I wrote about the role of teacher a while back and you can find it here. Recently a well respected yoga teacher Spicy Hello Kitty also wrote about the subject, and we had a short but meaningful discussion about it. Then lo and behold, the very topic came up again when The Divine Miss N and I were having coffee a couple of weeks ago. Obviously it's a topic that deserves more attention.
Rewind...
Back in my yoga teaching days, all of my classes were required to "have a heart-oriented theme, which has a meaningful connection to the grand spiritual purposes of the asana practice", and I was supposed to "display a dedication to serving each student and helping him or her unveil his or her innate goodness, worthiness, and Supreme nature, while inspiring..."
That's quite a load, especially from a yoga school that is supposed to be all about freedom. We're told to follow this template with a mandatory heart theme, where each class starts with a 5-7 minutes of nattering that followed by om shanti shanti shanti, sequenced poses with some alignment focus that leads to the climatic apex pose and then cool off to a power nap... granted, this is a great template for an asana class. But it's just a bit ironic when this system is supposedly non-dogmatic. Looking back now, it has a shit load of hair-splitting, not-all-forgiving, often-changing-to-conform-to-GM's flavour of the month... you get the picture. A good tool to plan a class? Yes. The only way to teach a class? No.
Most importantly, because of the self-help, therapy, re-hab type of atmosphere it creates, many are drawn to it. This self-help, re-hab type of nattering is some powerful shit and it sells. It even has its own section at Chapters. Anyone who has been asked to demo a handstand or dropback in a yoga workshop can attest to it. I mean, Oh! My! God! I went to a yoga class and I became superman! I was healed! And I didn't even need the yoga urethra massage therapy!
Fast forward...
