senor & yogageek

[Guest guest]

Senor you are one wiley ol' cat.....<br>It's a

funny thing this astanga chat.....I try to get a

picture of how you are.....do you teach? I'm teaching in

ChiangMai, Thailand to a small group and in my developing

relationship with my students discovering a lot about yoga and

about myself. Sometimes I wonder how they view me

because when you are doing these asanas day in day out

you forget just how awe inspiring they might look to

other people especially beginners......when I remember

this I tell them to take no notice of what I can do

but to be with what they can do.....it's funny but

everyone has something that they are good with in the

class......I tried teaching in the pure Mysore style but for

my people that is a long way down the road for them

and the situation gets too ragged as they don't know

the series off by heart so now everyone does together

and I talk them through it do things with them and

gently adjust......one thing to remember there is that

the people who go to Mysore are not beginners and so

have different requirements.......for me the best gift

I can give is to nurture that seed of yoga in my

students so it may grow and it is easy to over do things

and kill it, in the early days encouragement is all,

for me the best yoga teachers have been kind, no one

wants to feel that they are simply hopeless and will

never advance......<br>I teach ashtanga because this is

my practise and I feel it advances students very

quickly into a practise they can own, but always I know

it is a long road ahead for them......<br>Senor it's

funny your idealisation of the top teachers......in

real terms it is the student not the teacher that

counts, I have had students from Jivamukti, Eddie Stern,

and BNS Iyengar in the Mysore temple and that didn't

mean that they were perfect practitioners, far from

it.....yoga is about the individual their needs and

capabilities......<br>It's funny but Desikachar has said that some of the

best teachers have been unable to do padmasana while

some of the worst have been great practitioners (Heart

of Yoga) in Tree of Yoga BKS Iyengar advises looking

at a teacher's practise and what he suggests looking

for is sincerity. I agree that in an ashtanga they

must be on the series beyond the one they are teaching

but I also feel it is important to be honest, if my

wrist hurts today I'll tell the students, I also let

them know about differences between sides in the asana

and how to work to narrow the gap, it is important to

have that humility which was one thing I liked in

Beryl Birch's book that she wrote for all to see that

some things she was still learning, that shows

heart......yoga is not about absolute perfection but accepting

yourself, in doing that you might find perfection comes as

a result......<br>So senor sowmetimes show a little

compassion or are you just playing for the gallery?