Whilst on holiday (no, I'm not British) in Seattle, I had the opportunity to finally visit one of that city's most esteemed yoga studios, about which I was super excited, having heard lots and lots of rave reviews about said studio, in particular, reviews about what a sweet ecstatic spirit it has (which are two of my favorite ways for a yoga studio to be). So, I was prepared for a greeeeeeat class.
But a great class I did not get.
I'm not going to go in to ALL of the reasons why this class was not great, a lot of that is just personal preference (and maybe a little snarky). I'm only going to go into ONE reason why the class was not great:
(Well, two, actually):
1. At the beginning of the class the teacher told us all that he was trying to learn names and would we please all go around and say our names and whether or not we had any requests? Alright, yes, okay, I'm all for teachers wanting to learn names. I'm not all for having to say stuff out loud at the beginning of class, as it's embarrassing in that "when is it going to be my turn and I hope I don't say my name in a dorky way" kind of way. But all of that, I can forgive. What I CANNOT forgive, however, is that after aaaaaaaall that...
He. Didn't. Use. Anyone's. Name. EVER!
Not once, during the whole class did he refer to ANYONE by name! Not once did he refer to anyone, period. I mean...why?! Why, Mr. Teacher Man, why would you make us doooo that, prefacing it all with your desire to learn names, and then not try to use any names?! I mean, there has got to be one person in there whose name you just KNOW...can't you just take a sec to say, "Jimmy, that looks great"?!
Phew. Okay, I'm done with that. That was really just venting. But I feel better, so thank you.
2. After we were done with our (pointless) name game, he then moved on to his dharma talk, setting up the theme for class. This, for those of you who haven't been to a formal yoga class, is the way most classes begin. The teacher sets up a theme for the class, maybe it's a physical theme (our ribcage!) or a philosophical theme (the yamas and niyamas!) or a more woo-woo new-agey type theme, my personal favorite (surrender! connection! awesomeness!)...and then hopefully this theme is reflected in or woven through the rest of the class, either verbally or non-verbally (some of the best teachers can make a theme resonate all through class without ever having to reference out loud it again. Suddenly you get to the end of class and you've had some deep EXPERIENCE of the theme, without your mind having to be involved at all. That's the best.)
But, some teachers have not really mastered the art of theme-weaving. Some teachers (I'll let you do the math) SOME teachers...okay, this guy...set up a theme, and it might even be a cool theme, they might even have something cool to say about the theme, but then the dharma talk ends, class begins, and the theme is never heard from again. (Sort of like, I don't know...peoples naaaaaaaaames?) No reference is made to any aspect of said theme, either with words or with representative poses or even via the general spirit of the class, and this, for me...is irksome.
No, actually...I hate this.
It bothers me so much, that I have been in a bit of a nit about this class ever since, and so over the last week or two I have been doing a lot of thinking about this whole IDEA of a theme.
Why do we start classes this way? What is the theme really for? Why shouldn't it just appear once and then never come back again? What's the dilly, yo?
And what I've come to is this: The theme is not just about the teacher giving a kind of mini keynote on some yoga trope. It's not just a preamble to the class...or at least, this is how I feel about it. The theme is, for me, the backbone, the hinge-pin of the class. It is the ground that the rest of the class is built upon.
Because...the beauty, the MAGIC, of the yoga practice is that it facilitates connectivity amongst the whole human system. It links breath to body and body to mind and mind to heart and heart to breath and so on, and yes, okay, it's entirely possible to come at the practice with a sort of generic intention to yoke these things together, and to relax and surrender and all of the rest of it, but for most beginning practitioners (which I still consider myself, even after nearly 6 years), that vagueness is not enough. To approach a class with just the clutter of mind and no unifying goal to cut through it all...I think it's asking for trouble. Or at the very least that becomes the makings of a "workout" and not a yoga class.
So, in comes a theme. And maybe it's not even a very lofty theme. Maybe it's going to be a class about your shins, but the mind, so hungry for direction, it can hang on to that. The shins!! There is so much to know about the shins! (Suddenly). Can I send breath to my shins? What are my shins doing in this pose? And this one? Do I favor one shin above the other? Can I even FEEL my shins or do they just seems like dead weight and if they dooooooo, then what is that about?
Do you see what I'm getting at here?
Just imagine, then, if the class is about softening the heart or expressing grace or non-grasping or any of the other gorgeous sparkly gems of themes that some of my teachers have blessed me with over the years...the right teacher can just open up the whole universe of even the most mudane of subjects (the pinky toe, aw yeeeeeeeah, a revelatory toe!) And beyond all of that...even bigger and brighter still...a well-wrought theme can actually begin to open one's mind to the possibility of the expression of ALL THINGS via the body. It only takes one time in class where all of your cells seem to ring with the deeper implications of your stuck shins (for example) to really begin to understand how deep the practice can go...
