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Choosing Yoga Teachers Mindfully

March 27, 2012 •

By now you’ve prob­a­bly read or heard about the New York Times arti­cle on the dan­gers of yoga (Jan­u­ary 2012). It trig­gered a firestorm in the yoga com­mu­nity. Yoga teach­ers and ded­i­cated prac­ti­tion­ers found them­selves in the awk­ward posi­tion of hav­ing to explain why they place so much value on doing some­thing that might “wreck your body,” as the arti­cle so provoca­tively asserted.

Despite my feel­ings about the arti­cle’s edi­to­r­ial stance, over time it has had a pos­i­tive impact on my yoga prac­tice.

Learn to be more mind­ful

It caused me to reassess what classes to take, what teach­ers to fol­low, and what prac­tices or styles of yoga to avoid.

I’m now more clear about what’s right for me (and why). This helps me be more authen­tic — espe­cially when I choose not to do a pose or to per­form the eas­ier vari­a­tion instead.

Sadly I now take fewer classes as a con­se­quence of being more selec­tive. The good news: the teach­ers are bet­ter, and I’m learn­ing more — lessons that I can apply both in class and at home.

How to Avoid Injury in Yoga

Here’s what I’ve con­cluded from this reassess­ment process:

  • Avoid over-crowded classes where it’s impos­si­ble for the teacher to pay enough atten­tion to each stu­dent
  • Avoid teach­ers who lack hun­dreds of hours of teacher train­ing
  • Avoid yoga class envi­ron­ments that pro­mote yoga as exer­cise (the lat­est fad­dish work­out)
  • Be aware of your body’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and where to pay extra atten­tion dur­ing prac­tice
  • Take respon­si­bil­ity for com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the teacher before class, to ensure she under­stands what you’re deal­ing with today

Those are basic require­ments to avoid risky con­di­tions. But the choice of teacher is even more impor­tant.

Choose Your Teacher(s) Carefully

It’s taken awhile for me to rec­og­nize this, but it’s incred­i­bly impor­tant to choose yoga teach­ers based on their instruc­tional tech­niques — how well the teacher:

  • deliv­ers instruc­tion about the yoga asanas
  • demon­strates what she’s ask­ing stu­dents to do
  • inter­acts with stu­dents who don’t know how to apply those instruc­tions to their own bod­ies
  • rec­og­nizes and clar­i­fies con­fu­sion
  • cor­rects or guides some­one into proper align­ment

Hav­ing had the ben­e­fit of sev­eral excep­tion­ally skill­ful teach­ers in small class set­tings, I’m now very aware of the dif­fer­ence between really good instruc­tion and run-of-the-mill classes.

Teaching Methods Need to Improve

Steeped in the ancient spir­i­tual and cul­tural tra­di­tions of India, yoga has been slow to adopt more effec­tive teach­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tion styles. The teach­ing tra­di­tion has tended to be one of dis­ci­ples emu­lat­ing their gurus.

Immersed in these tra­di­tions, the typ­i­cal yoga teacher errs by using ter­mi­nol­ogy or phras­ing that is poorly under­stood by stu­dents. The lan­guage is lyri­cal, evoca­tive, full of beau­ti­ful imagery — but sadly, too ambigu­ous and easy to mis­in­ter­pret.

Beauty and grace, not enough clar­ity

This beau­ti­ful stone trac­ery, seen dur­ing a recent visit to La Alham­bra, reminded me of my expe­ri­ence of a typ­i­cal yoga class: poetry and grace in motion, strength, bal­ance — but with lan­guage that means lit­tle to the unini­ti­ated.

Alhambra-stone-poetry-thumb

Here the cal­lig­ra­phy is inte­gral to the design but con­veys noth­ing to an Eng­lish speaker. Let’s be hon­est: the same is true of San­skrit pose names when used with begin­ning stu­dents.

Less ambi­gu­ity

Even when teach­ers stick to Eng­lish, prob­lems emerge when the lan­guage is ambigu­ous, as with these instruc­tions:

  • “Open your heart”
  • “Set your foun­da­tion”
  • “Snug your shoul­der blades against your back”

I’ve been prac­tic­ing yoga for 3 years, but it has taken me that long to rec­og­nize the risks of not under­stand­ing the opti­mal bio-mechan­ics of key poses. It took a few thank­fully minor injuries to reveal how much I still need to learn.

Back to basics

So I’ve returned to classes for begin­ners, those led by excep­tion­ally clear teach­ers with supe­rior com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. I want to mas­ter yoga’s foun­da­tional asana prin­ci­ples before resum­ing classes with teach­ers whose guid­ance is bet­ter at con­vey­ing the spir­i­tual aspects of yoga rather than the phys­i­cal asanas.

Where Are the Best Teachers?

Today the teach­ers I find most help­ful have hun­dreds of hours of teacher train­ing, and at least as many hours of actual instruc­tional expe­ri­ence. They are highly attuned to how well their stu­dents are actu­ally learn­ing and putting their lessons into prac­tice.

Some earn their liv­ing via “body­work,” so they have a deep hands-on under­stand­ing of anatomy and the prin­ci­ples of body mechan­ics.

Some are excep­tion­ally gifted at know­ing how to demon­strate a pose or key aspects of a con­cept. They link their poetic instruc­tional lan­guage to unam­bigu­ous demon­stra­tions, slow­ing down the motion or pose dynam­ics to make it crys­tal clear what they mean. They keep the class focused on prac­tic­ing this approach until we have a taste of what it feels like to do it prop­erly.

The teach­ers I seek out today know how to help stu­dents move toward the opti­mal mus­cu­lar-skele­tal align­ment, com­bined with the breath. They see when I’m out of align­ment, or fail­ing to bal­ance “effort with ease”; they know how to help me under­stand what I need to adjust.

Com­bined with my own improv­ing mind­ful­ness, it’s teach­ers like these who will help me min­i­mize my risk of injury — and ensure the bless­ings of a life­long prac­tice.

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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