The yoga experience.
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| sun salutation by mother ganga |
It has been an all consuming 6 weeks and I have
to apology for being a slacker on the updates. I have to say that while the
kitchen and reception staff at Yog Peeth were wonderful; kind, helpful, just
sweethearts. The Indian asana teacher was absolutely fantastic and
we all just loved him, the director gave great teachings on anatomy and philosphy however even for all those good things I cannot say that these past weeks have been
a wonderful experience. It has been more of a practice in tolerance and dealing
with my own and others anger, frustration, disappointment and overall feelings off
being ripped off, unappreciated, disregarded and even ignored. “What”! I hear
you say, “That’s not very yogic.” Anyway, you could say, just like the teacher
at the Yog Peeth does, that this is all my perception and that I have to use my
yogi mind to transform the situation and only then will I be a ‘real yogi’ like him, is of course is implied. hmmmmmmm?
In Buddhist teachings the Tibetans give a great
analogy for this idea. They say instead of trying to cover the surface of the
earth with leather so that you protect your feet from stones and thrones, it is
better just to cover the soles of your feet with leather. This is a wonderful way
to portray the mind training practices which can be used in difficult situation
where you have little or no control over people’s dramas or dysfunctional
relations. By employing mind training in this way you can keep a calm mind and
not be dragged down by a situation. Mind training is the basis for all
religious and spiritual practice; geeze, even if you just wanna be a good
person you have to employ some form of restraining your own mind and not just reaction to difficult
and bad situations/people. Let me also
add here that another part of mind training is find courage to speak out for
justice and not turn a blind eye Anyway, back to the Yog Peeth.
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| icy cold |
Silly me but I always thought that when a
business advertises their product, takes people’s precious time and money with a
smile or in this case a Namaste, that an unspoken contract has been formed and
that the customer would he happy with the good he/she receives. If however the business
does not deliver the goods then this is not only false advertising but bad
business and an insult to the customer. In this case, injury was added to
insult by using teachings of mind training to not only not take responsibility
for an inability do good business but also put blame on the customer/student
for having complaints; now this is simply abusive! And this is my take on
putting it all nicely.
Anyway I have endured six weeks of looking at
my mind to check and see where and if I am to blame; which is just a mind ****** and a complete drain of energy. The situation stirred up so much confusion and discomfort
in me as well as in other students and among students. So; me being me, after 16 days, on behalf of
myself and all the other students, who did not want to make waves, I felt
compelled to speak the truth and give constructive, business like suggestions
rather than a list of bitchy complaints.
The blatantly obvious problem causing all this
friction was one of the main teachers. He was not only unfit to teach, due to the
projection of his own insecurities, depression and mental baggage onto students
but he also had no experience teaching. He’s in young, America, barely out of
Uni and just finished the previous 200 hour teacher training course! He did not
even have enough knowledge of the asanas and some students who knew more that
he did, had to help him out so that new students would not injure themselves.
This poor guy has no professional ethics or respect for yoga practice, the
students, the Peeth, the director, or himself. With such low self esteem he had
to spend most of his time gathering a clique or posy of impressionable
youngsters around him in the canteen so that he could hear himself spout his
personal philosophies. It was similar to a high school lunch hall complete
with, disapproving looks, searing, giggles and gossip. Hilarious in so many ways
as it would have been major hit on the realty TV world and this poor guy would
be a super star; however, in real life it was just an overall nasty and
pity-full situation, that may I add, I paid to endure!
This uninspiring atmosphere divided
the group, stinted people getting to know each other and working together and
over all completely halted the fostering of a positive, yogic vibe. So what to
do? I should have packed my bags after the first day because I saw it all
coming but I chose to stay in the hope that my perceptions were wrong and that it
would get better, but it only got worse.
Anyway back to my speaking my truth to the
director. Turns out I was not the only one who had spoken out about this
‘teacher.’ My complaints and suggestions echoed others feeling and were received
well and even agreed with by him. Wonderful
thought I, “there is hope to salvage this bad situation, maybe I will not run
away after all.” I was taken into the director’s confidence, commended for my
professional way of addressing the issue and promised that the ‘teacher’ would
be “replaced the following week.” Now this is where it hurts and where I lost
confidence in the school. Of course, nothing was done; my suggestions along
with the complaints of others were ignored.
Promises of change were reneged on and it was implied that, as the
analogy suggests, I put leather on the soles of my feet, or in cruder terms; learn
to suck it up. Wow ! Ok! Again, what to do?
Each day the atmosphere at the Peeth continued
to deteriorate it was still filled with complaints/ frustrations/ gossip/ group
division/ lack of enthusiasm and frustration. By the middle of week 4 it all
came to a head when the ‘teacher’ tried to tighten his control of the classes,
completely demeaned and tried to impose his imagined ‘power’ over some
students. In a last bid attempt to solve the problem, (which could have been
done in week 1 by removing the ‘teacher’) in a true professional manner, (NOT!)
the director decide to openly bring up the subject to 50 students. OMG!! This
turned into a completely disrespectful yelling fest, which was then quickly
turned into a kumbayah hugging fest. Some of the teacher’s closest disciples
and the peacemakers in the group tried to grab control of the situation.
However some were also now turning mind training on its head, by guilt tripping
people into shutting up. The by spouting the cooling balm of a few cute face
book quotes, some heartless hugs, the odd tear and many superficial apologies
the situation was ‘solved’. The director smiled as he stood and watched the
display of people wanting to be seen to be ‘good yogis.’ For me this was too little too late. I sat in
the back of the room, emotionless, numb to it all and thinking that I was watching a real live reality show!! I have never seen such a display of utter denial,
disfunctionality and twisting of a spiritual teaching in a group of so called
adults. I also at this point had absolutely no respect left for the school and
completely saddened by the whole situation. Could people not see how their
strings were being pulled and that they had paid for a training which they
never received!
The amazing thing is that all the
students are great people and so unique. All of the people I interacted with
have had amazing experience, are honestly seeking a yogi/spiritual path,
questioning the state of the world and so want to do good things with their
lives. Many want to teach and inspire others to not only do asana but follow
the yogic perspective. I have been very inspired by many of the students at the
Peeth and have formed some wonderful friendship which I hope will only deepen
and grow over the years.
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| week 5; 6 am field trip for some fun |
Anyway,
week 5 was a lot better, but by no means perfect. The ‘teacher’ was removed and
with the director now teaching and another teacher giving workshops and
pointing out all the bad habits in postures, the new students realized just how
much they had not learned in the past 4 weeks. Morale was low and people also
took the odd class or day off just to de-stress and attempt to relax and mend bruised
relationships. Some people just stopped interacting with each other while others
got closer. It was like watching people clean up a car wreck and different
people heal in different ways; some talk, some shop, some smoke or drink, some
work out, ignored it all, some hook up, some sing, some laugh and attempt to
make others laugh, some cry, some isolate and some take longer than others to heal
and make sense of weird situations and move on. a week we also had a dress up in traditional India clothes evening where a lot of the girls wore a sari and that really did help to boost moral. So I hung in there and tried to learn what I could and got closer to many
of my fellow students.
Week 6 was the best week of all and we kicked
it off with a talent show. This was to break people’s stage fright for teaching
but it also seemed to really bring us all together. Students were paired up and
had to present a 2 hour yoga class. It was fun to design a yoga class and teach
but working with a partner and being supportive of class mates was even better
and just what we all needed. People got creative with sequences and posture but
also with themes employing music, stories, colours, philosophy, visualizations,
essential oils, etc. Really the best week of the whole program and for this
week alone I am so glad that I stayed. (Then again, it always a feels better walking
on grass after you kick off a pair of tight high heels). So a huge thanks you
to all the students and I truly wish you all the best on your journey in life
and as yoga teachers.
Anyway this whole experience has just re-shown
me some things. 1st One bad apple does ruin it for the majority; 2nd
Group dynamics in a negative situation can bring out the worst and the best in
people, including myself; 3rd a business focused on cutting corners,
projecting a grand image and growing, rather on delivering the goods does not
work in the short term and will probably not make it to the long term; 4th
Careful how you mix business with spirituality. 5th and maybe the
most import; trust your gut. If you think the wool is being pulled over your
eyes, well it probably is. So speak you truth and quietly leave.
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| sand and flower Zhiva Lingam |
Some people will have great memories of this yoga school and
some only bad; me, bitter-sweet I would say. I am sad to leave such great students, fun staff and wonderful Indian yoga teacher and am regretful that I did not have the energy to make more of an
effort to get to know everyone a bit better. I also leave knowing I have to do a lot more
practice and more practice of teaching yoga before I am really ready to teach. However,
I am so relieved to be out of a very trying and confusing situation. I have to wish the Peeth
every success, but ask them to measure that success in quality not quantity. I
also wondered if I would post this or not but I would not want anyone to go
through what I just did. So all yi budding yoga teachers be aware and check out your
yoga school and if you have high standards of what a school is, then maybe try another of the many schools in Rishikesh
