Tag Archives: Yoga Teacher Training

Quiet That Monkey Mind!

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Learning To Let Go: An Exploration of Moving From the Outside In

“Illuminated emancipation, freedom, unalloyed and untainted bliss await you, but you have to choose to embark on the Inward Journey to discover it.” (B.K.S.Iyengar)

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I have been practicing yoga off and on for about eight and a half years now and have explored a range of styles. Anusara, Ashtanga, Bikram, Hatha, Iyengar, Kundalini, Para-Yoga, Power Yoga, and Vinyasa are all familiar to me to varied extents. The mat became my friend soon after moving in with my now husband, then boyfriend, Jeremy. He had suffered a few minor injuries and was looking for something to help ease pain in his neck and back. We took our first class together while visiting his father on Lopez Island in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State.

Though I could not pinpoint the exact reason why, something kept me coming back to my mat over and over and over again. When I found myself straying from one yogic path, another path would make itself known to me. Unlike other activities I have taken up in the past, yoga has been a mainstay. About two years ago, I started taking classes in the Iyengar tradition in San Francisco. Through this particular form of practice I found a community that started to help me understand why I was so deeply drawn to yoga. I began to gravitate toward certain teachers, to push myself to take a 200-hour Teacher Training at a local studio, then to commit myself to the two year, 500-hour Advanced Studies program at the Iyengar Yoga Institute of San Francisco (IYISF) – the first of its kind in the United States, established in 1974.

For our final project in Asana I at IYISF, our teacher asked us to write a piece reflecting on a moment when we caught a glimpse of what Patanjali, the compiler of the Yoga Sutras (aphorisms on the practice of yoga), called citta vritti nirodhah. This sutra is often translated as the cessation of the fluctuations of consciousness. Through this practice of yoga, we are seeking to still the thoughts and patterns created by our mind, our ego and our intellect. For a beginner, this may seem like a thankless task.

Personally, my most recent moments of inward movement within my asana practice have come during Salamba Sirsasana (supported headstand). It is a challenging pose for me for so many reasons – not the least is balancing on my head! But it is also a pose for quiet reflection and using the body to still the mind. When I fold my mat in the middle of the room and set up my forearms parallel to each other, taking care to keep my shoulders up the entire time, I find myself letting go of the to-do lists I have been writing in my head, my worries over whether or not I will make my bonus this year, my pestering thoughts about the extra five or ten pounds I would always like to shed, because as soon as I take those trains of thought back up, I lose my pose.

This leads right into her second question of how I would share this experience with a beginner. Obviously a true beginner to yoga is not going to be lifting into headstand in the middle of the room; indeed they may not even be able to kick up to the wall. But I think the experience is truly there in all the poses, even ones that some people would consider to be less advanced. If I am standing in Prasarita Padottonasana (wide-legged forward fold), a pose taught to beginning students before headstand, I have to maintain many actions to keep my balance. I must keep my legs straight and strong without locking my knees, maintaining balance between the two sides of my body and my place in space. I also have to be patient, taking care to extend my spine, lift my chest and sternum and lengthen my neck without straining to do so. If I practice svadhyaya, study that leads to knowledge of the self, I know that I must continue to assess and reassess my pose, because if I falter I will no longer be in the pose, I will be off dancing with my vritti.

In all honesty, I still consider myself a beginner at this yoga practice. Although I head with burning zeal into more advanced classes, workshops and other trainings, I will likely remain a beginner in this lifetime.  I have to constantly remind myself to remain present, to be patient, yet reflective, and to continue to do the donkey work. If I ever take up the task of teaching beginning yogis, I will gently remind them that it is a constant struggle, but a worthy one. I take solace in the fact that I now have my community and my teachers to help lead me along this inward path (and with that pesky headstand, too).

Teaching From Your Practice

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“Yoga is a light, which once lit, will never dim. The better your practice, the brighter the flame.”

   ~B.K.S. Iyengar

Iyengar Yoga Props

Today I had the very frustrating experience of teaching two yoga poses to my cohort and completely losing the entire class. Reflecting on where I went wrong, I have come to the realization that (a) I need to understand the physical limitations of my students better and anticipate their needs, (b) I cannot expect that the pose I want to teach is accessible for everyone in the way I would like to teach it to them, and (c) I need to preach what I practice.

A quick recap of the class will shed light on the reasons for my frustration. After a failed attempt at halasana (plow pose) without props, I moved swiftly to setu bandha sarvangasana (supported bridge pose) with a block. I practice both postures with regularity, so I feel as if I know them well. I decided to teach halasana without props, because I meant to have the students roll in and out fairly quickly. Mistake number one. Well over half the class was unable to get into the pose without the blankets for support. In my attempts to help the students get into the pose correctly, they ended up staying in the position for far longer than I originally intended.

Conversely, with the second pose, had I left the prop out of the equation (a wooden brick in this case), I feel as if there would have been less confusion all around. The blocks were being placed underneath the tailbone any which way but the way I instructed. At one point I got so frustrated that I asked everyone to get out of the pose and watch me demonstrate for them prior to continuing on with the instruction. Once I began to demo, I felt better about the outcome of the session. I felt as if I was able to take control of the mess I created and provide my students with the experience I wanted them to take away from the asana.

Oftentimes, I feel like an imposter in teacher training. Because the program is drawn from Hatha yoga in the Krishnamacharya tradition, much of what is covered is vinyasa based, a form that is derived from the Astanga series developed by Patthabi Jois. Here is the kicker: I have absolutely no intention of teaching vinyasa yoga. In fact, I plan on enrolling in an Iyengar Advanced Studies program as early as next year. In spite of this, I keep trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I keep trying to teach like a vinyasa teacher.

From this point forward, I intend to take note of the points listed above. I will think more critically about where I need to make adjustments in the practice to leave room for people’s different levels of ability, I will release the preconceived notion that my students have a working knowledge of the asana and how to correctly use props, and I will teach what I know from my own experience. Most importantly, I will teach in the style that I practice and not be apologetic for my practice, even if it is not the popular way to go.