I’m looking for Hugh Jass

Everybody in this world has a big “but”. I wanna talk about your big “but”. I wanna talk about the thing that keeps you from committing fully, from living fully, from speaking your truth; the thought that keeps you hedging your bets and hemming and hawing.

Chris Chavez is finished Vancouver’s Teacher Training level 1 and the teachers-to-be are DEADLY good. It’s going to get wild up in here, I’m telling you. Authentic, hilarious, creative. I’m kind of surprised I still have a job.

There is a thread that occasionally runs through their discussion and it came up today during the difference between active and passive language. Active commands, of course, tell people to do stuff [not something we're generally very comfortable with], and passive language invites people to feel/investigate/notice stuff. Passivity sneaks in teaching in other ways, by way of using infinitives as commands in disguise ["lifting your arms overhead, extending out through your arms" &c.] or even describing the actions of the pose as if they’re happening to somebody else ["the back leg straightens, the arms reach overhead"]. PARENTHETICAL BLOG READER EXERCISE: If you practice yoga, notice the way these different sorts of language work on your body.

Generally speaking we’re not comfy with active commands, because, ew, commands. We don’t want to be bossy. And we know what it feels like to arrive on the mat after being told what to do all day long. I get it, I do. Women especially don’t want to be bossy and so many of us have raised passive-aggressive behaviour to a high art: “You may notice that the back leg loses some power if it is not fully engaged. If you wish to, consider engaging the back leg more fully. A little bit. Sort of.  Never mind, I didn’t say anything.” As opposed to: “Straighten your back leg fully”. What is the difference, if there is a difference? Is one way of speaking ever appropriate for teaching….anything, never mind yoga?

I wasn’t alive yet, but apparently there was a time of pure didactic crackdown from Authority to Peon and it showed up everywhere: home, school, ashram, cops, work, it was all over the place. We civilians were asked to do random things with little purpose or explanation, and punishments for failure to comply were severe. Worse, reasons for our inability to comply [disability and similar] were utterly disregarded.

To mitigate this tendency and to bring balance, power was shifted to the student/child/employee. All was sweetness and light. Sort of. People felt they had more of a voice, but the purpose of maintaining the relationships above began to be eroded: if a cop has no authority, on what grounds can they bring any order whatsoever? If there is no essential difference between a parent and a child, what is the purpose of parenting? And if a teacher has nothing to teach a student, why come to class?

I think we’ve all experienced what happens when either one of these extreme models runs amok; it sucks; law enforcement becomes either drunk with power or completely overrun, parents are abusive or children have no boundaries whatsoever and do themselves and others harm, teachers use their authority to manipulate and threaten their students…

…or the students learn nothing…they don’t transform…nothing changes.

Now, even a blind pig finds an acorn, which is my Old Ontario Loyalist Folksy way of saying that life has a way of bringing light if the conditions are right. If you get people to move and stretch and breathe and even think in a vague way about a life of spirit, you might have a shift. Life is wise like that. So any yoga class – heck, any experience – is going to have a component of potential awakening that even the most determined student or helpless teacher cannot mess with. Good, then. In a very real way, then, it’s true that it’s not us…it’s not our teachers, even the superlative ones. However, instinct tells us that pure passivity is not optimally aligned with the power of spirit, no matter how awesome it is…eight feet tall and breathing fire. If that were true there would be no purpose to being in a yoga class at all. What is there to learn, if we do not participate? What actions can be taken?

There are always mixed levels in any yoga class. My friends from the suburbs like to claim that there is an essential difference between “downtown” yoga and “suburb” yoga, which is like all those reasons why you can’t do Handstand right now: the moon is full, you have a hangnail, you had a burrito for lunch and on and on. All kinds of people show up for all kinds of classes, and that’s the way it should be…that’s how we’ll all be practicing together in the years to come. To honour those levels, different philosophies treat diversity in different ways:

Ex. 1 “The way you are is perfect and nothing further should be done. In fact, you should lie down right now, because they’re doing Handstand and you’re not like them; you should rest…don’t resist rest, it’s good for you…how often do we let ourselves rest?”

Ex. 2 “The way you are is perfect and nothing further should be done. God, no, don’t try THAT pose, your frickin’ leg will FALL RIGHT OFF. Didn’t you tell me that you have no meniscus at all in either of your knees? And lupus? Also, a recently installed pacemaker, also? You’re perfect. Don’t go changin’. You signed your waiver, right?”

Ex. 3 “The way you are is perfect and nothing further should be done. Unless you want to. In which case, if you feel comfortable, take your right arm further to the right, and then stop, and feel, and notice, and breathe and if you are still totally at ease and everything’s fine, you can lift your left arm up to the sky. Oh, you have shoulder pain? No, no, come back down, your breath is a sign that you’re uncomfortable and you’ve gone too far. Did I mention that you’re perfect?”

Ex. 4 “The way you are is perfect and nothing further should be done. Let us sit for 90 minutes and contemplate the essential truth of this statement.”

Ex. 5 “The way you are is perfect and nothing further should be done. Shakti will find its way through the mystical chambers of your inner energy body and manifest as it should, there is no controlling such a divine power; one must simply release any attempt to stem Her Supreme essence, and…wait, what?”

Ex. 6 “The way you are is perfect and nothing further should be done. That’s so awesome that we should do Handstands to celebrate it. Here’s how you do them. I’ll help you. You’ll need to do this, and then this, and then this. How does that feel? That’s excellent. I’m right here for you. You can do it…Yes, I know it can be scary, but you are doing everything right so let’s try. Perfect. Come down. One more time…”

Yes, I know, okay; kind of stupid examples because rest IS good for you [when appropriate] and meditation is freaking EXCELLENT for you. And I’m writing as somebody who had a mortal terror of Handstands and who used every trick in the metaphysical book to get out of doing the work that was necessary to get free. Honestly, every old yogic hangover I had kept my lip curling in disbelief, even though I was miserably unhappy doing things that way. I had the biggest but EVAR. Can I just insert a brief aside to say how good it feels to not be petrified of them anymore? I would have never reached that with Ex. 1 [inertia] Ex. 2 [more fear, like pouring gasoline on a fire] Ex. 3 [passivity and subjectivity] Ex. 4 [LOLBUDDHIZM] and Ex. 5 [mystical woo-speak]. I’m still a bit nervous…I wish somebody hadn’t told me they were an advanced pose. I wish I’d started working on them years ago. Today I actually accomplished, with minimal drama, the old Down Dog jumping into Sirsasana II>Kukkutasana manouevre that Chavez tried to teach me last year and that almost gave me a stroke, so I have first-hand experience with the power of practicing these active thought patterns…and using them in my inner voice, as well as with students. Anyway, that’s a bit of a rant, I’m just saying.

My big but was based primarily on not trusting life. Like, sure I feel good NOW…but what about going home and what about work and what about death and what about pain? Huh? Have you “yogis” thought about any of those things? My naivite embarrasses me; I was truly like a little bald fat-legged baby, thinking I was going to suddenly unravel the wisdom of many ages. Your but might be comprised of science [the need for empirical proof], history [poor associations or historical observations w/r/t spirit and/or religion (which are not the same, but are related, so caveat emptor)], comparative studies with colleagues [shoot, he took out a bank loan and started a coffee shop and experienced EPIC FAIL therefore my small business is destined to fail also], previous traditions [that's not what thousands of dollars and 20 years of my life taught me], or just straight up old fashioned mystified confusion, the way we used to do it back in the old country.

So, in the preparation for our student’s big buts we hedge our bets as teachers. We wouldn’t want to be wrong so we dither around and remove our authority and say que sera sera and if you want to and maybe and sort of. The difference between a parent/child relationship and yer gen-pop mixed-level 90 minute yoga class is that people consciously came to be transformed. Dude. Srsly. How does Joe Yoga even show up on the mat? They are:

- in pain

- angry
- stressed out
- baffled
- anxious
- disconnected
- alone
- depressed
- overwhelmed
- afraid
- exhausted

and more than likely, a spicy gumbo of most/all of the above.

It takes a massive amount of personal courage to even ATTEND a yoga class if it’s not already part of your regularly scheduled activities. To meet such courage with a maybe-if’n'ya-wanna attitude is so very disheartening, because if they did what was normal to them they’d all be at home rocking Bosom Buddies on sattelite and eating frozen mini-calzones. And even the act of surrender is an ACT, that is, it is not passive. The act of acceptance is not passive. Oh heavens no; have you ever tried working on acceptance? It’s like the freaking caber toss.

And then my NLP book arrives in the mail and I read about the difference between “but” and “and”. Holy heck. The “but” is all the ways in which your situation is exceptional: but I’m pregnant! but I’m tired! but I’m old! but I’m injured! And the “and”…well, you get the picture. “And” creates the unity between you and the other students, and then diversifies it further with a positive. That’s the spirit.

PARENTHETICAL BLOG READER ASIDE: Try it. Instead of all the times you say “but”, consider “and” as a legitimate alternative.

When I ask people why we should align, I usually get a fear-based answer: that is, that yoga is perilous and extreme and radical and we should bar the gates and hide the women and reinforce the outer walls. How will such an approach EVER create real change? I don’t think that suffering necessarily teaches the greatest lessons, so I’m not advocating the way of the cross, here. I just think that with that as the first philosophical principle, everything that comes from that will be derived from and made of fear. I’d do a deeper backbend BUT I did gymnastics when I was a kid and messed up my low back. I’d set the foundation for Sirsasana II BUT my “core is weak”. I’d relax fully in Savasana BUT somebody in 1997 told me my pelvis is anteriorly tilted so I’ll lie here with a clenched jaw and buttocks lest I get it wrong.

Read the above sentences with AND in place of the BUTs and watch what happens. None of these concerns should prevent action; on the contrary, these concerns should inspire deeper, more profound action. Your big but is an and waiting to be realized. Maybe the assumption is that action is itself mindless, but that doesn’t really make any sense, especially in light of spiritual practice. In the ol’ BG, Krishna is clear: You can’t “not act”; “not acting” is an action, and in that context not a good one. We’ve endowed ourselves with the ability to bail, and our buts get bigger and bigger even as our butts get smaller and smaller. Build your light! Build your strengths! Teachers, if you want to inspire, remind your students to do this, and offer the same support to yourselves as you study.

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