The Subtle Body

I spent August reading Stephanie Syman's The Subtle Body: The History of Yoga in America, and here's what I found most fascinating - I didn't learn any of this in my yoga teacher training.

If I were to base what I know about yoga's presence in North America solely on the history presented in my Yoga Work's training, I would believe that Hatha yoga was non-existent before Indra Devi began teaching in the late 40's or early 50's.

In fact, yoga arrived in the United States via The Atlantic, a quasi-political literary magazine courtesy of Emerson, Thoreau and company prior to the American Civil War and by the late 1800's there were not only yoga communes but studios, where the meditation and yoga were taught by American teachers - mostly young women who were former dancers.

Many of yoga's main players in the U.S. were a mix of Indian gurus and their well-to-do American students. The Indians, who came to America to enlighten and set the record straight about their country, people and belief systems, fell into careers as lecturers and teachers who spawned true believers and yoga practices in their wake.

The book starts slow. Aside from the fact that Thoreau apparently tried to teach himself to mediate using the few books on the subject that he could find, the first couple of chapters nearly had me ready to give up and take the book back to the library.

But perseverance is it's own reward and I was richly repaid as the book moved forward.

One of the most interesting yogi's of the early Hatha movement was a man named Theos Bernard. The nephew of one of the first yoga studio founders in New York City, Theos contracted rheumatic fever as a teenager which greatly damaged his heart muscle. He turned to yoga, believing that it could restore his health. After ten years of study - some of which took him to India where he spent years studying asana and theory - his doctors were startled to discover that yoga had healed the young man's damaged heart.

If you are in the mood for a history book, I highly recommend Syman's history. She tells a good tale as she enlightens.

Teaching My First Yoga Class

My "desk" at The Yoga Room

I started filling in at The Yoga Room before I finished my 200 hour teacher training. Mainly I covered the Drop-In class at noon, which was 45 minutes and based on the Ashtanga standing series. Nothing to brain twisting. If you know Primary, you to could lead the noon drop in.

The challenge was leading students through with instruction. Remembering to cue.

There are a lot of cues. Down Dog alone has two platforms and has cues from fingers to the soles of the feet and back again.

I taught the Hatha class when Jill was away on holiday in July but teaching is a work in progress. Which is funny because I am a teacher by trade and temperment.

For twenty years, I taught English and its variant courses in middle and high school. I was good at it, which means something in a profession where it is easier to be mediorce than not.

I like planning classes. I love executing plans.

But yoga reminds me - so far - that I learned to teach as much as I was born to do it.

I'm sure that doesn't make sense to many, but I believe that the essential qualities of a teacher are gifted by the cosmic forces and it's up to the individual to hone and perfect them. All the natural ability in the world will not make you good teacher let alone a great one.

Five years into my teaching career was about the point where I could claim competency beyond the average teacher and at ten years - I made it look like magic.

My classes in the fall sessions are Hatha Flow and Restorative. This morning was Flow and I used a sequence I cribbed from the Yoga Works teacher training manual. Tweeked it a tad at the beginning and end, had to dump a few postures to allow for the full ten minutes of Savasana at the end (never scrimp here, I was told) but it seemed to go well. Had more "flow" than the first time I used it when I was subbing a Hatha class.

I am still working on pace. Pace is key. Finding the outer limit of a class's endurance, adequate reminders about the breath and able to teach a pose without getting lost.

Wanting to "teach" the poses and still moving the class along is work. I haven't found my sweet spot or even anything close, but it's not the painful stutter that it was the first few times I stood up in front of a group to teach - this is something. In fact, this is good.

Restorative is up for Monday and I am writing my sequence using Kristen Rentz's Yoga Nap. A relaxation course at the Glenrose Cardiac Rehab in Edmonton, which I attended Friday, reminded me about the breath - specifically breathing exercises. Restorative's prime directive is teaching the body to relax, which is not something people generally think they need to learn to do, so a few simple breathing exercises might be a good way to start a class. Set a tone.

I've missed all this planning and research that goes along with teaching much more than I realized it seems. It is good to put my teacher hat back on.