How to do and teach a safe and effective shoulderstand. Learn about why shoulderstand can be risky, why we prop, and how to make this pose safe for your students.
Learn to do and teach an excellently positioned Chaturanga. Use props to find your best alignment and protect the delicate shoulder joint for repetitive stress injury. Check out as we do this is in the YYoga 200-hour Teacher Training.
This is a challenging transition for the best of us! Check out these options that you can use to help both do this transition – as well as teach it to your students. Avoid “cheating” and be kind to your rotator cuff 🙂
Join and and the YYoga 200-hour teacher trainees as we look at how to do and teach Handstand Prep. The secret is in the bent knees and the shoulder blades…. 🙂
An awesome way to teach Supta Hasta Padangustasana – the floor gives you great feedback for your spine and the wall allows you to feel the turn out that tends to happen as our leg takes the path of least resistance.
I learned this great exercise from Susi Hately Aldous. Explore what your external rotation is like when you do pure movement at the hip joint – rather than compensate by shifting the pelvis or flattening the lower back.
In yoga asana, we often experience imbalance in our body, where certain muscles love to be powerful and to dominate – like our hip flexors – while others (our adductors and abductors) begin to soften, weaken, and become quiet. By bringing our bodies into balance and allowing each muscle to truly step back fully into its functional role, the whole of our system becomes more expansive, powerful, and expressive.
I learned this marvelous and simple exercise from Susi Hately Aldous. You’ll need a block and a strap.
Did you notice your hip flexors firing when you squeezed the block or pressed out into the strap? Most of us will. However, we don’t need our hip flexors to fire when we’re doing either of these actions. If your hip flexors fire, that is a sign of these big and overworked muscles are trying to take over for the adductors (inner thighs/ squeezing the block) or abductors (outer thighs/ pressing into the strap). Your muscular relationships have become co-dependent.
Here are some ways to bring this functionality into your asana. Empowering your boundaries will make your practice lighter, more functional, and more free. Now, having great boundaries isn’t necessarily “easy” – in fact, at first it might be harder – but it creates the groundwork for more power and personal expression.
In Surya Namaskar:
In your externally rotated poses (Warrior II, Side Angle, Triangle, Half Moon):
In Bakasana:
Crow pose is not only a balancing pose. And trying to balance your knees in your armpits will disconnect your midline and your core – the very support that you need to realize this pose effectively.
In Handstand
To do this, we’ll play with lifting both legs at the same time. If you have a regular handstand practice, add this into the mix to explore the connection of the inner and outer thighs.
Most of us know the importance of the inner thighs in handstand. After all, we squeeze the legs together like crazy once we’re up. Reinforce this action on the lift up by placing a block between the upper inner thighs as you hop up.
What have you noticed in these explorations?
Do you feel more integrated, lighter? Is there more or less space for your own growth and expression here?
Final thoughts
Creating strength in our adductors and abductors will free your power muscles to do their job with greater functionality and grace. Although waking them up may take a little effort and time, the greater result will be integration and ease.
I used to think that boundaries would make me hard, impermeable, rigid, un-loveable. But in fact, cultivating boundaries and unsticking ourselves gives us space to grow.
Having clear boundaries lets us nourish our internal goodness so that we can shine our best self forward. Then we have the strength to uphold others with compassion. We can serve as an inspiration to those needing to find love in their own eyes rather than the eyes of others.
In the Upanishads, it is said, “The pleasant is one thing. The good another.”
May we rise to the good.
Join me and the YYoga 200-hour teacher trainees as we explore how to do Full Wheel when there are wrist issues. Great modifications so that you can help make this pose accessible to all your students!
Clear and simple steps for how to do and teach headstand. Look at common misalignments in order to help your students find their best path to stability and lightness.
This video was filmed during YYoga‘s 200-hour Teacher Training Program.
These two styles look the same, so what’s the difference?
At YYoga, we make a distinction between Flow and Power. Now, these styles are very similar and use the same kinds of poses (sun salutations, standing poses, arm balances, inversions, complex backbends). They both derive from the Ashtanga tradition, which incorporates standing poses held for 5 breaths interposed with vinyasa. While there is also a temperature difference for our studios (Power classes are heated), the goals of each style are actually slightly different and will prompt us to use different tools as teachers.
Because they have similar components, we can envision Flow being on one end of the spectrum, and power on another. While we will use elements of both for our teaching, we can benefit from being clear about which side of the spectrum that we are playing with and WHY.
Power Classes
Flow Classes
As you’re creating your class, consider:
Happy Teaching!
Rachel will be teaching at the Victoria Yoga Conference February 2-3rd, 2013. Don’t miss this great opportunity to take advantage of her best insights from her years as a Teacher Trainer!
Clear and strong boundaries give shape and discipline to our lives. In asana, clear and efficient engagement of the outer lines of our bodies harness our power so that we can graciously and effectively use our inner strength to take our practice to the next level. In this Wake up the strength of the inner and outer lines of the hips, legs and arms, and discover more grace, ease and stability in all your yoga poses.
Located between the mobile hip and ankle, your vulnerable knee often becomes the victim of mismanaged communication. Learn about the structure of the knees and empower yourself to protect them in all asana – including the treacherous pigeon pose. Through both power point and practice, you will gain a new and visceral understanding of this marvelous joint. As a bonus, discover why “flexing the foot to protect the knee” is a myth.
Ever wondered if you were really doing chaturanga right? Want to figure out that pesky jump forward? Revolutionize your sun salutes with this in-depth, fun, and transformative workshop. With just a few simple adjustments, you will learn how to protect your joints, prevent repetitive stress injury, and fire up your core. You do them every practice, it’s time to do them right!
Have you been in a class where any of the following have occurred:
Alright.
So before we chat about how to flow SMART, let’s talk about why we flow, period.
Why We Flow
“Flow” yoga has its roots in Ashtanga yoga, where practitioners interpose a vinyasa (Chaturanga-updog-downwdog) between most static poses. Each pose is held for five breaths, and the breath links the practice from its absolute beginnings until Savasana. This steady, meditative practice invites a profound connection with the inner body, the breath, and the core.
It’s also a set sequence.
Flowing is a heck of a lot easier when you know where you’re going.
However, now we have “flow” classes that are not set sequences. In fact, the pressure is on for teachers to create increasingly wild and creative sequences so that students stay engaged and – dare I say – entertained by the class. In other words, rather than addressing the crazy fluctuations of their minds through slow one-pointed focus, students are craving classes that bulldoze these fluctuations by replacing them with something so consuming that it is impossible to focus on anything else. Oh right – and then add music.
Now, despite my cute tone, this is not a bad thing.
After all, meditation is the process of giving the practitioners something to harness their attention to. If the bells and whistles need to be a little louder in order to break through our insane headspace, then I’m all for it.
But what I’m not a fan of is reckless transitions.
Why our Flow can get gnarly
In our zeal to create a powerful flow sequence, we can get carried away by our own invention. And we also forget that:
SMART FLOW! Rule number 1:
Here’s the number one rule of flowing smart: in transitions, keep the action of the hips the same.
What this means:
That’s it. This simple protocol will keep your students knees and lower backs happy. And hopefully keep them from falling over.
Does this mean never break the rules? No, of course not. But be sensible about it. If you are going to change the action of the hip, you must change the foundation of the pose and you must therefore TEACH the transition.
This means that instead of saying, “Warrior I, okay now takeWarrior II…”, you’d have to say something like:
Phew!
Or you could just link Warrior II to similarly externally rotated standing poses such as Side Angle, Triangle, and Half Moon and spare yourself some trouble and verbiage.
If you want to really flow – that is, move fairly quickly through yoga asana in order to create a dynamic movement experience – then it is sensible to link poses smartly and safely so that you can maximize your students’ stability and enjoyment of their practice. Smart Sequencing will allow them to think about their breath and not about their ouchy knee.
SMART FLOW! Rule number 2:
Always use a stabilizing cue.
In your transitions, ask yourself, “What is at risk in this transition?” Then offer a quick cue to stabilize the student against this risk factor as you move them through the action. For example:
Now these are pretty straight-forward, but you can apply the same principle to more complex transitions.
Linking “like with like” and using stabilizing cues in your transitions will keep your students connected and safe while allowing you to create to your heart’s content.
Happy Flowing!
My IT Band is tight.
Tiiiiiiight.
Or more correctly, I should say that my gluteus maximus, which feeds into and inserts on the IT band, is tight, so that the resulting pull tautens the IT band. (“IT” stand for “ilio-tibial”, and this band is a swath of connective tissue that runs from the pelvis to the outer knee. The glute maximus and the tensor fasciae latae insert into it.)
Here’s an IT band loving sequence that culminates in Eka Pada Koundinyasana A – a crazy extension of Side Crow (Parsva Bakasana).
Eka Pada Koundinyasana A
Component Parts:
Now, to be fair, this is really more a pose about the torso’s rotation and flexion than about the IT band…but, I think it warrants the exploration.
Here’s the sequence I used:
I place my hands on the ribcage and twist from there, then release the arms and keep the twist to work the obliques. Finally, we leverage the twist by using the arms to find the full range of motion.
My teacher Chris Richardson introduced this to me. Come into Uttanasana. Place your hands on blocks and then turn around to the right on your feet so that they face the back of your mat and your legs are crossed. Then continue to walk your hands further to the right (you can place them on blocks) as you like. Press through the big toe mound of your left foot and shift your hips further back to the left until you feel a stretch through the outer hip.
Eka Pada Koundinyasana A – take off sequence
Happy arm balancing!
Rachel
You know it.
You love it, you hate it. You love to hate it.
It’s plank pose.
What’s plank pose?
Also known as “Phalakasana,” plank pose is a modification of Chaturanga Dandasana (“four-limbed staff pose”), which is doozy of a core stabilizer found in the traditional Sun Salutations. Plank looks like a high push up position; Chaturanga is pretty much the same pose, but with the elbows bent to ninety degrees. In a traditional Sun Salutation, practitioners jump back from a preparatory pose directly into Chaturanga – a challenging move even for advanced practitioners. To better control this transition, we usually step back to plank first, and then lower down into Chaturanga.
Uses of Plank
Although it has humble beginnings as a modification, plank has become quite the showstopper in its own right. Forearm plank is held for a minute in the YHot practice to help practitioners develop their core strength and stability. Plank is used in power and flow classes to create heat in the body, cultivate scapular stabilization, improve core strength, and act as an intermediary through transitions.
Anatomy of Plank
Plank pose is a lot of work for the upper body. The shoulder girdle is intrinsically a joint of mobility, not stability (this ball and socket joint actually looks more like a baseball stuck to a plate). In order for the practitioner to effectively manage his or her body weight, he or she must actively recruit the larger muscles of the back to stabilize the scapulae (the shoulder blades), so that the rotator cuff (the four little muscles that hold the humerus to the shoulder blade) isn’t struggling to bear the burden.
The primary muscles that keep the scapulae happily secure are the rhomboids, the trapezius, and the serratus anterior. They work in opposition to each other to make sure that the shoulder blades don’t “wing out” or slide too far afield. You can understand their respective actions through the following exercise:
When these muscles act together effectively, the scapulae stay well-secured on the back for plank – and ultimately for the transition to Chaturanga.
Finding your awesome plank pose
To find your plank, first find and excellent foundation:
Now, engage your scapular stabilization:
Now find your core:
Add the pelvis:
Add the legs:
Plank to Chaturanga
Once you are able to hold your plank solidly for 5 breaths, you are ready to explore lowering to Chaturanga. Through this transition, it is vitally important to keep your scapulae securely on your back. We often allow the shoulder heads drop forward and down as we lower, which is a compensation can be injurious for the rotator cuff over time.
To come into Chaturanga:
Modifications and Variations
Here’s a couple common modifications to make plank more accessible:
To increase the intensity of the pose:
Happy Planking!
Okay, okay.
So you’ve met a guy or gal. You’re excited about them. A connection has been made. Your eyes have gotten slightly glassy and you get a little breathless and a-flutter when they send you a text. You long to unwrap them (immediately) like a Christmas present and discover all their yummy secrets.
However, despite every screaming instinct to the contrary, this is the time to pause and slow down.
I know it’s hard: when I get excited about someone, I am NOT what you’d call a patient person. The new connection is like an intoxicating, young flower that is all wrapped up in its own pretty petals – and I want to pounce on it like a tiger and shred it apart with my hot little claws.
And you know what I get then?
One pretty darn fucked up flower.
Like flowers, relationships need their own time to unfold in order to reach their full expression. No matter how much we’d like to just move forward NOW, we can’t pry them open early without sacrificing their beauty. By cultivating patience, we can give the relationship the space to find its own unique expression. And then if we decide that we dislike this particular flower after all, fair enough. At least then we’re pruning honestly.
Similarly in yoga, we often rush to get to the “full expression” of the asana. Rather than letting the pose open in its own time, we push our way in and shred some petals in the process. This kind of end-gaining may get us there, but generally we’ll also be rigid, overexerted, and strained.
So what if we truly practiced patience in our yoga? Give the pose a month, a year, five years (ten!) to decant. In the yoga sutras, Patanjali suggests that practice is “earnest, sustained effort for a long time.” We show up, we practice, we repeat. Nothing is quick. Pattabhi Jois suggested the same longevity when he said, “Practice – and all is coming.” By slowing down, we give ourselves the opportunity to arrive organically at the heart of the experience. As in relationships and gardening, finding patience will allow our yoga practice’s unique and graceful beauty to be fully – and unexpectedly – revealed.
To master an arm balance, you must master your booty.
Seriously.
Your pelvis is heavy, and knowing where to put it during an arm balance will make a big difference in your ability to distribute your weight effectively and ultimately find lightness and ease in your pose.
Balancing in an arm balance is about:
Okay, okay, naturally you need core strength. But not as much as you think. Place your weight smartly, and you will use less tension, find more ease, and gain levity and freedom in your arm balances.
Tip #1: Maintain excellent hand positioning
To protect your weight in arm balances, weight all four corners of the hand evenly. For most of us, this means pressing more firmly into the index finger mound. Without adult supervision, weight will naturally roll to the outer heel of the hand. But we have a lovely little nerve in there called the ulnar nerve (if you’ve ever had numbness in the outer hand after practicing, the compression of this little guy may be the reason why). There is also a nerve in our carpal tunnel called the median nerve. Keeping weight into our fingertips and medial palm edge will take the weight off of the heel of the hand and help you to protect both these nerves from over-compression. Weighting into the fingertips will also give you more control of your weight – just like your toes help you to balance when you’re standing.
Tip #2: Maintain shoulder stability
Our shoulder girdle is only attached skeletally in one little place: the meeting point of the collarbone and sternum. That’s it. That’s all the skeletal support you’ve got when you’re balancing on your hands. Therefore, you need excellent muscular stabilization through your back and your shoulders to support your arm balance effectively. In the YYoga TT, we employ the actions, “lift your back ribs while you draw your shoulder blades together on your back” in order to recruit both sets of muscles that will stabilize the scapulae effectively. In a nutshell, this means that the shoulders and the back body must become a place of support. While it becomes tempting in arm balances to drop our shoulders down to the floor, we must earnestly continue to stabilize the shoulder blades on the back rather than collapse into gravity.
Think of lowering into chaturanga. Effectively lowering from plank to chaturanga means that our shoulder blades stay on our back and that the heads of the arm bones stay lifted towards the sky. When the shoulder heads drop, we place far too much pressure on the front of the rotator cuff and joint. Similarly in arm balances, we must lift the heads of the arm bones skyward to maintain adequate stabilization of this shallow joint.
Tip #3: Core strength
You knew it would be in here. Yes, you need core strength. However, core strength isn’t just about your six-pack. Core strength means finding the connection from your big toes through the inner seams of your legs, through the pelvis floor and into the deepest layer of your abdominals, the transverse abdominus. In a nutshell, find your “leg magnets” (as Chris Clancy might say) that link the inner seams of your legs together. This engagement through the legs will naturally lift the pelvis floor and help you to deeply engage your core.
When doing an arm balance, we usually have our upper leg against our upper arms: use this connection to assist you in finding the muscular engagement of the inner leg. Also, remember that your toes are part of your body, too. By maintaining awareness from toes to pelvis, you will be able to recruit the legs to work for you so that they are not dead weight.
Tip #4: Control your booty
When doing a pose like bakasana (crow), the booty actually needs to be down. Lifting the bum high will disconnect you from your core connection and make the pose more precarious. By keeping the tailbone down and lifting vigorously through the sides of your waist, you will recruit more muscular stability in the pose, rather than teetering in a balance.
However, in other poses such as Eka Pada Galavasana, Parsva Bakasana (side crow), and Eka Pada Koudinyasana, we must keep our bum high. Letting the pelvis drop in these poses will deflate the integrity of the pose and make it much harder to shift your weight forward to take the weight off of the feet and find your balance. While core integrity is necessary, lift off in these poses depends on your ability to control your weight in space – much like we move weight in a teeter totter. When the pelvis stays high, you have the ability to shift the chest forward in space, which will allow the legs and back body to become light and eventually float. If the pelvis drops, everything will move earthward and the levity of the pose will dissipate.
Playing in the poses
Bakasana (Crow): Booty low
Eka Pada Koundinyasana: Booty High
Bonus Tip #5: Patience
Arm balances are not natural for human kind. After all, we don’t often find ourselves suddenly falling into an arm balance as we walk down the street! Naturally, it takes time for our body to become confident balancing weight onto our hands. Be patient, work slowly, and the support and ease that you cultivate will put in you in an excellent position for coming into flight.
In the meantime, the conscientious practice of the following poses are excellent warm ups to include in your preparations:
Happy practicing!
1. Practice.
We all reach plateaus in our practice. “I’ll never get handstand.” “I’m afraid of bakasana.” But with every class, their sun salutations get a little stronger, their bodies more integrated, and their feet a little lighter. Then one day, we have the a-ha! “I’ve never done that before!” Watching my students inexorably progress in their practice reminds me to stay patient and wait for the inevitable unfolding – not just in practice, but in life. Everything really does move forward.
2. Community elevates.
It never fails: doing partner work in a class elevates the energy in the room. Given the opportunity to connect with our fellow yogis, we all become brighter, more energized, and more dynamic. Helping someone else reminds us how much we know and how much we can share. Take this into the world and we find that connecting with our community helps us to tap into our potential.
3. Connection energizes.
There have been many times where I have arrived to teach dog tired and done. But I never fail to leave a class better than when I have arrived. The opportunity to connect with my students and share gives me energy. Teaching reminds me that when I share of myself, I am also elevated, healed, inspired.
4. Be yourself.
The best classes that I have taught are classes where I have not tried to be an “ideal teacher,” but have simply been myself. While this may have led to some goofy moments (“make your butt like Beyonce” was a recent artifact of this authenticity), I have found that students immediately respond when I am genuine. Being a pristine asana robot just doesn’t cut it; they want the real thing – goofiness and all. They remind me that sharing my silliest parts is actually far more rewarding than trying to fit into a box of perfection.
5. Fall Down.
Sometimes you have to fall over in Half Moon to figure out where the boundaries of balance are. I’m thrilled when students dare to fall down. How else will we find out where our edges are? They remind me that moving forwards isn’t always about looking pretty.
6. Turn the Heat Up.
Having just finished the YHot training, I can attest that sometimes you just gotta turn the heat up, close the door, meet yourself in the mirror, and sweat it out. Like life, sometimes we need to move into the discomfort in order to break through. Dare to face the intensity. On the other side is a great Savasana.
7. When it’s tough, breathe more.
In the moments where we hit our peak pose, the room will often go silent. As we intensely concentrate, we forget to breathe. But once the reminder is sent out and the room starts to inhale again, the poses actually become more integrated and find softness. When we face our greatest challenges, we can get out of heads and back into our hearts by simply focusing on our breath.
8. Take child’s pose.
The most advanced student in the room is the one who takes child’s pose when she needs to. While there can be great value in rallying into intensity, sometimes the practice actually calls for surrender. Determining which path to take requires discrimination and self-love. Having the bravery to practice self-care by softening can do more to propel us along our path than twenty chaturangas.
9. Feel.
One of the gifts of the yoga practice is to feel more deeply into our bodies, our breath, and our aliveness. I love to see my students take an extra breath in downdog, give a deep sigh, or take the arm variation their body craves, because it means that they are feeling into their bodies and following its guidance. Rather than simply doing the practice “right,” they are using the practice as a conduit to greater self-connection. When my students feel their way through the practice – rather than just “doing” the practice – I am reminded that the body is a deep and innate source of wisdom.
10. We are all human.
When I share a personal story at the beginning of class and see nodding heads, I am reminded that we have far more in common than we have divergent. Each of us has dreams, regrets, conflict, hopes, loss, and love. Each of us is trying our best to negotiate the waters of life with grace and compassion. When we practice yoga in the classroom, we come together with a diversity of people from all walks of life. On the mat, these differences drop away and we meet each other from the heart. Out in the world, this reminds me to look for the good in others, rather than staking my ego on our differences.
Spring into Spring!
Flowers are blooming, sprouts are sprouting, the sun is out in Vancouver, which means that it’s time to do handstand!
Inversions are asana of marvelous integration, asking us to stabilize our mobile shoulder joints and connect all of our moving pieces together – no small task while we’re all topsy turvy. The opportunity to explore ourselves in an unfamiliar orientation lets us experience our cells, our blood, our organs and muscles in a new way. We literally get to turn our world upside down.
Physically, inverting give the blood and lymph in our legs the opportunity to race back heartwards via the force of gravity. Our organs move and settle in a different orientation. Blood moves into our brain and offers these vital tissues an oxygen bath. The upper body gets a fantastic work out. And psychologically, we practice courage and a sense of play by moving into the unknown.
There are many different kinds of inversions. Downward Facing Dog and Forward Fold are great “light” inversions that we practice all the time. (In a “light inversion,” the head is below the heart, but the rest of the body and the blood column in the legs isn’t adding any additional pressure.) To do a “full” inversion, the entire weight of the body is transmitted and supported through the shoulder girdle rather than the pelvis and we bring our legs over our head.
Before inverting, there are a couple of sensible precautions to keep in mind. As we will be increasing the amount of the fluid in the brain, active inversions should not be practiced if you’re experiencing high blood pressure or have a history of stroke. If you’ve had recent eye surgery or have glaucoma, raising the pressure in the eye is also not recommended. A more passive inversion – like legs up the wall – is a great alternative that imparts lots of juicy inversion benefits while keeping the head and heart at the same level.
Are you ready to invert?
Our shoulder girdle is a marvelous, mobile joint that allows us to reach out through our arms and experience the world. However, it’s only attached to our skeleton in one little place: right between your collarbone and your sternum! This lack of bony attachment means that the support of the shoulder girdle comes from the muscular stability around the joint and from the muscles of the chest and back. If we’re going to fully invert, then we need to ensure that we have enough integrity here to support our body. Additionally, we have to get our arms all the way overhead by our ears without losing the connection to our core, which requires a good bit of shoulder flexibility.
To find out if you’re ready to do handstand, investigate the following poses as a warm up:
If these poses are going well, then it’s time to move onto handstand.
How to do Handstand:
Stage I:
Stage 2:
Stage 3:
Most importantly, after doing handstand, take the time to absorb what you feel.
In child’s pose or seated on your heels, close your eyes and feel the rush of blood and life force that is coursing through your body. Take several deep, smooth breaths.
Enjoy!
The Times recently wrote an article about the 2012 yoga competition held in New York City. 
Yoga competition? As in prizes? Seriously?
Founded by Rajashree Choudary, the wife of the famous Bikram Choudary, the competition is open to all asana practitioners but is primarily attended by those who practice the Bikram style. Competitions like this are apparently more common in India, where teachers drum up publicity for their yoga schools through exhibitions. However, in the States, it’s a rather new – and somewhat startling – activity, given that yoga here still bears the traces of its hippie, counter-culture origins, which eschews all things regulated and corporate.
However, yoga has now gained enough popularity here that it’s possible to hold competitions and evaluate someone’s prowess in this (spiritual?) practice. So now what separates yoga from, say, gymnastics or cirque de soleil? Rather ironic since these physical endeavors are renowned for injuring its adherents, while one of the goals of modern yoga is to promote health and wellness.
“I’m exhausted mentally and physically,” Jared McCann [competition winner] said, grinning. “My left toe is numb and I’ve got some kind of back spasm.” He paused before adding, “There’s always something.” (Times)
All this talk of injuries, scandals, and yoga competitions has me taking a pause. Not to disparage Jared McCann or Afton Carraway for winning the 2012 competition – good on ’em, it must have been years in the making – but what is the larger message that we are getting here?
Let’s face it: the umbrella of yoga is becoming laden with competition. As the next generation of teachers starts to jockey for position, everyone is looking for their special derivative niche: acro-yoga, ballet-yoga, spin yoga, tai chi yoga, aerobics yoga, runners’ yoga – not to mention all the individual name brands that have become popular. And of course we are diversifying. It’s one way to survive in an increasingly saturated marketplace.
As this happens, ways of evaluating good “yoga” could become increasingly external. After all, it’s easier – and perhaps more impressive – to measure how far someone can get their foot behind their head than how calm their mind is or how present they are. (Although who knows, maybe we’ll have meditation competitions soon that measure practitioners’ theta waves.) Realistically, teachers who can do complex asana may be taken more seriously than teachers who are passionate about pranayama and meditation. Classes that invite asana showmanship may be more popular than classes that seem quieter or more introspective.
While there’s nothing wrong with striving to advance one’s personal practice, the growing anxiety of competition has led to increasingly insecure teachers. We fret, “are my numbers good,” rather than asking if we’re actually teaching the yoga that we want to. We can get caught in the cycle of teaching what we think the students will want, rather than teaching from our hearts.
And while it’s true that good teachers will endure and their students will find them eventually, it is naive to think that teachers needn’t be concerned about how popular their classes are. Most students cultivate a love for the deeper practices of yoga after getting their asses kicked by asana for a couple years, so the majority of the students may not want to hear a long dharma talk or sit and meditate. Being real about this may save us the depression of having three students in class – and getting concerned looks from our bosses.
One of my favorite teachers, Mark Whitwell, once said, “Give them what they want, so you can give them what you want.” Mark is pretty darn smart and experienced, so I’m thinking that we will always be dancing between delivering yoga that is popular and yoga that reaches deeper. (And lord love those precious teachers who manage to do both at the same time, you do inspire me.)
So it’s not an either/or proposition. In the midst of yoga competitions, prolific branding, and career insecurity, we can still find some room to return to our source of inspiration. As Mark might say, we can still return to the “Heart of Yoga.” While we “give them what they want,” we can also remember why we started yoga in the first place and trust that our students will be similarly inspired by something as simple as connecting to their breath.
To all those teachers out there who have struggled with the insecurity of popularity (including myself), I’d like to offer the following hopeful reminders:
So while we dance this dance – while we navigate marketing, yoga competitions, and class numbers – we can also try the occasional experiment. Once in awhile, let’s see what happens if we teach the kind of yoga that we do in the living room when no one else is watching. The kind of yoga that may not win any awards or look impressive on our websites, but simply leaves us more connected to who we are.
Today, or this morning rather, I was eating piece toast with cashew butter (homemade, even, dee-lightful). And I decided to make a little agreement with myself.
To self: I will eat this toast with homemade cashew butter, and endeavor to do just that, and only that. No checking email, no reading the paper. Just simply stand, and eat. And taste.
I didn’t get very far before my hands reached for the tv remote (put it DOWN, now! My head belatedly hollered). Then I found my hand reaching for my Iphone (the phonecall to Mom can WAIT!, I suddenly thought, and mentally slapped my hand away.) Then I found myself wandering across the room to go check on the cat (the damn cat is FINE, I caught myself, now just stand still!)
Apparently, I cannot even get through one piece of toast without my mind – and body – running off in six different directions.
This is a sobering thought, as it illuminates something frightening: What is happening for the vast majority of the time when I’m not actually trying to stand and just eat a piece of toast? How much compulsion is daily pouring through my body and mind that I simply go along with (reach for remote, Iphone, cat, etc?). When actions are done before I even realize that they’ve happened? If I have to do some serious focusing just to stay in one place, then what’s going on when I’m not paying so much attention?
Freaky.
I do not have any glorious, pithy wisdom to offer up here. I obviously spend a great deal of time in the throes of my subconscious urgings and only occasionally make it above water to look around at the scenery. But the experience did remind me of a suggestion in the Yoga Sutras, which I’ve been cruising through lately. The Sutras, a series of terse aphorisms compiled back in 200 CE or so, basically throw down the meditative wisdom of the time. Most yogis are familiar with the second Sutra which declares that “Yoga is the restraint of the fluctuations of the mind.” Here’s another that is particularly piquant (translation by Carlos Pomeda):
Sutra 1.13: tatra sthitau yatno’bhyasa
“Practice is the effort to remain there.”
Basically, Patanjali is saying that we need to just sit down already and eat our cashew butter covered toast. Do one thing at a time. Stay “there.” In that space. Can we sit in our stuff? Literally and metaphorically? And not go wandering after the damn cat?
Doing our yoga doesn’t always have to involve incense, candles, and a meditation cushion. We can do it right now, simply by trying to anchor ourselves in doing one thing at a time.
Eat Toast. Then call Mom. Then pet cat. Rather than eat/talk/pet.
A revolution of non-multi-tasking.
So here’s to sitting our asses down, already.
And just taking a moment.
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