Refining Your Teaching; What’s Going on in the World Around You?

by Jen Whinnen

A significant part of my work is spent teaching my teacher trainees how to “see” better, meaning how to look at each class as a real time event that needs to be tended to in the present moment. Classes need to be organized around our understanding of what is going on around us, but to do that effectively, we need to cultivate better vision.  Part of cultivating better vision is simply learning what goes where and how. This is the grossest form of teaching.  Beyond that a teacher must become competent at discerning if what I say either improves or compromises the class. To do that we first look for misalignment, for grunts and groans, for caught breathing, for lags and peaks in the classroom energy, then modify our teaching from there.

To refine our teaching even further, we can work towards cultivating awareness by observing the world around us and creating classes that take into consideration the experience of our students in the world.  To do this well, it’s best to start with the basics.  Remember that human beings are both organic and social creatures.  As such, two of the biggest contributing factors in our lives, either consciously or unconsciously, will be the seasons and culturally significant events.  It has been my experience that these two things are the greatest classroom temperament gauges. The season and culturally significant events influence how we function together.  One dictates our biological response to the world the other significantly influences our interactions with each other.

Let’s take our current season, winter, and its correlating holidays. In the winter, the days are shorter and the nights are longer. In many places, the ground freezes and growing stops.  For some plants and animals, this season is required for them to reproduce or gestate.  The “death” of winter is often a necessary period of respite that allows for rejuvenation. The body, being bound to the earth, often wants to obey this rhythm. When the days are shorter and colder, the body metabolizes slower because it is striving to conserve energy and stay warm. Additionally, because there is less light, people may find that they feel blue or crave more sleep. This is a natural response to winter. No matter how modern we are, how completely turned into electronics we may be, when winter is upon us we feel the effects of it, especially when we are in a group environment. This, when approached with understanding and acceptance, is the boon of being born in a body, of being a part of the natural world and part of community. When we attend well to the effects of the seasons on us we will be comfortable and successful. We will be embodied.

Additionally, it is no coincidence that one of our most significant holidays is connected to the lessening and lengthening of daylight. Winter rituals at their heart reflect our desire to be close and cuddle. They represent our need to become more reflective and introspective. They represent our hope that we will move through darkness and back out into light. And, because Christmas in particular tends to be one of the most hyped holidays, expectations high, the push for spending is high, and over indulgence is expected, it is also one of the most stressful times of year for many.

Our classes should take these factors into consideration. Winter practices should be forward bending practices. Forward bending is a turning in, a folding and refolding. It’s the image of the earth during its death. It’s introspective and restorative.

Does this mean we take 3 – 4 months of only forward bending? No, that is silly. It means we create balanced classes with an emphasis on those practices that enhance our relationship to what’s going on around us. This is a tantric practice, an entering into the world to work through the world. In the Iyengar system classes are taught in a series. Each week has a different focus. One of the weeks is back bending. The back bending week would not be skipped over in the winter, however, the backbends are going to be different in the winter then they are in the summer. This is a good example of conscientious sequencing.

I recently attended a series of classes at a studio where their December “practice of the month” was back bending. Deep, intensive back bending and a month of deep, intensive back bending is not a winter practice. Of all the pose categories, back bending tends to be the most allusive to people because it is the least natural of all our body’s movements. In order to backbend well all the other parts need to be prepared. You need good vertical extension, a very open front body and the spine must be protected and strong. Additionally, there needs to be an understanding of the basic mechanics of the spine to back bend well lest the student take the brunt of the work in the lumbar. Back bending must be worked up to and warmed up to and therefore we need the long daylight hours, the open warmth of summer to bring us into the open mindedness of continuous, deep back bending.  When we are in a season of conservation, when the body is “hibernating” asking it to work against that is counter-intuitive.

Of course, the counter argument may be, “but back bending is enlivening! It opens your heart and wakes you up! It gets you out of that funk of winter!”  Who says winter is a funk? It’s a funk when we identify too closely with summer. That attachment, like all attachments, creates suffering. The practice teaches us to accept life as it is, to be receptive to things rather than working to bend it to our will.  Asking students to back bend aggressively during the winter season is too much of a “good” thing. It stresses out the nervous system and causes injuries. In fact, one of the teacher’s at the above mentioned studio commented that she’d noticed decline in class size as the month went on.  Her rational was that it was because people are afraid of back bending and so they were avoiding it. This is a common teacher mistake.  The student must be doing something wrong. It’s not them. It’s us. A decline in a class size during a “pose of the month” means we are not paying attention. We have missed the cues that our students are giving us and failed to modify our classes accordingly.

When students come to your class they come to be in community.  They come to be seen. One of the surest ways of guaranteeing that students know we see them is to acknowledge the greater influences around them. As teachers it’s important that we are mindful of that. In your on-going efforts to learn and grow, try and remember that life is playing a part in how your students arrive in class.  There is a teaming mass of activity going on outside the doors of our yoga space and although we want to be able to put that aside for the hour or so, class doesn’t exist in a bubble.  Our students are organic, social creatures who pulse with life around them. Work to see this, respond to this and you will be pleasantly surprised at how your students respond to you.

Shame in Yoga

by Jen Whinnen

I attended a class awhile back where the teacher was talking about addiction in relation to the gunas. In yoga there are three states of being, or “gunas”: sattva, rajas, and tamas.  Sattva is purity, rajas is dim and tamas is dark. His hypothesis was that in order for someone to become addicted to something it has to be an acquired thing, that in our most sattvik state, we do not indulge in behaviors that make our souls dim or dark. Only when we are in a rajasik or tamasik state do we do things that are bad for us.

He then went on to say “I mean you only have to look at kids to know what is good for you. It’s not that hard. Kids, well kids are pure right? They will always tell you if something is good or bad for you. You give a kid scotch and what do you think they will do? They will wrinkle their noses and spit it out, right?”

Ah yes, the eternal “purity of children” speech. How many yoga classes have I been in where the teacher uses the impulsiveness of children as an example of our “true and blissful” state or, better yet, the lack of impulse control as an example of what we “should” do? Postulating that children intrinsically know good from bad/right from wrong because they are pure of heart is a trite idea. Believing that the only reason we adults make harmful choices  is because we had the audacity to grow up, to become tainted by our environment, time, experiences is, at it’s most banal, absurdly simplistic. At it’s most egregious, it is emotionally damaging and manipulative.

First of all, no matter how adorable and fun kids are, they do not have that “pure” filter people fantasize about. Leave a bunch of kids to fend for themselves for a period of time and I promise you it will be way more Lord of the Flies then Never, Never Land. Being a kid is not simple.  It’s hard.  Every day is an organizational mess. It’s a constant struggle of learning new tools, impulse control, of being dependent upon, yet wanting to be independent of those who protect them.  Their emotional lives make the Real Housewives look like a Zen masters.  They spend all their time trying to understand the world around them and learn new things all the while being frustrated by the constant stream of “no’s” and “don’t do that’s” and “be careful’s.”  Sure, they appreciate the small things, they play with abandon, think the world is their oyster, but not because they are more spiritually realized than adults.  They do so because someone has their backs.  A happy, healthy child is not an abandoned or neglected one.  A happy, healthy child has someone watching over him, taking care of his needs, helping him navigate the world.

And this is not to say “Hey what about us grown-ups? Let’s give a shout out to the real hero here!” but merely to say that childhood is not an end unto itself. It is not something we are supposed to sustain or better yet, aspire to. Childhood is necessarily transient. It’s a tipping off point. The place where we get the tools we will use to go into the world and either support or destroy it.

Second of all, when someone says “be more childlike” most often they aren’t fantasizing about the perfection of childhood, but rather cloaking sanctimoniousness.  Telling an alcoholic that “a kid will tell you that stuff is crap” separates those without suffering as “good” people who know better, from those who suffer as “bad” people who don’t. Even a little kid knows that stuff isn’t good for you. Why don’t you?

Suffering does not mean someone is good or bad, or lazy or stupid. It means he suffers. When we condemn pain as so simplistic that even a child could do better, what we are really saying is “be like me” or “do things my way.” There is no progress in that.  It only creates shame.

But, shame is powerful.  It’s the Alpha Male of the emotional manipulation pack. Shame makes people feel dirty, worthless and awful.  They will do anything to avoid having it bear down on them. It creates fear. And fear begets obedience. People will follow the rules of the shamer implicitly.  The shamer, full of conviction and authority, has power to either validate or invalidate everyone around him.

The only problem is, no matter how much power shame wields, it doesn’t support authentic healing. Blind obedience out of fear of recrimination isn’t the same thing as someone saying “I do not want this in my life anymore. I choose a different path.”

It’s hard to see human suffering.  It makes us uncomfortable.  It’s confusing and often disorienting. We’re confronted with our own limitations and our own lack of suffering. We’re intensely grateful not to be suffering, maybe even feel a little guilty that we’re not suffering. This may make us desperate to do something to make the uncomfortable situation go away. It’s so much harder to say “This pain you are carrying is terrible. This pain is confusing. But, this pain is not you. It’s not your punishment. It’s not your fate. Let’s sit together and see if this faith, this practice, this place, this medication, etc. can help in some way alleviate your suffering.”  So instead we offer up easy answers wrapped up in greeting card slogans.

Sadly, the remedies to suffering often aren’t very easy. Simple in nature maybe, but in practice? Not so much. Barring fundamental injustices like lack of clean water, food, shelter, clothing and medical care, most causes of suffering are complexly human. They are a combination of life experiences, physical limitations, economic restrictions, genetics, etc. The remedies are going to be as varied as the people suffering.  The “correct” action is not just one thing, but a collection of tools and supplies tailored to meet the person’s needs.

It’s like a house.  A newer house is going to need different attention then an older one.  If you want to strip and repaint the interior of a new home, you just get the supplies and do it. But, in an old home you have to take precautions. You have to seal off the room, wear specially designed protective gear and be meticulous about clean up after.  In the end both homes get a new coat of paint but how they get it is very different.

Rather than glorify one state of being, i.e. childhood, as something we need to sustain, or tell each other that we aren’t “doing it right” because the cure we found that worked so well for us isn’t producing the same results for someone else, why not create for grown-ups what we strive to do for our kids: safe, nurturing environments where we are free to explore, question and be ourselves.

When we encourage each other and remain open to different ideas, we create environments where the healing goes from a promise to a possibility. And it’s that possibility of being that lays the foundation for genuine, authentic change. It’s that possibility that eases suffering. It may not always be the right fit, but it’s active and participatory. It allows you to affect your own being, to remain flexible and interested in your own life.

So, you take care of your house. Choose tools, materials and contractors that prop you up and make you the strongest, healthiest and most structurally sound person you can be within the framework you’ve got.

this post was taken from Jen’s personal blog “The Inner Child” on 11/1/10. To read more, click here: http://yogajen.blogspot.com/

Lesson from a Raccoon

By Jen Whinnen

Yesterday I head a bird outside my window squawking.  It was clearly in distress, yelling loudly and aggressively. Looking into the tree I saw, draping down the side of what looked like a bird’s nest, a long black and white striped tail. A raccoon had taken up residency in the bird’s nest. The bird was a mess. Hopping madly from branch to branch, crying, yelling, screeching with all her might, she was at a loss as what to do. Beyond using her vocal chords, she was completely impotent.  She was powerless against the hulking mass of claws, fur, teeth and jaws that had taken over her home.

I also felt distressed and impotent. I wanted to help that little bird, but what could I do? The nest was too far for me to reach and even if I did somehow manage to scare the raccoon out of it, the damage had already been done. Clearly he’d had a very satiating meal of bird eggs.

Self-satisfied, tummy full, the raccoon, as if sensing mine and the birds’ dismay, rolled over and exposed his rump and went back to sleep.  It was as if he said “here’s what I think of your stress. Now please, leave me alone.”

When I showed the nest to my boys, my oldest assured me that in fact the raccoon did not eat the birds’ eggs. “Birds lay their eggs in June. Those baby birds have already left the nest. That raccoon built that nest all by himself. That’s his nest actually.”  His confidence was the confidence of nativity; making up “facts” that worked in his favor. Say it out loud, with great confidence and volume and so it will be!  My son simply could not accept that nature is both cruel and random.  For him, we live in a just and verdant universe. The bad guy  never gets away with it because the super hero always saves the day and all babies everywhere are well protected and cared for.

We adults know this isn’t true. Raccoons eat bird eggs, shove their butts in your face and tell you to “suck it” all the time while we sit here feeling completely and utterly helpless.  This past month however has felt a little like a role reversal.  It’s like we’re the raccoon and society is screaming at our fat behinds saying “Hey! You are in my nest! Get the out of my nest! Don’t do that!” From Robin William’s death, to Ferguson to the current Ice Bucket challenge, we’ve been bombarded with a new kind of imagery; one that is begging for us to pay attention and help each other out.

So, are we hapless, self- indulgent raccoons out for ourselves or are we something more?

Yoga points to more.  But, the practice itself does not mystically change the fabric of society. It is a tool that assists us in changing how we see and think. Yoga does not change who we are, it does not make us something different, but it does point us towards knowledge. And often it is the knowledge of what we are not. We are not alone, we are not separate, we are not more entitled, we are not better, we are not worse. We are connected and we are a powerful force for change.

As we head into the season of reaping and sowing I encourage you to continue to throw buckets of cold water on your heads and use that shocking sensation to remind you that you can do more. Write your congressman and tell him you want more money spent on medical research, that you want more funds ear marked towards mental healthcare. Volunteer in your community and encourage your friends and family to volunteer too (here are a couple great resources for finding volunteer opportunities: New York Cares & Hands on Portland). Donate more of your discretionary funds on a regular basis towards organizations that are working to fight disease, injustice and intolerance.  Read this blog and talk about race issues. Be kind. Be useful. And above all, use your practice to reveal to you how very, very potent you are.