Community Centre

I had a dream that all my old friends who are also yoga teachers who I rarely see anymore since we are so incredibly busy were hanging out doing karaoke and dancing 90s style to Michael Jackson’s “Remember The Time”. It was awesome. Then when I woke up I was a bit sad because in addition to the usual attrition of babies and homes, it seems that yoga in Vancouver itself has experienced schisms…that is, that we have broken along tribal lines and camps, and never again the twain shall meet.

Or, I ruminated as I had the morning coffee-and-video-game-wakeup [Madden NFL '11] perhaps we have simply exploded; grown so fast that, like a Big Bang, what once was close and nestly is now at the wild periphery. Either we pay lip service to the idea that more people should do yoga or we actually believe it: either way, our dharma as teachers is to continually grow and expand, and that will necessarily mean abandoning that closeness.

And students notice it too, and nobody seems to know why it happens: where is the Old Group, they say? Why all the politics, why the camps and militant splinter factions? Why is that every person I used to see weekly without fail at our favourite teachers’ class is now off doing Core Bootcamp on the Northshore?

Okay, so after chewing on this for a while I have a bunch of different answers and they are as follows:

• Your friend practices on the Northshore now because she CAN. Simply by virtue of opening new studios all over the place, both YYoga and otherwise, people can fit classes more easily into their schedule and they don’t need to travel to the downtown meccas to do it.
• Your friend practices on the Northshore because now that her two kids are of school age, she has to, or she doesn’t practice at all [related to #1 but more to do with time passing and demographic priorities shifting, dig?]
• 30% of the Old Group, as the Old Group is wont to do, is getting really good at yoga asana and study, and they have their voice to share…meaning, they’re teachers now, and to get the gigs they need to live they have to take on classes that conflict with The Class You Used To Take Together. Or,
• heck, they’re SUBBING T.C.Y.U.T.T.T, which is fine except you are used to them being *beside* you, not *in front* of you, and something’s different and you don’t know what it is…you support them doing what they love, but their message is not The Old message
• Your old teachers keep learning, growing and changing, too. Their messages change. They go through stuff in their personal life that is either buried beneath the performative surface or expounded upon at length, depending on what kind of cat they are…and depending on what kind of cat YOU are, you can either feel it percolating or hear it tendentiously explained, which will either alarm or bore you, or both. After all, if THIS person can’t even keep their act together, you wonder, what am I doing here? Why is it not simply fun and new like it was back in the Old Days?
• Because you’re also in The Old Group, you’re getting really good at yoga asana and study, too. You hear stuff you didn’t hear before. Part of what was just the trombone noise of teachers’ dharma talks, when most of your head was populated by worry and static, is getting more clear, and you either don’t agree with some of what they say, or don’t find yourself moving forward the way you used to back in the day.

These last two are related to the rate at which humans learn. Your learning curve in yoga asana is at first quite steep and you’ll get adept quite fast if your teachers are any good at all [at this stage of the game in 2010, almost all of them are]. However, at a certain point that huge rate of change slows, and you’re never going to have that huge drama from when you started, when EVERY DAY had a “first” of some kind in it. Sorry, there are just not that many new yoga poses. They’re also connected to what I suspect is a universal human need to see The Teacher as “other”: radiating confidence and perfection from some sort of Elysian yoga-teacher-base-camp, where we all sit around tending our organic orchids and drinking soma and meditating, instead of answering text messages and changing diapers and having the same argument with our parents that we did back in 1994. When you first meet your teacher, the vibration they hold is indescribably bright and inspiring, because they’ve done that work. What they’re talking about in class has NO relationship to your day-to-day of limiting beliefs, anxieties, control and conflict. It’s disheartening to hear or see that they have the same conflicts and anxieties, either camouflaged better, or repressed. As soon as that comes out, the romance ends and you’re left with the aftermath…do I go hunting for that “hit” of romantic radiance again? So a useful contemplation might be: Is it important to me that my yoga teacher be perfect, and in what ways? There are schools of spiritual discipline where perfection is a priority, and you may find yourself moving more in the desired direction studying them. Caveat: They may also expect YOU to be perfect.

I’ve romanticized, and then been disappointed in, every peer group I’ve had since I was in Grade 9. I was so excited to move to Toronto after hearing about all the indie-rock venues there on CFNY back in high school. When I moved there and actually *played* at the Horseshoe, or the El Mocambo, I had that Groucho-Marx moment of wondering if I really wanted to be a part of any club that would have me as a member. I mean, if I could do it, how amazing were these places anyway? So a healthy dose of low-self-esteem, combined with some unexplored post-adolescent hero-worship: nothing extraordinary here, but I’ve certainly transferred that to my yoga communities along the way. As I grow inexorably older I realize: any judgements I have of my teachers must necessarily fall on me, too. This helps me stay spacious, although it’s not always easy, especially when I hear some gossip or other come down the pipe…it always hurts my heart at first, but then I realize: we are humans in this, first and foremost, and I have never wished to have my practice eclipse that human-ness.

Okay, so, if you’re ever feeling disenchanted with your space, your teachers, your yoga buddies, here are a couple of tricks you can use, and I’m just making these names and concepts up on the spot as I go, heh heh:

1. Open to Grace and Set Your Foundation. You’ve probably done so many Down Dogs that you forget what it was like to do one for the first time. You’ve probably done so many Virabhadrasana IIs that you know very well where your feet should be placed. Knowledge is powerful and you’ve went to a lot of trouble to accumulate it…and it also removes space for more learning and a richer experience. When you come to any class, listen to the teaching. Even if it goes against something you’ve already heard before, or even something that you are very sure of, be open to the fresh experience being offered. If you hear a new cue, try it. If this seems boring and tedious to you, check yourself before you wreck yourself…this is what your teachers told you back when you started out, so the exhilaration of the steep learning curve is a DIRECT FUNCTION of being open. If you simply cannot execute what is being offered because of physical pain or a fundamental ethical rift, rest, or simply sit in meditation. Please do not be the douchecornet who insists on doing it their way in spite of instruction, that’s as rude as bringing a Big Mac to a dinner party. When you’re done the class and you are sure that you never want to return, then don’t [although I recommend not basing an entire path on one class, but I know we're very busy and you gotta work with the information you have].

2. Muscular Energy. If you want your friends to come to a yoga class with you, text them and let them know. Hug in. Be a centre for your community. Sure, there was a time when you knew you’d see everybody on Sundays at 4 or whatever…but that was because there was only 1 or 2 yoga classes in the whole city at that time. Those days are now over, which is sort of sad but mostly iNcReDiBle. How many more people enjoy the fruits of practice now than when you started? Do you know that your presence as a continuing student is part of why they love what they do? That’s a privilege and also a responsibility. And it’s fun to make sure your yoga remains social and enthusiastic…a lot of that energy takes more precedence than the teacher, the poses, the music or the philosophical material.

3. Inner Spiral. Expand. Bring your siblings, coworkers, parents, children, people who are legendary yoga hataz, people who you notice gazing sidelong and wistfully at your mat bag when you’re at work. Let your vision be refreshed by their experience of doing stuff for the first time. Let their admiration of your efforts encourage you to stay on your path, whatever that might be. Go with your pregnant buddy to a pre-natal class. Hell, go with your fratboy sales staff to a CrossFit workout. Get a membership at Harbour Dance.

4. Outer Spiral. Seal in your energy and recommit. While I rarely regret taking any type of class, from the most hallucination-inducing Bikram’s class to a narcoleptic gentle Hatha, you are not going to have your mind blown every single time. Grow up and get used to it, and give yourself an opportunity to contemplate or journal what styles and methods have really worked for you, why it might be time for a change, why you started practicing and why you practice now…and if they’re any different. Teachers, you have an opinion about why you’re teaching what you’re teaching…if you don’t have an opinion about any particular action or sequence, let the students have that space, but if you DO, stand in that strongly and encourage all the energy of the classroom to coalesce around that. Hold the students accountable to reflect the way that they hold you accountable.

5. Organic Energy. When you feel like you have more in you than any of your teachers are giving you, guess what: you’re full: time for an upload. Time to teach.

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