A Lever and a Place to Stand

"Give me a lever, and a place to stand, and I can move the earth." ~ Archimedes

A teacher once explained to me that there's great value in going deeply into a particular topic. There comes a time when seeking must stop, when we must maintain focus on a particular thing in order to truly advance. I’m a little ADD and this has always been hard for me. But I’m proud to say that I deeply, exclusively maintained my focus on Anusara yoga for twelve years.

That phase of my life is finished now. I’ve completed my education in Anusara yoga. I took a devastating final exam. The questions didn’t concern Inner Spiral or Thigh Loop, or any technical or anatomical jargon. My final exam in Anusara yoga was whether or not I would be able to act in accordance with my conscience, whether I would be able to truly step into my own authority, rather than deferring to someone else. Whether I would be able to tolerate strong negative opinions about my actions, even from colleagues and teachers I considered senior to me, even from dear, beloved friends. Whether I could leave behind something that had defined me for over a decade, and whether I could allow a part of myself to die in order to be reborn.

While Anusara yoga was John Friend's creation, the Anusara I loved was a woman. She and I loved each other passionately. I like to think that the part of her that nurtured me, that reared me with great tenderness and ferocity, knows that I passed my final exam. She set that exam for us. She set it for John. I like to think that when I passed it, she was fiercely proud of me. In her final hour, she stood in the doorway of her crumbling house, opened her hands and bade us to fly free, to find our own wings.

Sorting through the rubble of the Anusara disaster, I’m questioning everything. Did I waste the last ten years of my life? Is my training worth anything? Do I even have anything to offer as a yoga teacher? What was it that worked about Anusara yoga? How do other styles do it? What works for me about those styles? What doesn’t work for me about those styles? Do I, a kool-aid-saturated refugee from an upstart method, have anything to contribute to the conversation of modern yoga?

I’m no BKS Iyengar, but I have taught well over 6000 yoga classes. That must count for something. I’ve looked at a lot of bodies in yoga poses. Here are some of my present thoughts about yoga, and teaching yoga. Are these opinions correct? Who cares—they’re mine.

What works FOR ME, at this particular moment, in the context of a 75-90 minute public yoga class full of householders:

• Having a theme, or at least setting a context for the students at the beginning of class. It just works better for me. I’m more than a technician. I have things to say to the students about the nature of what we’re really doing. I think it’s valuable, for this one hour a week, to deeply consider why the heck we’re doing whatever it is we’re doing. 
• Then, taking that concept, and somatizing it. Manifesting it in the flesh. 
• Then, taking the embodied knowledge and manifesting it in the outside world. 
• Getting the students up and moving. 
• Getting the students’ breath flowing. Reminding them frequently of the breath. 
• Getting the students warmed up, having their yoga increase their cardiovascular fitness. 
• Steady, methodical, intelligent sequencing. Apex poses. Generally, sequencing that builds to something and retreats from something. 
• Technical instructions that are presented in a clear, coherent fashion, so that the students have a prayer of actually embodying them outside of the classroom. 
• Instruction in energetic and physical anatomy so that the students have a cognitive understanding of the instruments used in the practice of hatha yoga. Particularly, more emphasis on energetic anatomy and bandhas.
• An emphasis on philosophical ideas that might be labeled “Tantric”. 
• Regular inclusion of pranayama and meditation. 
• Use of props: they are useful and they WORK. My studio is not a large gymnasium or conference room where there are 200 students and not enough props.  

Some things I plan to continue to steer clear of:

• Long demos. 
• Long themes. 
• Elaborate partner work. 
• Over-emphasis on backbending. 
• Emphasis on “the next level”, achievement, pushing through, manipulation or coercion of ourselves, whether spiritual or physical. 
• “Circus-type” atmosphere that takes people out of their bodies. 
• Huge classes. 
• Hybrid yoga: yoga and chocolate. Yogilates. (Nothing wrong with these. I just am not interested in them. I'm more interested in exploring yoga in its own context than in comparison to another discipline or topic.)
• Sexualization of the teacher-student relationship. 

Some values I simply do not have:

• I don’t really value extreme yoga poses.
• I don’t really value “Classical” yoga philosophy. I’m only interested in the Yoga Sutras to the extent that they clearly impact or have something to say about my life, or to clarify the historical evolution of yoga philosophy. 
• I don’t value Indian or Hindu sources of information (teachers, texts) over my own experience. 
• I don’t value having a guru. 
• I’m not interested in practicing or teaching a kind of yoga that is good for ascetics. I don’t practice yoga or anything else for several hours a day, neither do my students. I don't believe that doing so makes you a better yogin or human being. 
• I don’t believe that yoga therapy is better than any other type of therapy. I don’t consider myself a yoga therapist. I’m not a physician, physical therapist, or mental health professional. 

Some values I do have:

• I value having many teachers, some of whom are highly specialized experts in a particular field, and some of whom are people like my mother, my students, my friends, and my colleagues. 
• I practice the yoga of the householder.  I live in a house. I pay bills. I cultivate relationships. I love to eat. I engage this reality. I am a householder, my students are householders, and in fact, unless s/he is living in a cave and begging or foraging for food, every yogin is.
• I value the transformative, alchemical power of the teachings and technology of yoga to illuminate our ordinary human lives, to open our eyes to the marvelous that is just another aspect of the real. 
• I believe that the technology of yoga not only transforms our vision, but also clears away obstacles. The power of that technology to amplify clarity and clear away ignorance. 
• I value rigor in teaching the lineage of yogic thought and practice. Presenting it clearly. Demystifying it. Using rigorous science and historical scholarship when appropriate. 
• I value rigor in studying. Education on Anatomy. Clear awareness of the historical context for yoga texts and ideas. Generally, an emphasis on scholarship. 
• Encouragement for people to have their own relationships to texts. 
• I value the practice of refining poses. I believe that the forms of the poses themselves create powerful energetic currents that have the capacity to magnify health. 
• I value spaciousness in creating opportunities for people to experience the more subtle aspects of their nature. 
• Continuing education. For myself, now, a diversity of education. I’m not going to be spending 10 years in any particular method. 
• Empowerment of our personal experiences in yoga. An emphasis on the personal. 
• Open-mindedness. Part of my job as a yoga teacher is to seriously, continuously investigate many different types of yoga traditions and try to bring you the ones that I feel are most effective. 
• Self-love regardless of your personal appearance. 
• Space and honor for all levels of ability. I’ve taught yoga to people who are bedridden. 
• I value the seat of the student. I demonstrate to my students that I, too, am a student by taking my colleague's classes, deferring in arenas where I have no expertise, and acknowledging my flaws. 
• I believe our greatest yoga is practiced in community, where the stakes are highest, the irritations are many, and the flood of grace is overwhelming.