teaching the teacher

"Ready for class?" I asked cheerily as the gleaming sun rose across the water. Then I saw the grimace come across his face: "Um, my body kinda needs a rest day... maybe tomorrow?" Had my simple vinyasa really broken this god?

In my first group yoga class, I had the privilege of working with two tri-athletes with well-tuned physiques and strong frames. I put them through a fairly simple sequence whose climax was a full wheel bridge... but the real bodywork was the extended poses of Virabhadrasana (Warrior I and II), sinking them deep into their lunges, teasing out optimal hip, leg and foot alignments. Then right when the shakes start to hit, moving them into Vrkasana (Tree) and Natarajasana.

After class, my brother came up and said "you know, some of those alignments you were asking for were *really* hard, like grounding the heels in down dog... you might want to say "try this if you can, but its OK if you do this instead." That immediately reminded me of the advice from my yoga mentor, who said "its about finding the perfect pose for each individual's body". This morning, I meditated on this again, and came up with the following three guidelines for my future classes:

There is no such thing as "wrong form" for a given asana. There is only:

• The optimal human form for that asana. Recognize that you are not the optimal human; you are the optimal you.
• Visualize the best possible form for your body and strive towards that.
• Create the best form possible for your body as it is today & now.

As I was thinking this, I reflected on my own circumstances; I've spent the past nine months pushing myself into more and deeper physical extremes of yoga, gymnastics, and acrobatics. This has made my damaged wrist (see illustration) all the more evident... I've dealt with it in three ways: by ignoring the pain, by rehabbing it into health, and by adapting my practice to this altered state of wrist.

Following my own wisdom, and treating myself as my own student, I'm going to be focusing more and more on rehab and adaptation. This is the core of true yoga teaching.

Oh, and that breathing thing :)