Yoga is different for everyone that practices it. It depends on what the practitioner is seeking, what the teacher is offering, and the setting in which the class takes place. I teach at three gyms, one kids’ studio, one elementary school, one high school, a corporate office, two art studios, and one yoga studio. Each class environment brings about a diversity of students. I teach between 15 and 20 classes a week in almost as many locations. I feel very blessed to teach in so many settings. I love yoga. I love what it does to me, the way it makes people feel, and mostly the peace that surrounds all of it’s aspects.
Yoga is so multifaceted that it can be experienced on many levels. In the same asana class, one person can be realizing a profound focus as another a few mats over is agonizing over lack of core strength. As Shri Deshikachar says in his book, The Heart of Yoga, “We all have different experiences, different backgrounds, different perspectives on yoga and why it is important to us. So it is not a surprise that different people find different things through the same yoga teaching.”
I am grateful that when I enter a class to teach they are each their own entity. I enjoy the challenge of working with all of the many types of energy in an average day. On an early morning I can find myself in downtown Boston helping students in their seventies work on balance and joint mobility. After this, I hop in the Honda with my granola bar and the BBC. Within an hour, I am at OmKids in Watertown jumping around and getting ready for an imaginary island adventure with a dozen preschoolers and their caretakers.
I drive to almost all of my classes, which gives me a complex, but it makes the hauling from city to city with mats, blocks, straps, essential oils, and music all the more manageable. And I am always on time. Often I listen to NPR while I drive so I can still feel connected with the rest of the world. I live in a yoga bubble, and it could become very easy for me to become lost in this blissful world! It is important for me to still have some understanding of the world I am trying to improve through yoga. I am blessed because of the many types of people I can become very close to, but the environment is almost protected from the happenings of the res of the world. Because I travel to so many different places, I also must live a very fragmented and disjointed schedule. On an average day, my energy is really going in a lot of different directions. It’s fun, it’s amazing, and it’s hard. But I know it’s for me.
The afternoon and evening bring another two or three classes with equally varied students. I find that the better I am at keeping my own meditation practice regular and consistent, the better I am at managing my energy in all of these different environments. There are lots of things that are the same. There’s me… though some of my students call me Shanti and others call me Karen. I always start class and end class with a focus on the breath. I always try to get everyone still and silent at the end. But the middle… it varies.
As you might imagine, teaching in an art studio is a lot different than teaching at the Harvard Business School. I could be wrong, but I don't think the B-School folks get my jokes. They move very fast through the asanas and are very serious practitioners. But they too always leave class with a smile and an offering of gratitude. My art studio friends are mellow, happy folks that love to share in community. Sometimes we bake bread during class to share afterwards. The gallery is constantly changing, and there is always new art around that is inspiring. There is a deep sense of focus, and a conscious effort towards a practice that rejoices in the union between the body and the mind. It is easy to incorporate elements of meditation in these classes. I can ‘go there’ with my artist folks and they will go there with me. You might imagine that if I asked my students at the gym to “Om” with me, I would get a lot of funny looks.
But three-year-olds love to “Om”. There is nothing that gives me more energy than teaching yoga to my preschoolers. Not only are they adorable and their laughter infectious, but they bring me back to the basics. I have to think on my feet. I have to act quickly before there is a meltdown. I have to change my plan mid sequence. I have to have a theme. And I have to make it fun. We always laugh, hard. I like to start the class by asking them to stay on their mats and getting them to actively agree to take deep breaths when they start to get too crazy. Then we all breathe together. We sing songs, we dance, and there are a few classics that always get them going, like pretending to glue the mat onto the floor, or pretending to make a pb&j sandwich. Try it with a kid you know, they love it!
- Start in seated with the legs outstretched in front of you.
- Pull out your “Peanut butter jar” (pretend) and your “jelly jar”.
- Unscrew the cap, reach your hand inside the jar…. What does it feel like?
- Smear the PB on your legs, the Jelly on your belly, reach the arms up, and fold forward over the legs, making your sandwich (paschimottanasana).
- Using a pretend knife, “cut” the sandwich in half, opening your legs wide (upavishta konasana).
- Take a deep breath, then bend over one leg, pretending to eat it. Repeat on the other side. This never gets old to three year olds!
My preschoolers have taught me to find joy in each moment, and to stay very, very present. They require a lot of energy, but I get it back tenfold when I watch them laugh or gleefully lift into “down diggity dog.” I might go into class feeling down, but when I leave I am always uplifted by their innate happiness, their honest effort to work, and the funny things that come out of their mouths. Last week, two-and-a-half year old Charlie greeted me with, “Shanti Shanti Shanti!” The measured joy they experience around basic accomplishments like listening to directions or rolling up their mat properly reminds me to celebrate the small stuff. And when I ask them to show me a pose from a few classes before and the remember it, it almost brings a tear to my eye!
Last week I taught a group of folks on a corporate retreat their first yoga class. They were all ecstatic when they came in the room. The energy was incredibly high, they were nervous and already making excuses for their inflexibility. I asked them, “What do they have you guys doing all day? Drinking coffee and sitting under fluorescent lights?” I put them all in child’s pose. We spent the next forty minutes going through some basic yoga postures. While I got them to focus on their breath, to stand still, and to balance, I didn’t get them to a deep state of consciousness or to enlightenment by any means. I know that if I had started to talk about mantra or letting go, I would have lost them. Instead we focused on the basics. They learned mountain pose, sun salutations, warrior poses, and tree pose. I even joked with them prior to the tree balance, “Now, we aren’t going to wave our arms around and pretend like we are trees swaying our branches in the wind.” They laughed and asked, “How did you know we were joking about that beforehand?” I smiled. I didn’t say it… But I know because I am a yoga teacher, and I know the prejudices and biases people have against the practice. How many times have people approached me and said, "So do you just go around pretending you are a tree all day?" I had to make it basic, concrete, and light. “Take your gaze down to the floor. Focus on your standing leg. Stand tall, and remember to breathe.” Perhaps a few of them will go on to take another class, and maybe one of them will eventually try to meditate. But all that matters to me is that they left the class liking yoga. I can’t be attached to the future outcome.
I practice, assistant manage, and now teach at O2 Yoga Studio in Somerville and the South End of Boston. There is a much more palpable vibe teaching in a studio. The students know the practice, they help to carry it through, and I barely need to demonstrate anything. It’s fun going to this studio and knowing that I can throw things at these yogis and they will understand where I am going. I love the playful sequencing and lighthearted nature of the classes. Sometimes when I teach, I try to challenge myself and see how long I can get the sequences to be before repeating it on the other side. The teachers at O2 strive to challenge their students, offering up sequences that safely prepare the body for the most intricate of postures. Since practicing here, I have seen my physical abilities grow immensely. But I also don’t feel like this style of yoga is for everyone. I would not have taught this vigorous style to my corporate yogis, for example. You have to know your audience.
When I am visiting one of my Guru’s ashrams and am lucky enough to teach an asana class, there is so much beyond asana that I am working with. I feel a pure energy in these places and think that the classes I teach here are much more intuitive and fluid, the movement more inspired and natural. I feel a greater connection to the depth of the practice, to the subtle body, to the chakra system, to the stillness inside. It doesn’t feel strange to me if I go three minutes without speaking in these classes. I don’t hesitate to incorporate deep pranayama, meditative practices or mantra. I don’t feel so free to share such things in many of my city classes. People come to yoga to move and breathe, to seek clarity and calm. In my limited experience, I feel people in my area connect more to the broad concepts of yoga like non-harming and truthfulness than they do elephant headed deities or chanting. If you don’t feel out your students before offering up these things, it can be a real turnoff for some people. I may practice mantra all throughout my class, but most of my students will never know this.
My teacher calls me an urban yogi. He told me today in an email that it makes him sad that places teach yoga without meditation. I agree, and hope that my ‘urban’ classes might give people a glimpse of calm and clarity that may inspire them to seek or delve into their own meditation practice. One of my high school yoginis asked me if I taught meditation classes, and I think that will be my next certification from the Shambhava school. When I think about the fact that I can teach movement and help the bodies of all of these people in Boston and still be able to email my living Guru and feel connected to all that is divine, I feel like I have it all. The next step must be teaching meditation.
Eventually I would like to open my own all ages studio where I can bring all of these many styles and types of yoga together in one space. I am almost at my 500 RYT certification mark, so the ideas are flowing. Early morning meditation classes, vinyasa classes, kids classes, classes for older folks, prenatal classes, classes for middle and high school kids. I feel like I am on a path to doing something with yoga, and each of my teachers and students are helping me to grow into a better yogi and a better teacher. I am so blessed to be able to teach a wide range of ages and abilities each day. The Yoga Sutras say that each person will take something different from the same teaching. As practitioners we are drawn to it for our own unique reasons. But we mainly do it because it makes us feel good. No matter what your style of yoga is, be grateful for it, be dedicated to it, and watch yourself grow.
