I love when I meet someone for the first time, offer very little about myself and then they tell me exactly how I should live my life.
As a teacher, I'm open to all people, students and teachers, expressing to me their experiences in life and in yoga.
I do, however, often shut down after several minutes have passed and a new person very adamantly proposes the exact way I should teach a class, wake up in the morning or order coffee or breathe or exist.
It is a huge turn off.
I have a gift of being able to put myself in others shoes or lack thereof (in a yoga room) and see where they are coming from when starting a conversation with me.
I know, what do you mean, a gift?
Seriously. It's something that I am proud I do well.
That, and knitting very long scarves as I have yet to learn how to knit anything else. Just one long strip of cotton. If you need one, let me know. Heading back east, I have one for ya.
I can understand where I am coming from and understand, whether I believe you or not, where you are coming from.
Trust me. I have many Republican friends that are like family to me and we still get along.
I don't know what another's trials in life are so I am more than happy to hear them express their needs or lifestyle to me when I offer a smile or hello.
But, come on, even if I wasn't a teacher, I'm a human being and sometimes I don't want to be engaged.
Or, I will engage for a small bit of time and find my exit out asap.
But what is that comfortable exit?
I know you know what I'm talking about otherwise you wouldn't have found yourself here.
I live in the uncomfortable and have no problem chatting about it.
So here we are, talking with someone we don't know. They are repelling us, but we are open, good people so we must listen, right.
Absolutely...
not...
I'm only going to talk about the yoga room for this one folks but you can insert your experience here for your own circumstances if it serves you, 'cause it might.
I was taking my weekly class, somewhere that will remain nameless.
An individual who is also there weekly, noticed that fact and proposed that we were yoga buddies.
I said that I was glad we appreciated the class we communed at weekly.
I put down my mat and settled my belongings.
He asked me where I was from, what area of town I lived in and what I did. I told him all three freely.
I didn't give any more or ask anything of him. Smile.
He continued to tell me everything that was wrong with the class we were about to take even though he had been coming to the class for three years, and that he hoped what he offered would inform my teaching.
Hmmm. I was really surprised and taken off guard by such a critique of a class but told him that it was necessary that he involve himself only in the experience that he was having and be careful about what he was saying about the teaching and how others should teach as it is an experience he is unfamiliar with.
Well, that didn't let anything go.
He told me what he would do as a teacher. How he could teach better. Yada freekin' yada.
I excused myself to the bathroom.
Listen, I love the class that I've been going to weekly but even I know, that it's served it's purpose for what I needed for a time and that I have to move on.
If you have an issue with a class, it doesn't fit where you are in your life, it's time to move on.
I love having students in my class weekly.
Honestly, I don't know why they come.
I mean, I know why I would come to my class.
But I don't know why YOU come to my class.
I know that the class I teach is always dedicated to a cause.
I know that the class I teach is always different sequentially so you will never know what to expect.
I know the class I teach will have you working hard but feeling soft.
I know the class I teach always has a theme and that I bring what I can philosophically and physically to the practice.
I know that as teachers and as yogis, at this point, we are all very much the same.
Gone are the days that the teacher and student had much of a gap.
Students far surpass their teachers in practice as it has become so accessible to take trainings, retreats and workshops.
However, to teach, is a supreme skill. I say this because I am always amazed at how much I learn from teachers that may or may not have an advanced physical or spiritual practice than I.
There is no longer an I and you. A teacher can only guide you on an experience in an hour and a half and maybe make that a weekly or bi-weekly practice.
It's where you are in your life that makes the practice equivalent, equal to your life and your schedule. The teacher enhances that experience. Makes it accessible for you if you can't do it on your own or just need that extra push.
In a public setting, it is very difficult to attend to the needs of all of the students in the room.
I'm lucky, in a sense, that the studio I teach at is relatively small, so I can watch every one of my students and teach to them accordingly. It's also important to know WHO and WHEN you can touch a student.
As a teacher, I always ask, unless it's in Savasana and still, I propose, if you want an adjustment.
But again, this is me. I don't always want to be touched or used as an example for a pose. I come to class to be anonymous. But if a teacher uses me as an example, it's my job to tell them that I am uncomfortable with it from the beginning.
Just as any student should let any teacher know what injuries or issues they are dealing with, what they are or aren't comfortable with.
Listen, I practice at studios where teachers bring in 50-100 people a class. Some of the teachers don't even tell us what there name is or what modifications to do if they are beginner students or advanced.
I listen to these teachers and learn but I watch the students move un-safely from one pose to another. It's not my class and it's not my job. But, there is nothing I can do and the teacher can only do so much with the space she/he has to provide a space that is as safe and nurturing as it can be.
If you are a beginner, for the love of everything, take a beginners class.
I still take beginners classes because there is always more to learn.
If it doesn't work out in your schedule, find another place that has the classes that work with your schedule.
Yoga studios are poppin' up like Starbucks.
The same goes for advanced students. If you feel like you are being slowed by the pace a teacher is setting, move on to another pace.
But, please, do not critique another teacher. Especially to a fellow teacher.
That teacher, if they are good, is reading the room and teaching their planned sequence appropriately to the room whether you like it or not.
And seriously, unless you are asked for your opinion or advice, don't be so free to give it away like cash to someone you don't know. It's a waste of your time.
Read the room. Learn to read the person you want to engage and don't suck their energy and space just to fill it with your own. They will give you the space and energy if it is equal.
Engaging is wonderful.
I love chatting with people I've never met about things I would never chat about otherwise.
But unless you are just aching to hear yourself talk, think twice.
On that note, let me tell you what to do. Be good to yourselves, drink lots of water and call your mother.
Shanti, Om,
Laurie