Managing better

In my earlier yoga days I was a more prolific blogger than now. All the experiences were so vivid and so new, I struggled to make sense of them. Writing as a process of reflection seemed to help. Also the little blog community that included me in their circle was a wonderful support with a broader and deeper perspective on the practice that helped me immensely, regularly offering wisdom and kind encouragement. These days my yoga experiences shake me less, they run deep in a different way. Maybe the rocky bed of my practice has been smoothed somewhat by the passing years and the flow of my efforts.

Back then I struggled with yoga classes (in a less existential way than I struggle with the concept now!). I was physically weak and mentally bruised, without the skills or awareness to cope very well with the intensity of 90 minute strong vinyasa classes. I felt somehow that they were beneficial (even if I couldn’t quite say how) and I persisted with great commitment but it was years before I felt in any way confident about my place in a class.

I remember writing about the degree to which I felt able to participate, as I marvelled at my teacher’s ability to manage diverse energies and abilities in the class, bring us together in some way that still allowed for variation, modification, personal autonomy and choice. It must have struck a chord with him back then as he asked if he could include my small piece of writing in the materials for his teacher training course. I felt honoured — and a little bemused. I am just babycrow after all.

Fast forward to me leading my own vinyasa classes, though mine are shorter and less physically intense than his. I currently have a student who is struggling. We meet privately at intervals and I try to support her interest in developing a home yoga practice that meets her needs more directly. Meantime she continues coming to the group class. My teaching colleague is impatient with her and frustrated by her superficially negative attitude. I try to see beyond this. In fact I see myself in her: fear manifesting as reluctance or truculence, low energy seeming like lack of enthusiasm, minor disruptiveness a clumsy attempt to fit it.

Yet she shows up regularly and whenever she does I do my best to communicate a heartfelt welcome to her. Just recently she has taken to lying down for most of the class. She is always in the front row, yawning loudly, moving slowly until the point at which she comes to stop. After class last week I tucked her up with a pillow, turned the lights down low and I gave her 10 minutes resting time after everyone else had left. I felt happy doing this, hoping that I was passing on to her something of the care my own teacher gave to me.

Like him with me perhaps, I feel honoured that she would feel safe to come to my class even when she isn’t feeling up to full participation and that she knows it’s acceptable to rest, as she lays out her vulnerabilities for everyone in the class to see.

As Guru Purnima draws close I think about my teachers a lot and I reflect on what I have received from them. It’s a special kind of relationship this student-teacher thing, at once the most difficult and the most easeful I have ever experienced. They simultaneously challenge me on all fronts and also accept me just as I am without judgment. If I could ever offer a small percentage to my own students of what I receive from my teachers, I will feel I’m serving them well.