Cautionary Tale to the Knowledgable Yoga Teacher

I'm new to New Mexico, but I'm not new to yoga. I've been practicing yoga since 1997 and teaching it since 1999. For the last thirteen years I've lived a short drive from LA and gloriously had access tomany accomplished yogis: Judith Hanson Lasater, Annie Carpenter, Max Strom, Pandit Rajmani, Shiva Rea, Amy Wheeler. I have taught yoga and Eastern Religion at the college level for the last twelve years, which required eight hours of training in my area of focus each semester. If asked, I would say I'm quite familiar with the mat, the poses, and the philosophy of yoga. Do I still have things to learn about yoga? Absolutely. I just don't see myself as a novice at this point in my practice, but a novice is exactly what I felt like last weekend.

I've been trying to find a place to practice yoga in my new hometown and it's not going quite as I had expected...once more my expectations are creating suffering. On Saturday I went to a class at a local studio to try out a teacher I had heard was “good”. I'm not an early riser so I was jazzed that I got myself up and out for a morning class.

It was a small group consisting of three of his regular students and myself. We started with a meditation, I was primed. I was ready to focus on my body, my breath, and to quiet the fluctuations of my mind. He instructed us (almost solely in sanskrit) onto our hands and knees for bitilasana to warm up with a series of cow/cat back. I was feeling the pose: fingers spread wide, fingertips pressing down into the mat, arms and calves lengthening, spine rounding methodically with each inhale and exhale. Then we were guided back to neutral position and led into extended table. As I stretched out my right arm, fingers lengthening to the front wall, my left leg reaching back, foot flexed, toes spread. I brought my awareness to my left hip and I consciously turned it down ever so gently, pulling the left side of my waist upward as I lowered the hip to level out my back and that's when it started. He approached me and suggested I turn my hip more toward the floor...what the fuck, I just made that adjustment myself...well ok, let me see if I can follow his prodding finger and move the hip even more. Moving away from me he leaned on the wall between myself and another student. Next up: ardha muhka shvanasana. I extended my hands ever so slightly from table, curled my toes under, and as I exhaled I lifted my bent knees off the floor and began to stretch out into my version of downward facing dog.We stayed for five breaths; my last breath was a sigh of relief as he moved to the other side of the room.

We were then guided through Surya Namaskar A...so far so good. I was starting to find some ease in my practice once more. As we took our first Anjaneyasana I was approached again and the teacher moved my arms to a bent elbow position putting me in a cactus arm position. He told me if I couldn't straighten my arms upward without lifting my shoulders I needed to stay in a bent elbow position. I noticed the rest of the class was already in cactus arms so I aligned myself with the rest of the class out of respect for the teacher’s instruction. He then moved his attention to my left hip asking me to rotate it forward more by prodding my left buttocks (nothing untoward). I could feel that his prodding was not good for my body and I said no, that I could not rotate it anymore and he moved on.

His critique of my poses continued throughout the class. My Marichyasana was wrong, in Bakasana I was instructed to pull my knees in tighter against my arms, in Dolasana I was quizzed on the levers in the body. He was relentless and I felt terrible about my asana, my breath, my total lack of knowledge.

For obvious reasons I had a difficult time quieting my mind in shavasana at the end of class.

The words “bad yogi” drifted by like clouds overhead. Then I realized 

there was very little critiquing of his regular students, only me.

As I discussed my discomfort with the class, it's my nature to assume there must be an issue with me, Pete gave me his opinion. He may be a knowledgeable yoga teacher, but he's not a good yoga teacher. There was only criticism of me, no praise; only arrogance toward me, no humility, and these qualities do not make a good yoga teacher. It was a reminder that just because a teacher knows their Sanskrit, that does not make them a good yoga teacher. Ultimately I think a good yoga teacher is humble and feels a connection to the needs of the students in front of them. A good yoga teacher should definitely realize when they are making corrections to the detriment of the students quiet mind.