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 :)

a Yoga Instructor is Born

Today my father and I made a visit to the Dr. Anita Roberts Memorial Garden, a small garden and patio and sculpture dedicated to the memory of my mother on the NIH campus.

When we arrived, two Indian gentlemen were having a quiet chat. After some time contemplating and absorbing the environs, I asked them to snap our photograph, and we struck up a good conversation. They asked me what I did, and I stated: "I'm a yoga instructor." to which both their eyes lit up, and one asked me about Pranayama (alternate nostril controlled breathing) while the other quizzed me about a particular yoga school in the heart of India.

What was strange was the role reversal: I had simply assumed that since they were Indian, they would be yoga experts... when in fact they were looking to me for advice. Two Americanized Indians asking an Indianized American about the finer points of yogic breathing.

I did the best I could to transfer the knowledge to them about the core practice of breathing, about opening your heart and lungs with simple backbends, about the vinyasa of matching your breath to the movements, and about the most important work of integration into your daily life, so that you are in the mode of deep and clean yogic breathing all day every day.

We said our goodbyes and I realised, entering the lobby, that I had just given my first formal yoga instruction. And all I had to do was to say "I'm a yoga instructor." And so it was, and so it shall be. Namaste.

Kundalini

The practices enable you
to merge with
or "yoke" with
the universal Self.

This merging of individual consciousness
with universal consciousness
creates a “divine union” called
"YOGA."

The practice that leads
to this state of self-mastery
is also called
"yoga."

So the road
and the destination
have the same name,
"yoga."

There are many different kinds,
or schools
of yoga.
"Many Paths, One Goal."

Those who practice yoga
are called "yogis"
and those who master yoga
are also called "yogis."