Do you recognize the truth that you lead yoga students in practice, but you don’t “own” their practices? Do you remind them that it’s “their” practice? Does your manner of teaching bear this out - do you “talk the talk” and “walk the walk”? I began to think about this issue more deeply when an instructor friend posted a - well, we might call it a rant, but it was measured and wise - social media post starting with “Get off my asana.”
The post mainly centered on an encounter with a fellow practitioner, rather than an instructor - who admonished her (politely enough, but that’s what it was) for doing her “own thing” many times in class. She ended on a note on how this relates to yoga instructors, and to reach out to her if we teach in a way that allows students to have true agency over their own practices. With many other instructors commenting, the discussion moved to focus on that last topic, yoga instructors acting similarly to that fellow practitioner or refraining from doing so.
I personally, as a student, have experienced instructors affirming their belief that we should shape and create our own practices - in the framework of the instructors’ guidance. This is my personal belief as a yoga practitioner, instructor, and enthusiast. I’ve seen instructors acting in ways that demonstrate a lack of belief in - or at least lack of awareness of - this perspective. These actions include pushing students deeper into poses without student consent, admonishing students for taking their own variations, and demanding certain prop usage (with scolding a choice to not use a prop).
I’ve seen some teachers doing both, saying they believe in personal agency in practice and acting as if they don’t - which, to be frank, is hypocrisy. It’s at least cognitive dissonance. For instance, I had one instructor (who I very much admire, as a teacher and as a person) who guided us to make it on our practices that day, modifying how we need to, but then gave me a very deep modification into Lizard Pose without first obtaining my approval. Another instructor talked about how he liked to call students’ poses “your poses”, because “they are”, he affirmed. Later he cued a particular mudra hold with a bind that significantly deepened it. “Lengthen your spine!” he said to me while practicing this, in a tone that was a small step away from scolding.
I don’t doubt any genuine intentions, or suspect any malice. By and large, yoga instructors enter the work to help people feel better and live fuller, more empowered lives. That contradiction most likely comes from lack of continuing education (and/or quality initial training), objective observation of one’s own teaching, and mindful reflection upon it. Quality initial and continuing education offering tools for providing students with the kind of practice they can modify to what they want and need on any particular day, and is still safe, healthy, healing, and empowering. Objective observation and mindful reflection upon one’s teaching can allow one to see the type of contradiction I’ve described.
Practice of yogic values also certainly comes into play. Ahimsa guides we instructors to not harm our students by attempting to dictate their practices, to the point wherein they do something that they know (consciously or subconsciously) isn’t best for them. Satya helps us in those steps of objective awareness and mindful reflection. And, as referenced, asteya guides us to refrain from taking something that truly isn’t ours - our students’ practices. Once we offer it to them, it should be truly theirs.
On another, but related note - something that came up in that discussion following the Facebook post was the idea of instructors coming to feel a sense of control over their students’ bodies. Again, I don’t mean to imply anything like intentional malice. It just seems to be something that can emerge if we are not truthful and mindful. Relating to this idea, Seanne Corne has also spoken to why we teach - for the adulation, for the celebrity, or - on the other hand - to come into contact with the pure soul within our students.
If that soul is to fly free, it cannot be constrained by we instructors’ ideas of what our students’ practices “have” to be. It’s important to make our students aware of what we know is best in yoga practice, and attempt to bar them from anything unsafe, but beyond that - once that enters into control, that which students can sense - we are impeding the free, soaring flight of that soul. All of this is something to be mindful of and improve upon as we progress as instructors - myself included! Om Shanti on the journey.
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