"Those who can do those who can't teach."
As I am exploring the wonders of mastery, I am seeing this quote in a whole new context. For me the asanas of yoga have never come easy, and I am always exploring new ways to bring about ease and agility which then allows me the ability to share. It has been in my lack of natural ability, my practice of exploring and being open that enable me to teach what I know.
I am an artist, a skill I am not currently practicing, yet I can remember people asking me why I did not give lesson. I was not able to because I myself did not know how I did what I did. I still look at some of my treasured pieces with a sense of awe and wonder, How did I do that? There was no way for me to teach someone how, because I just could.
Yoga I can teach, and I love sharing and guiding people into and out of asanas. I practice and explore and am always learning little things that work for me to bring me just a little closer or release a little further. I am in the process of mastering yoga.
What I love about the idea of mastery is there is no goal, it is a process that has no end. I am and will always be in the process of mastering yoga, all 8 limbs of it! It does not come easy to me, but that is OK, as it does not come easy to many people. It is thru my struggles my many lessons, that I am able to encourage others to explore and find their own ease.
Teaching yoga is like teaching someone how to be a parent, you can only share what works and does not work for you.
As my ankle heals, I am having to rely on my learned ability in my body as I continue to teach my classes. I thrive on watching my students succeed and often, surpass my ability. I have not been one to see this as a threat and thankfully so because when I return to my physical practice I will have to be OK taking a few steps back.
I will get to rediscover Aha moments, my peaks and plateaus, with a new sense of wonder and awe as I have a new appreciation for mobility, agility, just walking steady on two feet. As I heal, I am enjoying the new awareness as well as my ability now to simply get a drink of water safely from the sink to my chair. I am adapting, evolving, and that is what my practice will do. I will adapt and slowly it will evolve and it will be thru this experience I will have more lessons to share.
My language is getting clearer all tho we do giggle a little more in class as I I struggle at times to put into words where it is I am directing their bodies to go. I say right but mean left and have found if I stand in behind them it is easier for me then if I stand in front. I shared this with one of my teachers and she said she had a visual. A canoe is typically guided and steered from behind while the passenger up front is responsible for fine tuning and correcting. The studio is the canoe and as I am guiding from the back, each student is responsible for making any final adjustments to direct the asana in the direction it needs to go for them at that moment.. Team work! Teaching from the back has a whole new feel for me, and I actually like it, that is until I look at the class in the mirror and once again my left right get messed up.
So we laugh and move on.
See YOU, on the mat!