A student asked me if I like teaching beginners. The student had seen me leading a new student through their very first Mysore style class, with all the challenges and difficulties that come with teaching someone brand new to yoga, and was wondering if I enjoyed the process or found it frustrating. The answer is not black and white. I’m not one of those yoga teachers that will tell you that teaching new students is all gum drops and sunshine. Teaching new students is difficult, whether they are new to yoga on the whole or experienced yogis that are practicing Mysore Style Ashtanga for the first time. Every student comes in with their individual issues, preconceived notions of what a yoga practice should be, and personality types. Add to this my own personality, preconceived notions (being honest here), and current emotional state and you never can predict with surety the outcome of the student teacher dynamic. Above and beyond this, I’m teaching Mysore Style Ashtanga in New York City. Mysore is a slow process and it can be difficult to get the New Yorker mentality to wrap itself around this idea.
I love NYC. You can have what you want when you want it and invariably that “when” is right now. I love yoga, but the way I was taught very rarely do you get what you want when you want it; instead, you get what’s good for you when the time is appropriate. Who gets to decide what’s good for me and when the time is right? My teacher. Of course there is a great deal of communication between Teach and me, but in the end what Teach says goes. These very basic ideas – that yoga is a slow process and that the teacher knows more than the student. Unfortunately these basic principles are missing in many yoga classes taught today.
It often takes a new Ashtanga student some time to understand the long term outlook of the Mysore Style practice. For this reason most studios require an upfront commitment, usually a minimum of one week, but more often a month, for those new to the Mysore Style of practice. This extended period of times gives the student the ability to see how the practice unfolds.
The greatest frustration with teaching beginners is knowing that many will not return after just one or two classes. It takes a great deal of energy to teach someone something new. In the end, I can only hope that my efforts will bear fruit. Keeping a positive outlook can sometime be difficult. I like to chalk it up to the law of karma. There are some people who will seek me out and learn from me, no matter what I teach. Who knows, maybe I was their student in a recent past life and now it’s time to return the favor. There are those who will dislike my teaching style no matter how much good I try to do for them. There’s not much I can do about that, so I let it be. Frankly, I don’t believe everyone should practice yoga. There are those of us who are drawn to a yoga practice, for whatever reason, and those that are not; some are even repelled. There is no reason to force anyone.
I keep faith in my students. They support me as I support them. I view each new student as someone that can experience beneficial change through yoga practice and I give them my all. Sometimes they come back, sometimes they don’t. Either way, I’ll still be here.
