ON TEACHING YOGA

It took me years of self-practice before I dared to do a Yoga Teacher Training and again years before I started teaching not because I didn’t like teaching or I was scared but because I have great respect for the craft. Teaching yoga is an enormous responsibility. For me, it means service – to other and to myself.

A teacher of Yoga should live a life of Yoga – to practice what is taught. There can be considerable confusion about this. To begin with, to live a life of Yoga is about continuous practice and self-study. This is not a question of style. Like all individuals, teachers of Yoga will exhibit every conceivable kind of personality, temperament, and human problems. They experience failed marriages, personal suffering, and stress. They do not all go around in Indian dress. Nor – despite what a lot of people seem to expect–are they always calm and serene. I’ve often been asked,
“Aren’t Yoga teachers supposed to be free of emotions?” My response is simply,
“Take a look at my family!” I assure you that our house is as filled with all the emotional joys and storms of any other “normal” household.
A good teacher of Yoga also is not necessarily someone who can perform all manner of complicated asanas. In fact, some of the best teachers I know, because of physical problems, cannot even sit cross-legged comfortably. To live the life of Yoga, is about a faith that continuously guides the teacher toward practices leading to the harmony of body, mind, and spirit. From this it follows that the teacher must be motivated in part by self-interest – not selfishness but enlightened, generous, self-interest.  

“Why do I teach?” My answer: “To find out what I know and what I don’t know.”

The bond between teacher and student is like a rope between two mountain climbers. The less experienced climber behind can ascend no further than the lead climber makes possible. I like this simile, because it also suggests the absolute bond of trust that must exist between the two. The more a teacher advances, the more he or she can give to the student. Even as a teacher is urged on by self-interest, his or her entire responsibility is to the student. The most fundamental commandment in my teaching is that only the student matters, and the teacher is there to help that individual evolve according to his or her own unique situation and potential. There is no standard, no conformity in this approach.

There is no will to bend a student toward the teacher’s ideas or purpose. The teacher is like a mirror, but unlike any that simply gives off a two-dimensional reflection. It is a mirror that reflects from all directions, through time, extending into relations with others and that reveals the action of the senses and emotions upon the mind.

The teacher must always speak the truth. This too must be understood fully. The truth spoken must never harm the student. It must be expressed according to the student’s needs and ability to grasp the meaning. For example I would not teach the Maha bandha to yoga beginner, it may not make sense to that person. The teacher must be acutely aware of what needs to be said and what it is possible for the student to hear. 

Finally,  and I think this is by far the most important, the teacher must care more about his student than himself. This is a matter of the heart, not of intellect. I know individuals with brilliant minds and enormous knowledge of Yoga but who cannot teach. Because the teaching is not in their hearts. This is not a harsh judgement because they are all well-meaning and they also have much to contribute. We are each unique which means that the caring so necessary to the teacher will not be the same in everyone.
For teachers, only the student matters. And the student is never wrong. The student is learning.

And so the qualities we seek in teachers are life devoted to practice, evidence that he or she, too is ever a student of Yoga, a nature that is always truthful, a commitment to the student’s own awareness and possibilities, each in his own term. 

And above all caring.