Let go

I’ve been ‘let go’ from one of the places I teach. After the reduced summertime schedule of classes they decided not to continue mine. The numbers were never great so from a business perspective it totally makes sense. It’s not as though yoga studios anywhere are finding it easy right now. Closures are still happening, post-covid business is not what it was.

So I meet this decision with mixed emotions. How could it be otherwise?

I have loved teaching this class. If I could ever let go of the stress of worrying about numbers and just drop into the time with the students, it felt like the only place I wanted to be. I was taught by one of my teachers that the most precious thing we give to our students is time and space: if we can create a space of compassion and clear enquiry, we are giving them riches beyond anything. It felt like this. All the more so as most offerings at this studio tend towards the more physical, mine was the opposite and those who valued a slower class were small in number but definitely big in heart.

What students they were! Full of courage as they showed up to class not to fulfil some ego desire of asana-based excellence, but to ask their own big questions of what it is to live and be a human. In the quiet space of a restorative class, where there might be less to distract the senses, they came so obviously face to face with the suffering in their lives: how to re-find one’s identity as a new mother, how to grieve a parent, find fortitude in the face of chronic illness or acute injury, how to negotiate the aging process or the anger arising from being a woman in what feels like a man’s world, or the challenge to create a new life in a foreign country… Some of these issues were voiced explicitly, some I joined up from the hesitant dots of conversation over many months. Each of the regular students touched me in some way, as they dared to come with their emotions, questions and vulnerability. I like to think my class helped them in some small way. It is a cliché to call teaching an honour and a privilege, but it is just that. It felt like that each week. Now I miss them and I wonder how they are doing.

So for the small numbers in my class I don’t blame myself or my teaching ability. I will not be everyone’s favourite teacher, but I have enough long term students to know I’m good for them at least. I just don’t think I was a good fit for this studio. I knew that when I took on the class, the studio owners knew it too when they gave me a go anyway, and for that and for everything I learned I’m grateful. But right from the start we talked about ‘fit’ and ‘belonging’ and I simply hoped that stepping into the role of teacher in this space and embracing the awkwardness I felt would help me overcome it.

In some ways it did and I’m proud of that. I taught my class to the best of my ability and I threw myself into the other activities associated with studio teaching. I took part in photoshoots, made videos for social media, connected with the other teachers and chattered away with the students between classes– not to mention all those glamorous chores liked cleaning up garbage and dirty toilets, mopping sweaty floors, cleaning mats and tidying props…

But alongside my pride in how I did all this, there’s a fair amount of lingering confusion and discomfort, a lack of resolution to questions I hoped to answer… or perhaps some answers that I’m not ready to hear. I hoped I would gain in my understanding of the modern yoga industry and the choices made in negotiating traditional practice with modern consumerism. This feels important for me to figure out, it’s part of the awkwardness I feel. But I never got comfortable with the glib marketing and the promises about how a particular class would make you feel, liberal use of the word ‘healing’, and the underlying implication of personal deficit or FOMO that any marketing campaign must be built upon, even when yoga philosophy seems to teach the opposite. I know this is the industry norm, but I still wonder for myself about the ethics and compromises.

The lowest ebb for me was finding a tissue and mobile phone on the shelf where the Ganesha statuette was placed. The casualness of it disturbed me and seemed a tangible metaphor for all my questions and uncertainties about authenticity, cultural appropriation, spiritual bypassing, and positioning yoga students as consumers. I thought about sharing this experience with the studio owners. Perhaps this was an opportunity for dialogue within the studio ‘family’ about the origins of the practice, how to honour the spiritual underpinnings and heritage within a modern context? But then I realised the phone actually belonged to one of them. Instead of dialogue I was left with an uneasy sense of spiritual window dressing and disappointment.

And on top of all this I also feel obscurely that I’ve let my own teacher down. He has supported my personal practice over many years and also gave me my foundational teacher training. I naively thought I would make him proud if I could step up to teach alongside him. It was my dream come true, while it lasted. Now I feel some unpalatable combination of hubris and disillusion. I don’t know whether to swallow it or spit it out.

Mostly I just feel sad.

So I sit in meditation each day, seeking some clarity. Beneath the swirling thoughts and jagged emotions, there are multiple narratives felt in my body. The pain in my throat and tightness in my chest cries out for me to acknowledge the confusion in both my own role as teacher and with the industry as a whole. The pride in my own small efforts is a little more subtle, but I like to believe it’s there in the steadiness of my seat, the dignity of my spine and the sense of spaciousness around me. Other parts of my body present a story of relief: I notice this with surprise. My shoulders soften, my belly lets go of some habitual tightness, from this my breath deepens, the exhales lengthening into self-absolution. I even notice something like a smile glimmering at the corners of my mouth.

I have been let go.

Now I can let go.

There’s some liberation in this.

But this is not a simple ending — or any kind of ending. Alongside any feeling of relief, I also feel very lost, a bit abandoned, a little foolish even in my babyish attempts to answer the big questions about the current manifestation of yoga. How could I be equal to that? So as so often I end my reflections with a strong sense of beginning again, of returning to the humility of listening and learning, and being always a student. Perhaps it is fitting to have written most of this on Ganesha Chaturthi: Lord of the one tusk, allow me the learning and wisdom that comes from endless obstacles and endless beginnings and grant me the strength and patience to meet these opportunities, and when I feel overwhelmed let me also remember your sense of humour. And your love of sweets! 🙂