On Teaching Teachers

Hey, yoga teachers!  Here's a scenario:  You're teaching a class.  A fellow teacher, who teaches at the very same studio, attends your class.  He or she sets up in the front row.  He or she even makes a request before class begins.  Wishing to be accommodating, you alter your sequence plan to work the pose into your class so that your fellow teacher can get the practice he or she needs.  No problem.

A few minutes into class, you notice that this teacher/student is modifying every pose.  No, not modifying -- alternating.  This person is substituting different poses for the poses you are teaching.  In fact, as you go on, you notice he or she is doing a completely different practice altogether, summarily ignoring your instruction.  Did I mention he/she is in the front row for all of your students to see, students who are aware that this person in the front row ignoring the teacher is also a teacher, a clear and living example?  Not cool.

As a teacher, I emphasize to all my students in one way or another that their practice is always their own.  I make it clear that they may modify in whatever way they need to or take rest at any time and rejoin the class when ready.  I mean these things when I say them.  It is my belief that the progress of any serious student should lead them beyond their teacher to find that the only true teacher is the practice itself.  I realize that this may not be good for business, but since I'm not exactly rolling in the dough as it is, I don't really care.  It's the truth.

As a student, when I attend classes, and especially when I attend classes in studios where I also teach, I try to give the teacher my utmost attention and respect.  Why?  Not only because I am there to learn and perhaps experience the practice in a different way, but also because I know that I am a beacon.  Students will look to me, as a YOGA TEACHER in the FRONT ROW, as an example, both in terms of behavior and practice.  I know that it can be difficult, when one has an established personal practice, to let go of our attachment to the way it has to be, to surrender the precious time that we have to nourish ourselves to the hands of a teacher and colleague who may or may not interpret the practice of asana in the same way.  But if we refuse to soften our grasp on the form of our practice, what's the point of attending a class in the first place?  For that matter, what is the point of the practice at all if we are not receptive to experience?

I do not wish to shame anyone and I don't feel personally injured by this teacher's actions.  At the time, I found the display more amusing than aggravating and I absolutely respect this person's prerogative to serve their own needs, but the experience stuck in my side all week and came up this morning during meditation.  My ego wants to interpret this teacher's actions as an insult.  It wants to validate itself with misery.  But I choose to step back and let the ego throw it's little fit, kicking and screaming on the floor in an empty room.  Let the needy cries of the small-self fall on deaf ears.  I simply proffer the questions above for whomever it may concern in hopes that we may all take one step further along the path.