I love yoga. I've been a half-assed student (which might be an asana, I'm not sure) for close to 20 years. I remember the moment I fell in love with the practice. It was at Kripalu. The teacher was Stephen (Kaviraj) Cope. The pose was trikonasana/triangle. Following Kavi's precise verbal instruction and watching him model the pose with his beautiful (and beautifully human) body, I suddenly found that I was suspended in space in an unexpected way, my body draped into an unaccustomed but oddly thrilling design. It can do this, too?! I thought. How cool.
Kavi gave point-by-point instruction on how to find the proper alignment. Once there, we were encouraged to feel into it and then relax, including the awesomeness, including the oddness, the beauty, the discomfort and the enjoyment of not knowing what it was supposed to feel like. His instruction to establish the pose but "relax around the holding" has served me to this day, on and off the mat.
From this, I learned that the first step in asana practice is precision. Each pose has a magical kind of integrity that is awakened only when animated by your body. Without alignment, the integrity goes away. From this precision, an opening of the energetic body is created. The pose then starts to animate you. And the third step, to let go -- of expectation, judgment, hope and fear -- allows energy to continue flowing. In this way, honest transformation, the kind that transcends mere self-improvement, can occur.
Precision. Opening. Letting go. I had never related to myself in this way before, and it changed the way I felt inside my body. I still love yoga for the same reasons, only more so.
Since then, I've been to like a zillion yoga classes: Iyengar, Ashtanga, Kripalu, Anusara, "Power," Bikram, heated vinyasa, and on and on. I'm not a yoga snob, and I pretty much like them all. As long as I shvitz, I don't really care what the style is. Wherever I live, I just go to the studio closest to my house.
A long time ago, I stopped caring who the teacher was, too. (Apologies to all the incredible, devoted yoga teachers out there.) This is because I stopped being able to count on the skill of my instructor. Some time in the last decade, I found that deep knowledge of asana was replaced with an unchanging posture sequence spiked by a coaching vibe. I don't care for this, particularly. It's not that I don't like repetition; I do. I actually prefer it. But I don't want just anyone getting all up in my grille with their ideas about who I am and ought to be. First and foremost, I want them to know a lot about asana practice. If their knowledge on this score is great, I would maybe trust them to sneak in some ideas about life. Otherwise, hold the deep thoughts. I can tell when you're posing, so to speak.
And so I arrive at the point of this post, which is already turning into a bit of a rant. (Apologies.) Yoga teachers, I would like to be taught by you, not "invited" to do this or that. "Make it feel good" is not an instruction. Neither is "do what feels right to you" or "this is the pose I suggest, but if you prefer another one, go ahead." When I hear things like this, I can't help but sneak a peak around me. Often, people seem a bit confused, like they're supposed to know what this means but don't. Most interpret it to mean something sloppy or embarrassing. They may start rolling around or making some kind of baby sounds.
"Do what feels right" is actually a super-advanced instruction that requires tremendous self-awareness. Unless you know the proper alignment of a pose, doing what feels right is not a release into an internal energetic shift but more of a self-indulgent collapse.
Please, before offering too many choices, help the poor guy with his shoulders up about his ears in Downward Dog. Give the young woman who is jutting forward with aggression in Warrior Two permission to rise up out of her waist with elegance instead. I'm not saying we all have to become mini Iyengars, moving our femur bones about and whatnot, but it would be so awesome to focus on meat-and-potatoes alignment. The basics.
Encouraging us to do what we want is more often than not an encouragement to fidget, and I'm already pretty good at fidgeting. I excel at doing random stuff just to entertain myself. I would love to hear a yoga teacher counsel stillness. Waiting. Silence. Space. Allowing discomfort rather than chasing it off. What I really need to practice is the discipline of being with my experience, not creating endless distractions from it.
We live in a culture that eschews discipline as punishment. The truth, though, is that through discipline we find spontaneous, self-arising freedom. On the yoga mat or off. As a student or a teacher.
Discipline begins with coming back to the basics, over and over. Only then can real transformation occur. As the great transpersonal educator and psychiatrist Claudio Naranjo said of music, "spontaneous innovation can only arise from repetition," and this is one of the smartest things I've ever heard anyone say. Ever.
Beloved yoga teachers! I "invite you" to stop inviting us, your students, to do anything and instead to instruct us clearly. Teach from a place of your own inner knowing, from your own intimacy with the practice, from having screwn (yes, a made-up word) it up a thousand times, gone back to the mat, worked it out again and learned each pose from the inside out of your own body.
Don't humor us. Teach us. Don't overestimate our skills or the body's ability to take care of itself, which we so easily confuse with wanting to feel good/look good/deny the realities of age, injury and anatomy. Don't assume we need you to make us feel good or create any type of experience for us whatsoever. We can definitely create our own experience -- but only when your authentic (honestly attained, personal) wisdom is there to anchor it. The example of your personal presence will always be a thousand times more instructive than your words.
Deepen your practice and deepen it some more. Commit to your own journey, and from that commitment allow love for your students to blossom spontaneously. Then take your seat as an adept and teach us what you know.
Follow Susan Piver on Twitter: www.twitter.com/spiver
That said, not every "class" is for instruction. Most of mine are for practice. I am a social animal and prefer practicing with others on a schedule. I've not exerted the discipline to practice on my own very often (although that has been my intention from the beginning), so I wend my may to class 5-6 times weekly, as often as my schedule will allow.
I love it when I learn something new, but I usually don't see my teachers as responsible for that. Their job is usually more along the lines of choosing the flows and asanas for the practice period and guiding us through them. Aside from the beginners classes I attend, they are not all that instructional most of the time, and I'm sanguine with that.
I did see very brief clips of a young woman who was a yoga teacher in NYC on the show about Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, and her instruction seemed to be all about taking breaths. Seemed odd to me and maybe this is the type teacher who is bothering Piver. It would bother me!
For those that look for yoga as a precise, physical experience I can recommend Iyengar Yoga.
The precision of Iyengar is certainly the gold standard, at least in my experience.
I've read the comments, and agree that as a Yoga instructor who enjoys yoga classes, I do enjoy a teacher who holds his/her seat well. I feel their confidence, and this allows me to relax into their class.
I do believe that it is our responsibility as a student to listen to our bodies, and I agree that instructions like "do what you need to do right here" IS an advanced pose.
I like empowering my students to listen to their bodies, guiding them deeper into a pose while giving them options to hold steady at a given time.
Being a 10 year veteran of massage and a self professed anatomy-lover I love being able to teach people about anatomy.. what is moving here... what good alignment is.. not just for EVERYBODY - what good alignment for YOU is.... because each body is different (thank goddess!) and some shoulders (scapula) allow for deeper down dogs... and some don't.
Yoga looks different to/for everyone. We are drawn to different teachers, and my wish for all of you, yoga instructor and student alike is that you are blessed with finding the perfect teacher - within and without.
www.happierthanabillionaire.com
Buyer beware...if the teacher seems to avoid answering direct questions about anatomy, physiology or the architecture behind a pose, roll up your mat and seek another teacher. Find a teacher who is trained to understand that a human BODY (with joints, connective tissues, organs, etc) is what has to actually bend, twist and perceive precisely what it needs to do in order to attempt the often complex architecture of poses. "Energy bodies" are great too...but if students are harming themselves attempting to configure themselves based on generic or confusing cues, their "energy" will certainly turn sour.
It seems to me you like a certain kind of instruction and that's fine, but it does not follow from that that all teachers who don't teach your way are not giving clear instructor, or otherwise doing their teaching jobs properly.
I'm saying that "do what feels right" is not a good instruction if students are not clear on the basics of alignment. You are in an advanced class, so obviously that is different. If someone had little experience in headstand and was instructed to do what feels right, I'm sure you can see that this could be problematic and has nothing to do with "my way."
I'm saying that telling students to do what is right for them WITHOUT also giving clear instruction can lead to confusion, not to mention injury. I hope this makes sense.
Now, to figure out that half-assana.... :D
I always taught as my teacher did with lots of one on one and encouraging my students to learn the importance of learning the posture correctly and going only as far as they can comfortably go. Later when I moved and retired I wanted to practice with a group because this helps tremendously even though I'm pretty disciplined but being with a group helps. Today there is a group of teachers in my town and all teach differently and not one teaches the basic asanas and I hardly recognize any of them as the postures I learned. I now teach a small class and love it. I have a couple of DVDs that I use for myself, one by barbara benares, who learned yoga at about the same time I did ad I love her DVD My first teacher still teaches on the east coast and we talk from time to time, She encourages me not to be discouraged. She's notices the same thing of course.
Yours is the first article I've seen addressing this problem. Thanks as it brings so much to my own thoughts and concerns.
I had meant to fan you for your great article. It's given me much to think about!
fannned.......and faved......
Then I was appalled by what teachers in NYC are required to teach - huge open level classes that are dangerous (period). No one would walk into an advanced ballet class, having no training, and expect to be admitted. But that is exactly what is happening in many yoga classes every day.
My advice to any student is to find a teacher, or teachers, who have prior education of the body - TRAINED dancers, chiropractors, body workers, or massage therapists who teach yoga. Empower yourself to ask the teacher his / her background and demand thoroughly trained teachers and leveled classes. Teachers, particularly those of us who have highly developed skills, want to teach. Often yoga studios are too focused on business, not the safety of students or the well-being of their teachers.
And asana teachers - stop preaching, start teaching... (Leave the Sutras and the Gita for
It's wonderful that you are able to bring your knowledge of anatomy etc to your teaching. It must be really hard to come by for yoga teacher trainees who also have to fill large open level classes.
I had enough previous experience not to get into any physical trouble, but I saw a lot of frustrated beginners.
There must have been some point to this "no-teaching" teaching, but I never understood it.
Fortunately, most hatha yoga classes I've experienced are run more like yours.