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restoring myself
By heather | February 20, 2008
Earlier this year, I got a flyer for a workshop on restorative yoga. At the time, I had just come off anxiety meds – not by choice but because I was pregnant – and had never spent even a night away from Alex. The guilt of working full time was too intense to allow myself any type of parenting holiday.
I’ve taught yoga since 2000, but I’ve always been a power yoga type of practitioner. I started learning from Bryan Kest on VHS. As I’ve become more educated as a yoga teacher, I’ve allowed more spiritual elements to infuse my teaching but the physical challenge has always remained. I teach a core strength class even now at four months pregnant, and I get the most satisfaction out of it when I know I’m kicking ass.
When you teach yoga at a gym it has a different element to it – routinely the sound of hip hop music penetrates the walls during savasana, as do grunts and clangs as weights drop to the floor. The fitness coordinator has never taken my class either for evaluation purposes or as part of her own routine. A flyer the gym issued last year that listed classes to kick yourself into shape didn’t include even one element of flexibility, let alone a yoga class.
The students too are different – many of them are there because they’ve thought for a long time that they really should do some yoga, and it’s free with your membership rather than paying $15 or more per class at a studio.
Most of them don’t come to relax, and many aren’t there to learn – they want you as the teacher to take them through a workout, just like you would if you were teaching a kickboxing class. Cues for alignment or modification fall on deaf ears, ignored by the ones who need it the most. I get weird looks when I talk about finding grace, or meditation.
There is less relationship building, rarely do I know the stories or injuries of my students unless they find me outside of class. Classes in the room start and end at half past the hour leaving no time in between for getting to know each other.
But teaching at a gym isn’t all bad. I reach out to people who would never set foot in a studio. I maximize the use of my time by getting my cardio in before class, and there are some amazing yoga teachers at my gym. In each class I have 5 or 6 regulars, sometimes more – that I know well and I enjoy watching thier progression. And every January, my class size doubles or triples and I can attempt to spark an interest in something that could carry those new members through a lifetime of sickness or health.
What all this adds up to is a realization that my personal practice has been neglected. It’s stagnant. I haven’t been practicing what I’m preaching. I push the physical side and neglect the spiritual.
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I signed up for this restorative yoga workshop. I had a psychiatrist tell me once that I would never be happy without meds, certainly a self-deprecating way to look at the future and not exactly encouraging.
I hoped that what I’d learn would be enough to at least get me through pregnancy without any steep slides into panic or depression. I was going to do something for myself, not so I could go home and regurgitate it to my students. I walked into the class purposely without a pen, so that I could just listen without furiously and frantically taking notes.
Judith Lasater is a rock star in yoga circles. Her teaching and writing has such depth and is uncompromising in quality. Most people who’ve practiced yoga or meditation for any length of time have read something she’s written. In person, she possesses a calm that I learned comes from being comfortable with a range of emotion.
I didn’t leave Friday night for the workshop like I’d planned because I was on my deathbed, sick. By the time I got there Saturday morning after worrying for the last two hours that I’d be late, or get lost, or had forgotten my cold medicine I needed to just. calm. down. already.
She started by asking us how many of us did a 20 minute or more savasana every day. A few people raised thier hands, and there had to have been at least one other person besides me thinking, “Ha! I’ve never done a 20 minute savasana, let alone every day!”
We talked about the physiology of why we need rest and the benefits of it, but what stuck for me was Judith’s answer to a question one woman asked. I don’t even remember the question, but it ended with her saying, “That’s so annoying!”
Judith asked her to rephrase that, because the object itself just existed and it was this woman’s personal perception that made it annoying. Essentially, own up to it – you find it annoying, someone else may be fine with it.
Hi. That’s me. Discontent and annoyance run rampant through my brain which is why I’m always trying to FIX stuff.
In between discussions, we did resting poses. Often in these yoga workshops, there is a competitive undertow – who can most fully open in a pose, or hold a balance, or get a beautiful extension. Yogis work harder than the rest of America to remove that element of competition, but it is so much a part of our culture off the mat that sometimes its hard to let it go on the mat, even when you know you’re doing it.
Restorative yoga was different though – the very nature of what we were doing removed the competitive element – I’m resting better than you! doesn’t really make sense. With your eyes closed there is no basis for comparison and you can finally, finally let your body take what it needs.
I got what I needed this weekend. A new way to look at the world (remembering I find things annoying and I can choose to change my perception actually calms me) and a new practice (a restorative pose for at least 20 minutes a day).
Only two things. Can it really be that easy? I’ll let you know.
Topics: yoga | 6 Comments »
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February 20th, 2008 at 9:40 am
Wow. It sounds like I could learn a thing or two from that instructor, myself. I am like you in a lot of ways. I’m glad you found the workshop useful. Good luck!
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
This post made me realize that I REALLY need to see what the buzz about this yoga thing is before I am pushed to the brink like the stapler guy in Office Space. When’s your next class again?
February 20th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
You make me want to try yoga. Except I want you as my instructor.
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February 20th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
i need to do yoga. i mean, seriously.
and i did your meme-a-rem, sister…
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February 21st, 2008 at 4:07 am
Heather is a great yoga instructor. Being from the old school of male images of sports/gym I did not think I would ever take a Yoga class. But I took Heather’s class and I had a new respect for another way to develop my strength and flexibility. I knew Heather was into fitness since I was a member of the same gym, but I had no idea how physically strong she is – very impressive. And the flexibility was great.
The hardest part for me was to learn to enjoy the quiet time during an exercise and not to think how hard it was for me to maintain a set position. So if you have never tried a yoga class – do it. I am now 2000 miles away and missing my favorite Yoga instructor.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:45 am
Sounds like a great workshop–I’m not a yoga person but you make it sound very tempting.
And I had to laugh about the idea of competitive resting. I have exactly the sort of brain that could turn resting into a competition–one that I was losing. It is funny how those of us who could benefit the most from yoga/meditation type activities are the ones to go out of our way to avoid it.
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