Tags
breathing, Christchurch, earthquake, heels, noticing, rajas, sattva, squeaky wheel, Yoga, yoga nidra, yoga teaching
I’m kind of big on asking my yoga students to get into the “noticing” aspect of yoga: move-breathe-move-breathe-move-breathe – sit still – notice the sensations in your body, notice the activity of your mind, breathe into any tightness etc etc; it’s not what you notice so much as it is the act of noticing something, anything; you’re training your mind and body to be sensitive to what you are feeling and experiencing.
And so on.
But I noticed something myself tonight – how easy it is for me to notice the squeaky wheel instead of noticing everything/everyone equally. Huh.
By this I mean that if someone is having a hard time with the practice or their alignment or something else is glaringly in need of support, that’s what I see. It’s not that I don’t see all of my students, but I do notice that I’m paying way more attention to those who need more attention.
Which kind of makes sense in some ways, right? But not really for those students who are going along pretty well and not getting as much attention as others. Natch.
So, experienced yoga teachers out there… have you noticed this in your own teaching? And if so, how do you manage to spread your attention more evenly amongst your students?
Also, tonight I taught with a tweaky back. Went to a wedding on Sunday night and had one of my very-super-extremely-rare-evenings of wearing heels. Heels are pretty to look at – especially this dark plum coloured pair with a peep toe and a bow – but an absolute killer to wear (just ask any woman who’s willing to be honest). So most of the time I don’t wear heels at all, especially after that whole broken toe/bone graft thing (massive OUCHIES).
But for a wedding sure, I’ll get all dressed up and throw on some heels. Dang, I’ll even dance in them! Being a Greek wedding, there was even some belly-dance music playing for a while and I COULD NOT walk away while that was playing!
My back was fine yesterday but when I woke up this morning – WOW – super-tweaky! Spent as much of today as I could doing forward bends and did a mini practice before I taught my class but it’s still a little bent out of shape. A hot shower, some tiger balm (and no, it doesn’t have tiger parts in it!) and a little more stretching… I’m working on it.
The other thing I noticed in tonight’s class was my first super-duper-really-and-truly-UBER rajasic student. Someone who had trouble with the static poses, and couldn’t even lie down quietly on his back for five minutes. He also told me after the class that the music was “too quiet” for him, and that he used to practice Yoga Nidra six years ago “to Baroque music”. Riiiight… never mind that Yoga Nidra is considered to be “psychic sleep” and is meant to be done in silence. You can NOT meditate properly to Baroque or any other kind of music, not really…
So I’m hoping that the brief chat we had registered, where I suggested that a quieter practice might be a good balance for his endurance walking and high energy music. Don’t know if it got through or not, but here’s hoping.
Because too much rajas leads to instability. Just ask Christchurch in New Zealand! Rajas is the energy of movement, and hey, look… sadly they were hit with another earthquake.
Please hold the New Zealand people in your hearts and prayers. If you can donate, please give to the NZ Red Cross appeal.
And let’s all try to breathe a little more calming sattva into the world, shall we? We all really, really need it right now.
~ Svasti
P.S. Only three more days to go! 😉
