SASSY YOGA TEACHER

Finally Learning to Meditate

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY

Last fall I began an eight-month yoga teacher training program. By the end of my first three-day weekend of sitting on the floor and doing yoga each day with mostly young and a few middle-aged students and teachers, it dawned on me that I am an OLD woman. I could get through the first day fairly well but went home overwhelmed and in a state of exhaustion. The second day was harder and by the third day I was hanging on by my fingernails. 

Denial about my passage from middle age into old age ended. I finally had to admit that the 78 year-old body of a woman who has spent 14 years at a desk lacks strength and resilience. As much as I wanted to be like the others, I was not. My confidence took a huge hit.

I reviewed the requirements for certification: attendance at 160 of the 200 hours of class; 20 hours of observations or assistant teaching; 30 recorded personal one-hour practice sessions; monthly homework of readings, content reviews, anatomy and other assignments; designing, researching and submitting a Diverse Audiences project; passing a content exam; and passing a teaching exam. Had I not paid for the program upfront, I might have quit. 

With a sigh of exasperation, I acknowledged that instead of this program helping me write the Maiden Migrations book as I had hoped, it would replace it. To face these daunting requirements, each month I created a weekly plan moving me forward on all requirements.

As the January content exam on philosophy/ethics, anatomy/physiology, and teaching methods exam loomed, I was freaking out. I asked a young friend who is an honors student in vascular technology how she studies. She said that she figures out what each teacher wants and then continually quizzes herself. 

“How do you do that?” I asked. “Flash cards. I make flash cards and then during our workouts at the gym one of my study mates and I take turns on the machines while the other person quizzes us.” 

I made and studied flash cards and, thanks to Kathleen, I passed with an 89 out of a 100. (70 was passing.) One criterion met!

Warrior Two Pose

SET UP FOR FAILURE

On completion of the content exam, the focus of weekends shifted to our teaching. Those of you who remember my charismatic lectures as a young woman or my moving personal growth workshops during middle age, would never have recognized the high-pitched squeaky voice in which I gave yoga pose cues. I was confused and devastated.

Years ago when I first went to India, I (and most of the other American staff), suffered three months of what we called “methods amnesia”. The unfamiliarity of the language, culture, and living conditions seemed to erase knowledge that we had taken for granted. Now I understand that a part of that was a total loss of self confidence. 

Midway through the program I acquired hearing aids and was feeling pretty vulnerable when we were shown a Ted Talk about how people learn more from failure than they do from success. Oh, great! 

In February we were put into two situations setting us up for failure. Having had a lecture on how to do asana/pose demonstrations, we were given ten minutes to prepare a demonstration. The object of this seemed to be that the critiquing instructor could then tell us everything we did wrong. Okey, fine. However, at the end of telling my group everything I had gotten wrong, she said, “But LiDoña has this sweetness that just makes you want to do whatever she says.” What?!!!

Later we were given ten minutes to prepare a fifteen-minute yoga sequence with some focus. I decided to focus on the three fundamentals: Grounding, Relax the Upper Palate, Full Commitment Exhale. My small group was sent to the lobby to teach. THE LOBBY! Ok, somehow I must grab my classmates’ attention so they can ignore people coming and going? Squeaky voice and all, I did alright on my first pose. Nevertheless it was followed with criticism of a better way to give the cues.

As I started into my second pose, the critiquing teacher interrupted me a second time with her idea of different language I could use. I lost my focus but somehow fumbled through the second pose. As I began my third pose, the instructor interrupted me AGAIN with different language to use. When she said, “Now go ahead …” something inside me snapped. I could feel tears welling up and looking inward I saw a large black rectangle appear in my solar plexus.

“I’m done.” I said and went to a bench to sit down. “O come on …” “No. I’m done.”

In the critique that followed this instructor spoke about my sweetness. Now that is not a term that anyone who knows me would ever use. In fact, one friend once said, “LiDoña has bad ass goddess energy that you don’t want to mess with.” Through tears, I said, “I had a plan. I was trying to follow my plan but you kept interrupting me.” She apologized but that did not remove the sting of disrespect I had experienced. I felt as though I was being seen and treated as a SWEET OLD LADY. Anger began to bubble.

That night I sent an email to the three instructors asking that they not use the term sweetness in future critiques. If they had nothing positive to say, then say nothing at all. Next day I spoke with the one who had interrupted me and told her, “You may interrupt me once, but no more than that.”

Child's Pose

TAKING CHARGE

Somehow I made it through the rest of that February weekend. But the disrespect I had felt led me to see that I had to take charge of my own teaching journey. So I made flashcards with the poses and appropriate cues for each and I asked some friends to let me practice on them. After the first friend session, even before she gave me written feedback, I analyzed why it went so well. 

• I was in my own home where I am comfortable.
• I had control of the space.
• I knew what my friend needed and designed a sequence to meet those needs.

At this same time I began attending a Yoga Nidra class - 30 minutes of gentle yoga followed by 30 minutes of guided meditation in which one sets an intention (Sankalpa). My intention was “I am a confident and competent Yoga teacher.” I followed this up by attending a Yoga Nidra Teacher Training workshop in which I decided that is the type of yoga I want to teach.

I did two more friend sessions and continued to reflect on the difference between teaching them and the practices we were doing with our classmates. A big factor was that when teaching friends I was not performing, I was focused on what they needed. I began thinking about what my fellow classmates needed. 

Many classmates have anxiety and all of us get up-tight when we have to teach each other. I knew from Shiatsu that this shows up as tension in neck and shoulders. My Shiatsu experience had given me some techniques for getting this area to relax. I decided that in my next practice sessions with classmates I would integrate this Shiatsu knowledge into a pre-yoga practice called Towel Work.

I reflected on how our instructors kept telling us that our task is “to hold space” for our students. Yet they were always throwing us into chaotic spaces that made it difficult to ‘hold space’. So I figured out optimal space arrangements for three practice groups in each of the two rooms that we used. 

In the March weekend, I insisted on optimal space arrangements. I focused on meeting the needs of my classmates, teaching a sequence of poses that would relax their neck and shoulders and down-regulate all of their hyper energy. Clear about what I was doing and why, my voice regained its naturally lyrical quality. My classmates (and instructors) seemed a bit stunned by a transformation that was obvious in my teaching. 

Bridge Pose

SELF CARE

One yoga teaching principle that I struggled to figure out was self-care - taking care of yourself so you do not harm yourself while teaching others. I bought a calming essential oil and a bracelet to put this on and used this before each teaching session in March, but it didn’t feel right. 

As the April weekend approached, we were given a heads-up (Thank You!) on what we would be teaching for the weekend. I prepared a 20-minute sequence that would simulate our final teaching exam. In searching for a theme, I remembered Progoff entrance meditations that I use when teaching journal writing. I realized that Letting the Self Become Still not only helps me relax and go inward but it helps hearers slow down their breathing. In choosing that for my theme I finally had a bridge between teaching personal growth workshops and teaching yoga.

That 20-minute down-regulating sequence incorporating the entrance meditation and shoulder work in a carefully orchestrated space met the needs of my classmates and was the best I had done. As far as I was concerned I was ready to pass the final teaching exam. I requested to go on the first day of exams in May so I would have adequate energy to teach a 30-minute sequence.

Goddess Warrior

SELF-ADVOCATE

When the schedule for our exams was posted before the May weekend, I was shocked to see that I was the LAST person on the first day. In requesting to go early I had explained my energy depletion to the lead instructor. In addition the arthritis in my right hip had added inconvenience. I did not know if I could physically make it to the end of the first day.

Humility in hand, I explained my situation to the second person on the schedule and asked if she would switch with me. Fortunately she agreed. On the day before the exam, rather than bone up on cues, I went for a massage and then stayed in that relaxed state of being. At the beginning of exams, the lead instructor told us that as long as we got up and taught for 30 minutes we pass the exam. We would receive written feedback on how we did and how to improve. I got good reviews and several suggestions for how to improve. Sigh of relief. Final criterion checked off the list! 

Once my exam was over, I began to reflect on my eight-month journey. Slowly I began to understand the black rectangle that had appeared in my solar plexus when I felt so disrespected in February. This is the body region associated with the third chakra - the power center. This center has to do with healthy boundaries, identity, self-confidence, self-worth, and personal power. It is related to the element fire. LiDoña means Fire Woman.

My sense of self and personal power had been diminished by my relationship to aging and by being violated in my teaching. The black rectangle represented an open doorway through which I had to pass to reclaim my self-confidence. I spent the last four months of the program becoming a self-advocate, facilitating optimal teaching space not just for myself but for others. I found my own inner resources and incorporated them into yoga. For the final exam I requested a time slot that could accommodate my aging body. 

I have created a new identity. I may be an old woman, but I am not a sweet old lady. Fire Woman is a Sassy Yoga Teacher.

Hunting Dog Pose