Day 29 - On Teaching, part 1

I started working with my friend Michelle on private yoga lessons this past week. I wouldn't say that I'm "teaching" her. I'm showing her the poses, explaining the Sanskrit names, and working with her on alignment and yogic concepts.

We started doing this because Michelle told me that the classes she's been to are way too fast, the teachers don't explain the poses, they don't give modifications, so I'm really just preparing her for her yoga classes, wherever she may go.

This is the main concern/gripe I have about certain yoga classes, is that they turn beginners away, it's a big turn-off when you feel frustrated when you're supposed to feel relax. It's one thing to feel silly, in say, a step aerobics class, it's another to have anxiety in a yoga class, which is supposed to help calm you down, not stress you out even more.

My teaching sessions have 1) taught me to empathize with what it's like to be on the other side of the mat, and 2) confirm to me that I want to do this. There is nothing like seeing Michelle smile because she gets something, and that she feels good after each session. I love that feeling. I love what yoga does to me, and I want to pass that bliss feeling on to others.

I've been listening to these lectures by Shinzen Young called "The Science of Enlightenment", and he said an interesting thing about teaching: "...To teach is to inevitably mislead people, to a certain degree, any kind of teaching, as soon as you've opened your mouth you have mislead people. On the other hand, to fail to teach is to mislead people even worse. To be a teacher actually means to be willing to take on some bad karma, in the service of making more good karma."

It was a weird concept to grasp at first, but as I reflect on this, it rings so true! When you teach, you inevitably take what you have learned and internalize it, so when you open your mouth, it's now got your own flavor and interpretation of it. To teach is not just to learn twice (or three or four times). To teach is to accept this huge responsibility to stay as true to the integrity of the material as possible, or deviate but be open about it, and say, this is the original thing, but here's a different take on it.

I think this concept is so important to anyone, teachers and learners. It also makes me feel really privileged to get to be in the teaching role, to inevitably mislead, in the service of yoga, and hopefully making some good karma :)