certain studios, you might get in trouble with the yoga cops). I mean the lesson about the gas pedal and the brakes. In every posture, in every moment of the class, you can chose to hit the gas and expend more effort or you can chose to hit the brakes and do less. Your job - and it really is your job, ultimately - is to figure out which of these two things to do and how to do it.
It's easy to see the two big mistakes that students can make. Some students come in and drive with the gas pedal to the floor for the whole class. You know these people - the ones who come in and turn really red and breathe like they're playing rugby for the whole class. (Bless them. We've got a guy like this who is improving by leaps and bounds and I love him to pieces, in a purely professional way.) This is the yoga equivalent of the guy who weaves in and out of traffic, tailgates all the time, and tries to go as fast a possible - and yet you still notice that he gets stopped at the same red light as you do. For all his extra effort and gas, he doesn't really gain anything.
Then you have the students who are riding their brakes, or maybe they just can't find the gas pedal. These are the ones who somehow flop through the whole class without contracting a single muscle. This is the yoga equivalent of the old lady who drives at 45 miles per hour in the right lane on the freeway. Totally oblivious. Relatively safe, but there's not much actually happening.
Those are the most general and obvious cases, but the differences can be much more subtle. In my last post, when I was talking about doing "less", I used the example of pranayama breathing. For someone who is nice and healthy, there is no problem with pushing the head way back (as long as the spine is straight) - it's a fine time to use the gas pedal. But for someone with neck pain, the exercise should be done to tolerance, so that it is uncomfortable but not horribly painful. The person with neck pain might have to step on her brakes.
Even for just you, from day to day, you have to make judgments about how to drive your body. For me, when I am feeling really great, I can go through the class giving 110% and feel great at the end. (That's an efficient 110% - no heavy rugby breathing.) But this week, I tweaked my back a little bit, something way down by the sacrum. Don't know what I did, but it really kinda hurt. So I pulled my practice back to like 70%. I took out the sit-ups (which annoyed me for about 10 minutes), went slow in the warm-up, and did good spine strengthening series and camel pose but really wimpy forward stretching. And after three days - which is nothing, really - I'm nearly as good as new. That's because I knew that I had to lay off the gas pedal and just coast for a bit. If I had tried to power through the class, I suspect that I'd have been hurting for much longer.
I love when I can coast my car along the freeway - no brakes, just a little gas as needed - because it is the most efficient way to drive. (I mean, gas looks like it'll be up at $4 a gallon for the whole summer - it's expensive to be an inefficient driver, even if I am using my miles as tax deductions!) And really, when you get the hang of this yoga stuff, that's what a really good practice feels like: it is absolutely efficient. No effort is wasted - none of that nonsense where you floor the gas pedal for one block, then slam the brakes all of a sudden when you come upon a stop sign. No, you put the effort exactly where you need it, no more and no less. In the beginning parts of standing head to knee, the effort goes into the legs and the stomach, and hardly anywhere else - face relaxed, breathing relaxed. That's why your teachers can do standing head to knee and have a chat with you at the same time, if they want to. (Isn't that annoying?) It's all about efficiency. Fuel economy.
Just remember. The first lesson of driving a car: here is the gas pedal and here are the brakes. And unless you learn how to use both of them properly, you'll have trouble getting very far.
Even in Haydenville.
I remember the surprise I felt when I pressed the gas pedal and the car started to move! I drove the length of maybe 5 parking spaces and shouted "Whoa!!" and my dad said "Brakes!" and I braked. We cracked up for a minute, and then my dad took advantage of the teaching moment. He made an excellent point which I will always remember. He said, "Next time, when you feel like saying 'whoa', what you should do instead of saying 'whoa' is use the brakes."
This was my first driving lesson: gas pedal and brakes.
(Later in the day, I drove on the actual road out in Haydenville, a teeny Massachusetts town with a population of barely a thousand, and I got pulled over by the one cop in Haydenville for "erratic driving." I told her somewhat tearfully that it was "my first time," while my dad helpfully pulled out the license and registration, and she kept a mostly straight face when she told me to "keep practicing.")
In yoga, I think, we need to learn the same lessons. I don't mean the bit about erratic driving (although if you flail about too much at certain studios, you might get in trouble with the yoga cops). I mean the lesson about the gas pedal and the brakes. In every posture, in every moment of the class, you can chose to hit the gas and expend more effort or you can chose to hit the brakes and do less. Your job - and it really is your job, ultimately - is to figure out which of these two things to do and how to do it.
It's easy to see the two big mistakes that students can make. Some students come in and drive with the gas pedal to the floor for the whole class. You know these people - the ones who come in and turn really red and breathe like they're playing rugby for the whole class. (Bless them. We've got a guy like this who is improving by leaps and bounds and I love him to pieces, in a purely professional way.) This is the yoga equivalent of the guy who weaves in and out of traffic, tailgates all the time, and tries to go as fast a possible - and yet you still notice that he gets stopped at the same red light as you do. For all his extra effort and gas, he doesn't really gain anything.
Then you have the students who are riding their brakes, or maybe they just can't find the gas pedal. These are the ones who somehow flop through the whole class without contracting a single muscle. This is the yoga equivalent of the old lady who drives at 45 miles per hour in the right lane on the freeway. Totally oblivious. Relatively safe, but there's not much actually happening.
Those are the most general and obvious cases, but the differences can be much more subtle. In my last post, when I was talking about doing "less", I used the example of pranayama breathing. For someone who is nice and healthy, there is no problem with pushing the head way back (as long as the spine is straight) - it's a fine time to use the gas pedal. But for someone with neck pain, the exercise should be done to tolerance, so that it is uncomfortable but not horribly painful. The person with neck pain might have to step on her brakes.
Even for just you, from day to day, you have to make judgments about how to drive your body. For me, when I am feeling really great, I can go through the class giving 110% and feel great at the end. (That's an efficient 110% - no heavy rugby breathing.) But this week, I tweaked my back a little bit, something way down by the sacrum. Don't know what I did, but it really kinda hurt. So I pulled my practice back to like 70%. I took out the sit-ups (which annoyed me for about 10 minutes), went slow in the warm-up, and did good spine strengthening series and camel pose but really wimpy forward stretching. And after three days - which is nothing, really - I'm nearly as good as new. That's because I knew that I had to lay off the gas pedal and just coast for a bit. If I had tried to power through the class, I suspect that I'd have been hurting for much longer.
I love when I can coast my car along the freeway - no brakes, just a little gas as needed - because it is the most efficient way to drive. (I mean, gas looks like it'll be up at $4 a gallon for the whole summer - it's expensive to be an inefficient driver, even if I am using my miles as tax deductions!) And really, when you get the hang of this yoga stuff, that's what a really good practice feels like: it is absolutely efficient. No effort is wasted - none of that nonsense where you floor the gas pedal for one block, then slam the brakes all of a sudden when you come upon a stop sign. No, you put the effort exactly where you need it, no more and no less. In the beginning parts of standing head to knee, the effort goes into the legs and the stomach, and hardly anywhere else - face relaxed, breathing relaxed. That's why your teachers can do standing head to knee and have a chat with you at the same time, if they want to. (Isn't that annoying?) It's all about efficiency. Fuel economy.
Just remember. The first lesson of driving a car: here is the gas pedal and here are the brakes. And unless you learn how to use both of them properly, you'll have trouble getting very far.
Even in Haydenville.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Sometimes "Less" is More
I spent this past weekend in the most glorious yoga bubble. My studio just hosted a student seminar (Saturday) and teacher seminar (Sunday) with my mentor Diane. It was a weekend of non-stop yoga awesomeness. Almost impossible to describe. I can still feel the bubble, actually - it hasn't popped, it just expanded when everyone left our studio and went back to their homes, their states, or their travels.
The students are still buzzing about how awesome the seminar was and how much they learned. Everyone learned something different - "I learned that I can balance if I really concentrate," "I learned that it's better to stay with the class," "Class goes by so quickly now," "I learned that my triangle is actually pretty good!" And we teachers have all sorts of great new information to share with the entire studio. I gave one girl some new advice on a shoulder problem she's been having, and on the way out, her mom said to me, "I think you just gave us more than we've gotten from 8 doctors." Information is so powerful!
As a precocious but new teacher, I cannot imagine a better learning exercise than this, which is what has happened for me:
1. Go find a supportive studio to teach at.
2. Teach there full time for 8 months, teaching approximately one third of the weekly scheduled classes, so that you really get to know all the students.
3. Teach by the dialogue, nice and clean, to the best of your ability, including personal corrections.
4. Get your studio owner to book a senior teacher for a seminar. (This part takes some advance planning, since senior teachers tend to have full schedules. We got lucky - Diane had a cancellation and we jumped the line.)
5. Get all your awesome regular students to sign up for this seminar.
6. Put all of your students in room with expert teacher.
7. Sit back.
8. Watch. And. Learn.
Wow, seriously wow. What a terrific education. It's like I've been building the foundation for a house, brick by brick, and then someone came along and said, "Hey, great foundation, this is going to work perfectly... and now here's how you build the house!" A bit artless, but that's the best metaphor I can think of right now, and I'm not going to wait for a better one to come to me.
I'm a little bit lost for words. It's hard for me to convey what a joyful experience this weekend has been. Language always has this problem - at its best, it is still just a finger pointing at the moon, never the moon itself. Strong emotions can't be captured. But if I had to chose a few words? Grace. Stillness. Energy. Compassion.
Love, of course.
And I feel confident, not in a reckless way, but in a steady and quiet way. Because I can see the path laid out before me now, and I know what I need to do next.
Here's what I learned (and this lesson is going to guide me for many months now): it is so easy for students to do too much. In Diane's estimate, about 3 out of 10 students need to use their strength more, and the remaining 7 out of 10 are being over-aggressive in their practice. I didn't truly understand this until I saw how Diane worked with my students. In so many cases, they were pushing a little bit too far into pain, trying to do something that the body wasn't quite ready for, and they needed to be pulled back a little bit.
Need an example? Pranayama breathing. Lots of people at the seminar with neck pain, way more people than I thought. (Because you know, students don't always tell us these things. Some of them tell us way more than we need to know, and the rest don't say anything at all!) I've just been teaching pranayama by the dialogue, which includes (on the exhale) "look back until you see the wall behind you," "spine straight, no backward bending," and "push your head back until your neck hurts a little bit." But - as it turns out - lots of people with neck pain are pushing the head back more than they really ought to. Yes, you should try to see the wall behind you, but "spine straight" is more important, and "hurts a little bit" (which means discomfort but not really pain) is most important. Clear as mud, right? So for a lot of people, the correction was to "do less." Do less, do less, do less. Only to tolerance, not to pain.
That's just one example, of course. (And I hope it's clear and correct - I'm just giving my interpretation here. Diane, feel free to butt in if you ever read this!) There were plenty more examples like this throughout the day.
At this point in my teaching journey, there are certain things that I know how to do. Number One, provide correct information. Check. Number Two, provide encouragement and coax students to do more. Check. But now I have a Number Three: get students to pull back when they are doing too much. Oh!!
I've done "number three" to a small extent, but I've never made it my main focus before. Now it is coming right to the front of my consciousness, and it raises so many questions - how do I identify when someone is pushing too much for their body, which postures and clues do I need to look out for, and how do I address this issue smoothly, within the class?
And of course, it is still important to encourage the class and to push the students who need a push, so I really need to figure how to push and pull, equal and simultaneous, 50-50, all within the structure of the class and dialogue.
Ooooh, this is so exciting! And it feels so right. This is just another puzzle piece falling into place - click - helping me become a better and more mature teacher.
Last winter, when I was staying over at Diane's house in the middle of a snowstorm, I picked up a book from a shelf and flipped through to a random page. I don't even remember what the book was, but I remember what I read (and I may have mentioned this before). There was a passage in the middle of the book that said: As you do less, you can accomplish more. Eventually, you reach a state where you do nothing and achieve everything.
Well, I haven't gotten to that state yet - when that happens, I suppose I will levitate and disappear in a ball of light and never type on my little old MacBook again. But "do less, accomplish more." Yeah, I get that. I think I can learn how to teach that.
The students are still buzzing about how awesome the seminar was and how much they learned. Everyone learned something different - "I learned that I can balance if I really concentrate," "I learned that it's better to stay with the class," "Class goes by so quickly now," "I learned that my triangle is actually pretty good!" And we teachers have all sorts of great new information to share with the entire studio. I gave one girl some new advice on a shoulder problem she's been having, and on the way out, her mom said to me, "I think you just gave us more than we've gotten from 8 doctors." Information is so powerful!
As a precocious but new teacher, I cannot imagine a better learning exercise than this, which is what has happened for me:
1. Go find a supportive studio to teach at.
2. Teach there full time for 8 months, teaching approximately one third of the weekly scheduled classes, so that you really get to know all the students.
3. Teach by the dialogue, nice and clean, to the best of your ability, including personal corrections.
4. Get your studio owner to book a senior teacher for a seminar. (This part takes some advance planning, since senior teachers tend to have full schedules. We got lucky - Diane had a cancellation and we jumped the line.)
5. Get all your awesome regular students to sign up for this seminar.
6. Put all of your students in room with expert teacher.
7. Sit back.
8. Watch. And. Learn.
Wow, seriously wow. What a terrific education. It's like I've been building the foundation for a house, brick by brick, and then someone came along and said, "Hey, great foundation, this is going to work perfectly... and now here's how you build the house!" A bit artless, but that's the best metaphor I can think of right now, and I'm not going to wait for a better one to come to me.
I'm a little bit lost for words. It's hard for me to convey what a joyful experience this weekend has been. Language always has this problem - at its best, it is still just a finger pointing at the moon, never the moon itself. Strong emotions can't be captured. But if I had to chose a few words? Grace. Stillness. Energy. Compassion.
Love, of course.
And I feel confident, not in a reckless way, but in a steady and quiet way. Because I can see the path laid out before me now, and I know what I need to do next.
Here's what I learned (and this lesson is going to guide me for many months now): it is so easy for students to do too much. In Diane's estimate, about 3 out of 10 students need to use their strength more, and the remaining 7 out of 10 are being over-aggressive in their practice. I didn't truly understand this until I saw how Diane worked with my students. In so many cases, they were pushing a little bit too far into pain, trying to do something that the body wasn't quite ready for, and they needed to be pulled back a little bit.
Need an example? Pranayama breathing. Lots of people at the seminar with neck pain, way more people than I thought. (Because you know, students don't always tell us these things. Some of them tell us way more than we need to know, and the rest don't say anything at all!) I've just been teaching pranayama by the dialogue, which includes (on the exhale) "look back until you see the wall behind you," "spine straight, no backward bending," and "push your head back until your neck hurts a little bit." But - as it turns out - lots of people with neck pain are pushing the head back more than they really ought to. Yes, you should try to see the wall behind you, but "spine straight" is more important, and "hurts a little bit" (which means discomfort but not really pain) is most important. Clear as mud, right? So for a lot of people, the correction was to "do less." Do less, do less, do less. Only to tolerance, not to pain.
That's just one example, of course. (And I hope it's clear and correct - I'm just giving my interpretation here. Diane, feel free to butt in if you ever read this!) There were plenty more examples like this throughout the day.
At this point in my teaching journey, there are certain things that I know how to do. Number One, provide correct information. Check. Number Two, provide encouragement and coax students to do more. Check. But now I have a Number Three: get students to pull back when they are doing too much. Oh!!
I've done "number three" to a small extent, but I've never made it my main focus before. Now it is coming right to the front of my consciousness, and it raises so many questions - how do I identify when someone is pushing too much for their body, which postures and clues do I need to look out for, and how do I address this issue smoothly, within the class?
And of course, it is still important to encourage the class and to push the students who need a push, so I really need to figure how to push and pull, equal and simultaneous, 50-50, all within the structure of the class and dialogue.
Ooooh, this is so exciting! And it feels so right. This is just another puzzle piece falling into place - click - helping me become a better and more mature teacher.
Last winter, when I was staying over at Diane's house in the middle of a snowstorm, I picked up a book from a shelf and flipped through to a random page. I don't even remember what the book was, but I remember what I read (and I may have mentioned this before). There was a passage in the middle of the book that said: As you do less, you can accomplish more. Eventually, you reach a state where you do nothing and achieve everything.
Well, I haven't gotten to that state yet - when that happens, I suppose I will levitate and disappear in a ball of light and never type on my little old MacBook again. But "do less, accomplish more." Yeah, I get that. I think I can learn how to teach that.
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