Tag: yoga

one person at a time

by L. Valdez Karl


Believe it or not yoga teachers can become very frustrated, sometimes even depressed about their teaching situation. I don’t know any teacher who does this for the money — maybe some do, but I don’t know any. yoga teachers also get burned out and quit teaching AND yoga altogether, I’ve known more than a few. I heard Paul Grilley say that yoga teacher burn-out begins to happen between years 5 and 7, but if you can make it over the hump, you’ll be teaching the rest of your life. I remember that several teachers went up to him after the workshop, me included, with tears in our eyes thanking him for speaking the truth about teaching, telling him “I thought it was only me.” I start my 7th year of teaching this summer.

Yoga teachers deal with lots of heavy stuff (again, maybe not all, but I do and several of my friends do.) those of you familiar with this blog know that I dealt with an alcoholic studio owner last year — her actions of walking into my classes drunk coupled with her denial and lies about her problem was not a easy thing to deal with. it affected my own health.

then there are the students who are just there to sweat, and the students who come into your level 2-3 vinyasa class who have never done yoga before, and they tell you they have rheumatoid arthritis AND herniated disks…but then get very upset when you tell them, uh, I don’t think this is the right class for you.

students run the gamut from A to Z. and then there are students like this:

“I don’t know if you remember me, but I was a student of yours for five years until I started getting sick (well, my body got sick). I moved and I have been really focusing on becoming healthy in every meaning of the word (spiritually, mentally, and physically). I wanted to look you up because I have tried a couple of yoga classes and they just are not the same as when I practiced with you. They were more fitness yoga, and that is not what draws me to yoga. I found you! and I was so excited, but then I read about what you have been up to and I am just so happy for you! It seems…[that] you are really following your path.

I finally started studying Buddhism with more inventiveness. I bought that book you told me about a long time ago, Awakening the Buddha Within. I never really looked at it until now, and now I cannot put it down. I do not think I was ready to read it when I bought it, but I am happy I have it. I also came across The Buddhist Society of Western Australia Video Dhamma Talks on Youtube, and they have really changed my perspective on so many things.

I cannot say things are perfect, but I deal with life a lot better now I think. I have you to thank for so much of it. It was no coincidence that I took your class so long ago, and you have never left my thoughts since.”

This is what makes it all worth it despite alcoholic studio owners, students with senses of entitlement, and students who walk out of a class without paying.

I received this email this morning and was humbled. It reminded me of the second time I studied in India and we talked about having gratitude for the teachings and gratitude for our teachers and their teachers and their teachers before them going back all the way to Patanjali. I was so overcome by our discussion that I left the classroom and found the nearest computer to email my teacher trainer in Chicago, thanking him for everything that I had learned from him.

I cried this morning when I read this. the weird thing (but maybe not so weird in my world) is that I have been thinking about this student, in fact, just last week. I kept one of her papers because it contained some great references for teaching yoga to MS patients.

I teach yoga at a junior college and she reminded me of me when I was her age, a smart-ass (OK, I’m still a smart-ass), searching for something, feeling out of place from where I was. she really connected with yoga even though her physical form was not the “best” — it is not important to me if my students look like they can be on the cover of Yoga Journal. I knew that she was “getting it” in a way that the other students weren’t so I always left her alone, no major adjustments. we connected and she would always stay and talk after class, telling me everything that was going on in her life, some of which wasn’t all that great.

In many ways my students are also my teachers and they help me realize — no matter how much I second guess myself, no matter how many times I think about quitting, no matter how many times I think I taught a lousy class — that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.

one person at a time.

Rumi: the poetry of yoga

by L. Valdez Karl

…there’s no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower grows in the quietness,
Let your tongue become that flower…

…Lay down your head.
Then one by one let go of all distractions.
Embrace the light and let it guide you
beyond the winds of desire.
There you will find a spring and nourished by its see waters
like a tree you will bear fruit forever…

OM SHANTI


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where the rubber hits the road

by L. Valdez Karl

“Buddhism is a practice,” says Levine. “It’s not a bumper sticker. It’s not about attending the Dalai Lama’s teachings with 10,000 other people. It’s about practicing generosity in your daily life. It’s getting on your ass and training your own mind on your meditation cushion.”

from Dive-bar Dharma

Considering that I just spent two days in the Dalai Lama’s teachings in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the last paragraph from this salon.com article was pretty potent.

I love that quote — get off your ass to get your ass on the cushion or on your yoga mat.

I am certainly guilty of laziness just like the next person, but when I feel the need to get my yoga butt on the cushion or the mat, I do it. it may not be daily, but I stopped beating myself up about that a long time ago. it is a tangible feeling I get in my body that says “get thee to your yoga room” or to someone’s class.

I teach seven classes a week so I need to feel another’s yoga. I did my first teacher training in 2002 and I still go to my trainer’s studio in Chicago every other week, besides doing my own personal yoga therapy practice. frankly, I don’t understand how any yoga teacher can NOT do their own practice or take someone else’s yoga class because you always have to feed and nourish your own practice or else you become stale, at least in my opinion.

How can a teacher feed his or her students unless they are feeding themselves? in my mind, it’s impossible. when I returned from India this third time I really felt like I needed to stop teaching for a while and totally immerse myself in being a student again. I just might do that — I’m feeling in my bones that I need to spend 6 months in India but that involves giving up my classes, a scary thought giving up my yoga security — you know, all that attachment and clinging.

My siddha yoga sista in California told me that it’s her experience to see people return from long India retreats to find their “material world” suddenly do a change up for the better. she asked me, “what would happen if you went, like you’d come back and nobody would sign up for classes? I don’t think so…because when you’re off on your retreat, you’ll be posting on your blog and otherwise stay connected to your past students and other interested types, even once a month, just to keep it fresh and alive. …I tell ya, sista, when you’re plugged into the divine Ma Shakti of India, good stuff happens…”

In her book Bringing Yoga to Life, Donna Farhi writes:

“…determine whether this teacher has his or her own strongly developed personal practice. Such a teacher will naturally stress the importance of self-practice. Teachers who believe that teaching class is their personal practice are likely using the students as their motivation for practice and have probably yet to develop a strong allegiance with their own inner atman. …Any teacher who claims that personal practice is no longer necessary has probably stopped learning and is ill prepared to foster an appetite for fresh inquiry in students.”

I am always a student first, and a teacher second.


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how easy to forget

by L. Valdez Karl


“Happiness is what greases the wheels of life. It’s also what opens the floodgates, marshals the forces, commands the elements, raises the sun, aligns the stars, beats your heart, heals what hurts, turns the page, makes new friends, finds true love, calls the shots, waves the wand, connects the dots, feeds your mind, frees your soul, rocks the world, and pays compound interest.

Yeah, so easy to forget.

Wild on,
The Universe”

This was my email from The Universe this morning. happiness: something that is easy to forget, yet easy to choose.

We’ve been having a typical Chicagoland spring with days of brilliant sun mixed with freezing days of snow and sleet. as I drove to the yoga studio yesterday morning the sun was shining gloriously after a Saturday of gloomy clouds and rain, cold enough for me to start my fireplace. as I drove I thought that even though the day before was exactly the type of weather I hate, how wonderful it was to experience everything that this life has to offer. I was grateful, I had an attitude of gratitude by the time I reached the studio.

Sometimes unpleasant things can teach us greater lessons more so than the pleasant. I am still dealing with an eye problem, still dealing with (sometimes) excrutiating lower back pain, still dealing with the remnants of rage left over from the actions of an alcoholic yoga studio owner.

yet, I am grateful. despite the eye problem, I am not blind in one eye. despite the back pain, it is not constant and I can still do a strong yoga practice and still teach. I know in my bones that my back pain is a manifestation of the rage I felt over the betrayal I experienced at the yoga studio where I used to teach. after deep examination I’ve come to know that the rage is actually against myself for allowing myself to be affected so deeply by the actions of others. I’ve beat myself up for not “letting go and letting be.” but that realization is a way through it and out of it. it’s all good, every day is a gift.

The Buddha believed that our natural state is happiness. As Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche writes:

“We need to seriously investigate whether people who have fame, power, and wealth are happy and whether those who have nothing are always unhappy. When we look into this, we see that happiness is not based on objects but on one’s mental state. For that reason, those who are truly happy are the ones who appreciate what they have. Whenever we are content, in that moment, we are fulfilled. The teachings of the Buddha are common sense.

On one hand, it’s very simple: we are all searching for happiness. How do we become happy without a big effort? Whenever we appreciate what we have, we are happy. That effort is an intelligent technique. We might have a very simple life, but still we can think, This flower is lovely or This water is good. If we are too picky, thinking this is wrong and that’s wrong, then nothing is ever perfect. We need to learn how to be content so that whatever we have is precious, real, and beautiful. Otherwise, we might be chasing one mirage after another.”

In Seeking the Heart of Wisdom, Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield wrote:

“When the mind ceases to want and judge and identify with whatever arises, we see the empty flow of experience as it is. We come to a ground of silence and inherent completeness. When we stop struggling and let be, the natural wisdom, joy, and freedom of our being emerges and expresses itself effortlessly….

To come to this we must accept paradox. As T.S. Eliot beseeches, ‘teach us to care and not care.’ In meditation we learn to care with full-hearted attention, a true caring for each moment. Yet we also learn to let go. We do not separate out only those experiences we enjoy, but cultivate a sense of harmony, opening constantly to the truth within us and connecting with all life.”

Atma hrdaye
Hrdayam mayi
Aham amrti
Anrtam anandam

“Let my life force be linked to my heart
and my heart be linked to the truth that lies deep within me.
Let that truth be linked to the eternal
which is unending joy.”

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why?

by L. Valdez Karl

While working with a private student this morning I asked:

why is it that people are so attached to things they CAN NOT change and don’t do anything about (or are so detached from) the things that they CAN change?

How does that view of reality get so turned around in people’s heads?

You can’t change the bad weather, you can’t change being stuck in traffic, you can’t change a slow line at the airport, you can’t change the way your mother or father treated you in your childhood. so why are you intimately attached to your own suffering? maybe because your suffering gives you your identity?

do you experience sadness or are you a sad person? do you experience anger or are you an angry person? hugely different scenarios.

However, you can change the way you look at things: you can cultivate more patience, you can become less judgmental, you can become more compassionate (always first towards yourself), you can slow down, you can stop multi-tasking. so why do you have aversion to changing your conditioning? maybe because if you changed your conditioning you would not be “you”?

oh those pesky samskaras! who would we be without them?

It dawned on me that this is the cause of so much suffering.

I am not going to write a long esoteric post of what the Buddha taught, but some of the things he taught were about the impermanence of all things, about seeing the true nature of reality, about attachment and aversion.

People cling to the mindset of “that’s the way I’ve always been” or “that’s the way we’ve always done things” when they are talking about their lives in the HERE AND NOW. Because X happened 20 or 30 or 40 years ago, that is why they are like this now. We are “survivors” of this and “victims” of that. that has nothing to do with NOW.

I always use the example of concentration camp survivors when I talk to students about changing their way of looking at things….

two men survive Auschwitz. they both lost their entire families. they are all alone. they both suffered through the cold, the lice, the dysentery, the starvation, through the same horrors. but when they are liberated, what makes one a Nazi hunter and what makes the other a hungry ghost shackled to the past? are they both survivors or are they both victims?

I am reading Bringing Yoga to Life by Donna Farhi. this is one of the best yoga books I have encountered and it will definitely be on the students’ required reading list when I start my own teacher training program. it is not a book on asana practice, it is so much more…just like yoga.

In the chapter “A Box of Monsters”, Farhi writes that separating our true Self from our box of monsters is no easy task, and she cites the advice of the great Hindu sage, Ramana Maharshi. She says that Maharshi used an analogy repeatedly with his students to help them understand the layers of their experience:

“It is like a cinema. The screen is always there but several types of pictures appear on the screen and then disappear. Nothing sticks to the screen; it remains the screen. Similarly, you remain your own Self in all the three states [wakefulness, dream, deep sleep]. If you know that, the three states will not trouble you, just as the pictures which appear on the screen do not stick to it. On the screen you sometimes see a huge ocean with endless waves; that disappears. Another time you see fire spreading all around; that too disappears. The screen is there on both occasions. Did the screen get wet with the water or did it get burned by the fire? Nothing affected the screen. In the same way, the things that happen during the wakeful, dream, and sleep states do not affect you at all; you remain your own Self.”

Maharshi’s basic question was: are you the screen or are you the projection?

Farhi says that if you think the projection and the screen are the same, then it is like thinking that every time a horror show is on television, you’re going to have to fix the TV.

Yes, as feeling human beings we are affected by the horrors we endure, but that is not our endgame because we are so much more. Some may call me a survivor, a statistic, but I am so much more. we have a body, but we are more than our bodies. we are more than our box of monsters. what remains after our own horror show remains undamaged.

As a wise-ass Buddhist once said, life is suffering, life sucks, but pain is optional.
the choice is yours.

Impermanent are all compounded things.
When one perceives this with true insight,
then one becomes detached from suffering;
this is the path of purification.

Dhammapada 20.277

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interview with Desikachar

by L. Valdez Karl

(photo original Chennai Online upload)

Chennai Online Interview with Desikachar

“Intro: Where is the delusion when truth is known? Where is the disease when the mind is clear? Where is death when the Breath is controlled? Therefore surrender to Yoga – T Krishnamacharya in Yoganjalisaram.

Yoga was in the family. Krishnamacharya was born in Karnataka in 1888 and belonged to a family of distinguished ancestry. Among his forebears was the 9th century teacher and sage Nathamuni, who was a great Teacher who created remarkable works….In his youth, Shri Krishnamacharya experienced insights around some of these teachings in a mystic dream whilst on a pilgrimage….

His son, TKV Desikachar, had the privilege of living and studying with his father. For over 45 years, TKV Desikachar has devoted himself to teaching yoga and making it relevant to people from all walks of life and with all kinds of abilities. His teaching method is based on Krishnamacharya’s fundamental principle that yoga must always be adapted to an individual’s changing needs in order to derive the maximum therapeutic benefit.”

Chennai Online link to Google video of Desikachar speaking about his father.

I have studied three times at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram in Chennai, India and I am transformed a bit more each time. It was during my first trip three years ago during the month long “Universal Yet Personal” intensive that I heard a teacher say that personal transformation in yoga can only begin in a group class but is accomplished in working one on one with a teacher, in the old way, the traditional way.

The longer I teach, the more I know this to be true.

I bow in gratitude to the teacher of teachers, Sri Krishnamacharya. I am honored and humbled that I am able to study with one of his long-time students (30+ years) Srivatsa Ramaswami, with whom I will spend a week in a teacher training next month. I touch his feet and thank him for showing me what pure yoga is and for inspiring me to go to India…to go home, to the heart of yoga.

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selling out

by L. Valdez Karl

I found this video via The Worst Horse which is all about pop- sub- and dharma-culture.

This video is the “Dharma-Burger/Video of the Moment: Get into a meditative pose. OK, good. Now, stare blankly — at the camera.”

from the Horse’s mouth: “Usually, the Horse doesn’t comment too much on the state of the yoga/pop-culture collision. We’ve got our hands full just keeping track of all the Buddhism, quasi-Buddhism, and meditation that’s currently in the mix. But we have made a couple of exceptions, and this video made by “Swami J” is the latest.”

We all know that in advertising “sex sells”, but nowadays “yoga sells”. add a few skinny “yoginis” — god forbid that any woman over size 2 would want some nice yoga clothes — and we have a winning combination for the American consumer.

can someone tell these ladies to eat a sandwich now and then?

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a reader’s view

by L. Valdez Karl


I get emails from people who comment on my posts, and the one below is from a friend in the yoga-rich San Francisco area who gave me permission to quote her (the emphasis is added.)

it does this old gal’s heart good to know that people read my yoga musings and are inspired to respond with such depth, and that I am not the lone voice in this modern yoga wilderness. plus she loves YogaDawg…:)

food for thought, talk amongst yourselves…..

*******************

“I am with you totally. I tell myself its just the Kali Yuga, our current era, which is known for shit being passed out as the truth. Now of course, my own beloved Siddha Yoga is the truth for me, but clearly born out of traditional Indian style yoga. When you mentioned the teacher in Chennai telling you its all about the relationship between teacher and student: that is my understanding of yoga as well.

So here I am, a physically “plus” sized gal, practicing Siddha Yoga for 25+ years. Love it when the physical, young folks taking their first yoga classes tell me how buff and happy they are now since taking ashtanga yoga classes. I tell them I also do yoga, practiced for all those years, lived in an ashram in India….and just look at their crazed reaction. Then I add that yoga, as practiced in India, is not just about how your body looks, but HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE: its all about love, baby. Not hearts and flowers love. The love you feel before you take actions. And that DOES NOT always mean to speak in a soft, spiritual voice, or to never feel anger, or to remove yourself from the world and live in a cave.

I liked your bit about the “price of yoga”. People will pay more to have their dog shit picked up than shuck out some do-re-me for individual instruction. Dakshina — it’s one of the practices of Siddha Yoga, I’m happy to say. Pay nothing, get nothing. Personal transformation? What’s that???

Once you get the taste of real homestyle cook’n, a MacDonald’s salad will never be the same. Its very difficult to articulate this concept to people coming to you to get their butts tight. How can I tell them about the personal yoga lessons was with my guru: one of the most transformative things that ever happened to me was when she hit me on the head with a marble. another time she hit me over the head with a wand of peacock feathers. What happened inside of me changed my headspace, my approach to life, everything, all in one small, silent and seemingly insignificant moment. Changed me for life. Saw life differently, and I must say, for the better, from then on.

IMHO, you’ve been turned onto homestyle cooking by your teachers in Chennai. once that door is open, you can’t go back. and you want your students to see it too: you are a teacher, you care for your students, you have integrity, and you don’t want them to settle for less. but they’re not asking for what you have to give. frustrating, isn’t it!

Got to say, I just love that Yogadawg’s perspective. here’s someone, online, who is putting it out there, confronting the US mass consumption style ideas about yoga. he’s a real “satsang” type. in Siddha Yoga, one of the practices, just like in Buddhist tradition, is to “keep the company (of others) who are seeking the truth”.

I do hope you’ll be able to do a 6 month stay in Chennai, being a student at the place you’ve been going to. now that “yoga” has become just a work-out for the trendy, with so many looking for their physical fix…to me, you have found a real gem in Chennai. Once you experience the true power of Homestyle Yoga, there is only one way to go: return and learn more.”

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get real

by L. Valdez Karl


I am recovering from a vicious upper respiratory infection and/or flu that I had for two weeks. I went to a yoga class today and we we were in Bow and I had to come down after only a few breaths because I still felt weak. I berated myself and then I told myself, get real. get real because what do I have to prove? I have/had a nasty infection that kicked my ass exactly one month after I had a vicious case of salmonella food poisoning that I brought back from India that also kicked my ass. My reality is that I will be 54 this year and maybe, just maybe, it takes me longer to recover from things than it did at 44 or 34 or 24. get real. be authentic.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

After the class a yoga teacher friend and I went to lunch and we kvetched about what else, problematic yoga students. ahem….yoga teachers talk about students as much as yoga students talk about teachers.

My friend told me about an older student whom she told not to return to her group class because it was not the right type of class for him, he had too many health issues. she told me his whole litany of physical ailments the worst of which was uncontrolled high blood pressure that gave him exploding ocular headaches. she wanted to teach a safe class but he was not honest about himself when she asked if anyone had any health issues. he wanted to do everything, even poses that were contraindicated for his conditions. All I said was, “ego.”

Ego. we’re conditioned to bully our way through a class, whether it’s a yoga class or anything else. no pain, no gain. even if it kills us.

My friend said just because people do yoga does not mean people can or should do every pose, the same way that because you can run three miles does not mean you should run a marathon. she felt that students truly do not understand this. she said that students think because we are yoga teachers we should be able to not only do every pose, but teach them every pose in any class they choose to attend, no matter what their physical limitations. she mused that maybe our calling as instructors is to help students realize that it is the nature of the body to grow old.

yes, we are dharma teachers on the nature of reality which is impermanence! I’m sorry, what did you say…you only came to this class because you read that Jennifer Aniston lost weight doing yoga?

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

I’m taking a workshop with Lilias Folan next month. for those of you who don’t know Lilias (or who think yoga was invented by Madonna), Lilias introduced millions of Americans to yoga in 1972 with her television show “Lilias! Yoga and You.”

Her website says that “Lilias has found that her practice and her teaching have naturally and even necessarily changed over time [emphasis added] as she has physically transformed into having what she describes as her current middle-aged body. Lilias draws on her years of experience, along with living in a changing body. In her new book she describes how to adapt yoga for a body growing older.”

The workshop is advertised as “moving at an enjoyable pace we will prepare the body with interesting warm ups, salutation to the hips and more from her highly acclaimed book Lilias! Yoga Gets Better With Age”.

There is a video on her website called “It’s Not Easy Being Real.” She says that as yogis, we want to be authentic, and that our challenge is to be real and to be an authentic human being as we age. she says the realness is that we age and if there’s a glitch such as illness or maybe we don’t move like we once did, that we should accept it with the wisdom that we are not 21. she says she does not want to be 21 again but she wants to be a juicy 81 year old. hallelujah.

I don’t care anymore about learning a fancy arm balance. I choose to be a rasa devi.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

Stephen Cope is one of the teachers in my Mindfulness Yoga and Meditation training in California and I think he’s brilliant. I was googling some of his articles and I came across this video where he talks about how his practice has changed as he has gotten older. he says that he does not want to do the same practice now as he did when he was younger, that at 56 his practice is much more internal and meditative. in the video he advises how to adapt your yoga practice as you age.

yes, yogins, you are aging. every day. little by little. even those of you who can kick up into that perfect handstand will one day feel that crunchiness, that grinding of an arthritic shoulder and it will be your wake up call to your own impermanence. and it will scare the hell out of you because deep down it is your own fear of death. in this Botoxed, liposucked culture, many of us refuse to accept this, even yogis.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

In May, my teacher from Chennai, India, Srivatsa Ramaswami, is coming to do a training. he wrote the book Yoga for the Three Stages of Life. Ramaswami says that as we get older our practice SHOULD change, that the older we get our practice should become more meditative. this is the Krishnamacharya way.

If you are in your 40s or 50s or 60s, why are you still doing a yoga practice as if you were in your 20s? get real. be authentic.

“I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.”

I find that the older I get, the more meditative I become, the slower I want to move, the deeper I want to go, the more I want to feel. I want to feel the juiciness of this seasoned body. I am not afraid to feel the aches and pains that crop up because I want to face them in order to move beyond them. I do not want to resist my pain because pain that is not resisted begins to soften. no matter how painful it is, it is a relief to feel.

Pain is not suffering.  Stephen Cope writes that suffering — duhkha — is the resistance to that pain. duhkha is the pain of pain. as a wise ass Buddhist once said, life is pain but suffering is optional.

***********************************************************

The Five Remembrances
(as offered by Thich Nhat Hanh in The Plum Village Chanting Book)

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.
—Buddha

 

Never the spirit was born
The spirit shall cease to be never
Never was time it was not
End and beginning are dreams
Birthless and deathless and changeless
Abideth the spirit forever
Death does not touch it at all.
—The Bhagavad Gita

 

What is never born can never die.
—Sama


being a good yoga student

by L. Valdez Karl

“What you want
(oo) Baby, I got
(oo) What you need
(oo) Do you know I got it?
(oo) All I’m askin’
(oo) Is for a little respect when you come home (just a little bit)
Hey baby (just a little bit) when you get home
(just a little bit) mister (just a little bit)

R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Find out what it means to me
R-E-S-P-E-C-T…”

This post is inspired by an incident that happened to me yesterday — so be warned, this may turn into a rant.

One of the differences I’ve found (and there are many) between yoga in India and yoga here is that yoga teachers in India are respected. When I’m in India and someone asks what I do and I tell them that I teach yoga, there is a big difference in the reaction compared to someone asking the same question here. I don’t expect anyone to bow down and touch my feet, but here I might as well tell someone that I teach a spinning class. or else someone will say, “I took pilates once.” Say what?!?

Now I know that most of you will say “I like my teacher! She/He is a nice person!”; “She/he is a great teacher!”; “I love taking her/his classes!”, and that’s fine. But how many of you RESPECT your teacher as your TEACHER, A MENTOR – and dare I say it to western readers – a GURU, and not just someone who you try to mimic physically 90 minutes a week? My teacher from India will be here for a training in May and I would have no hesitation whatsoever bowing to touch his feet as one would to any revered teacher in India.

I was teaching my usual yin class yesterday morning and two young women came in late. I had never seen them before and as I learned later from the studio owner, they had never been to the studio before. They walked into class about 10 minutes late as I was leading the class in their first breath awareness practice so I was not about to stop, ask them to sign a waiver, and get money from them. They never said hello or acknowledged me whatsoever when they came in, not even when I brought them props. To make a long story short, they walked out during the middle of my class without paying and without saying a word. I walked out into the lobby a few minutes after they left, but they were already gone.

What angers me is not the fact that they stole from the studio owner and from me, but they obviously had no respect for yoga or for the other students.

A friend of mine who is also a yoga teacher teaches at a corporate fitness center. She doesn’t teach a “power yoga” class as one might expect in that situation. The other day she told me that she was leading the class in awareness, asking them to just let go of whatever brought them there today, let go of the bad weather, the bad drive, etc. She said that during class she could tell that one woman was not in her body, she was antsy and nervous. My friend went over to to ask her if she was OK. Apparently the woman did not like the way my friend was teaching the class, so she told her in no uncertain terms, “THIS IS A FITNESS CLASS! F-I-T-N-E-S-S!” and yes, the woman actually spelled it.

I wonder if the woman knows how to spell R-E-S-P-E-C-T….

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HOW TO BE A GREAT STUDENT
an article by Mehtab, Yoga Yoga’s Founder
(from Midwest Yoga Teachers Network Newsletter)

I was teaching a yoga class and the woman in the back of the room was doing yoga. Only it wasn’t the type of yoga I was teaching or that the rest of the class was doing.

I watched fascinated as she moved through an elaborate series of seemingly invented postures, oblivious to the rest of the class. She did relax at the end with everyone else, however.

I asked her afterwards what she was doing.

“Oh, I am just listening to my body and doing whatever it tells me to do,” she said.

“So why do you want to come to this class?,” I ask.

“You’re a great teacher,” she said. I started to humbly thank her. “So your classes are crowded and I can hide in the back and do my own practice.”

As yoga students, we are always looking for a great teacher, someone who can inspire us, teach us, and take us to the next level. But the search for a great yoga teacher must start within us. We need to become a great student first.

Here are the guidelines to become a great yoga student:

Realize everyone has something to teach you.

Yoga students and sometimes yoga teachers make the mistake in thinking that teaching yoga is about winning a popularity contest. Students compare notes in the studio lobby, “Oh, if you like Teacher A, you will really like Teacher B. I think Teacher C is too easy. Teacher D really works you out. But now I am at the point where I only want to go to classes taught by Teacher Z.”

I have seen students even show up to take a class and then walk out when they discover their “favorite” teacher is not there that day. They miss the point. Yoga is not teacher-centric, It is practice-centric.

Every teacher has something to teach you – and often it is not what you think it should be. I remember going to a yoga class years ago with my wife and telling her afterwards: “The teacher drove me crazy with his fake-sounding, super-mellow voice.” “Yeah,” she said. “He reminded me a lot of you.” Enough said.

Respect the teacher within the teacher.

In the yogic tradition for hundreds of years, the teacher was the most respected person in your life – more than your parents or any figure of authority. We do not understand that in the West because we often mistake the role of the teacher with the personality of the teacher. The role of the teacher is someone who shares the teachings. The teachings are the important thing – not the personality of the individual teacher.

When you show respect to a teacher, you show respect for all teachers, for the teachings of yoga, and ultimately for yourself. If you want to rebel and be disrespectful, please park in a no-parking zone, talk back to your boss, or engage in your favorite self-indulgent destructive behavior – but always respect the teacher within the teacher. It is the only way you can learn what yoga is really about.

Understand a teacher is 90% the projection of the student.

Whatever you think about your teacher is almost all about what you think about yourself and has very little to do with the teacher. A teacher is a mirror that reflects the student. This is the only way we can learn about ourselves – through self-reflection. I remember a comment card we got from one student about a teacher: “He doesn’t even look like a yogi. He’s too fat. He thinks he is better than everybody else, sitting in front of us and making his little jokes.” For this person, appearances are everything and any value the teacher could have offered is lost in a projection of a student’s own insecurity.

On the other hand, students can have positive projective fantasies about their teachers that are also more about their own needs than about the teachers themselves. I remember one woman going up to a nationally known teacher at the end of a workshop and telling him: “During our last meditation, I opened my eyes and I saw you in the most beautiful and blissful state. Your heart center was really, really open. What were you meditating on?” He replied: “Cheese and macaroni. That is what I am having for supper tonight.”

Examine the reactions and thoughts you have about your teacher. They will tell you a lot about your current state of mind, fears, and lessons you need to learn.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.

This is an old saying in almost all practices and spiritual traditions. What it means is that you often get the teacher you deserve or, more politely, the teacher you are capable of encountering at the level of your current development. As you advance in your self-understanding, your capacity to recognize and attract the teacher you need to reach the next level also increases. Why should a master teacher waste time with you if you are not willing to master yourself?

Students make the mistake believing that if they can only find an advanced teacher, they will advance. Instead you need to do the work with the teacher right there in front of you. Then you will earn the right to meet your next Teacher.

One simple test is this: Are you ready to meet your teacher when they do arrive to teach you? Are you fully present, sitting in class and ready to learn? Or do you come in after the teacher has arrived and class has begun? We all have an emergency once or twice a year that may cause us to be late to yoga class, but think of the energetic message you are sending by showing up after the teacher has arrived. Who is waiting on whom to appear?

Know that the only purpose of having a teacher outside yourself is to realize the teacher within yourself.

A great student realizes that they are the teacher as well as the student. Ultimately your yoga practice must become self-directed — but not in the same way as the person who does his or her own poses at the back of the class. Through your yoga practice, you will increase you awareness, awaken your intuition, and learn to trust that guiding spirit that is present in all human beings. This awakening will direct you. Others will continue to teach you, but you will realize that is only through your own self-study, discipline, and surrender to grace that will you understand the purpose of yoga.

When you know that teacher lives within you and within all others, then you will become a great student.

May you have great teachers in your life.
May you teach others by your presence.
May you recognize and honor all teachers.
May you recognize and honor yourself.

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