Feedback, grace and de-snarking

Tags

Anger, Dancing, downward dog, feedback, Fibromyalgia, Grace, grattitude, Hashimoto’s, inflammation, Kinesiology, massage, Road rage, snappy, snarky, snippy, Yoga

Giant demon baby: lurking outside Melbourne's town hall

So I want to tell you about teaching last night, but I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging.

I’m not.

I don’t think these things are so much about me, as a reflection of all of the wonderful teachings I’ve been fortunate enough to receive and pass on.

But I want to share what happened because so far in my still very early-days career as a yoga teacher, I’ve noticed that feedback from students – good or bad – doesn’t come around that often.

I mean, I’ve also noticed that as a student I too, do this lack of feedback thing. I go to classes that I love but I rarely share with my teacher how much I enjoy the class. Sure, I say “thank you” and smile and come back again and again. But as for implicit feedback that lets the teacher know what I’m getting out of the class? That’s not something I do very much.

And it’s a weird thing, being a new yoga teacher like me and sharing the teachings and… not really getting any information back from students. I get it, though. I mean, when a yoga class works for you, it creates a fairly internal experience. Really, it can be hard to share when you’re in that sort of space.

Then some days out of the blue and maybe after weeks or months, feedback arrives and it’s pretty WOW.

Like last night.

With downward dog/mountain pose, I like to observe how my beginner students fare before getting into sequences that use it a lot. Because while it looks like a really simple pose, there’s quite a lot going on!

I find there’s always a huge variance in how people interpret my initial instructions. Of course, there’s a bunch of reasons for that – body awareness, stiffness, injury and so on. So I get them to try the pose on for size. Then we talk about it a bit before I get them to try it again. There’s always an improvement the second time around, so I know they hear me once they’ve started to connect with their body a little more.

One girl had what I refer to as an “oh WOW moment”. With big wide eyes, she told me that she’s never felt comfortable doing that pose before and now it’s starting to make sense to her. She was astounded, but actually the astounding thing (as I told her later) is that she’s starting to connect to her own body and to the pose.

This is just the beginning, I said, keep up this sense of feeling and finding what works in your poses!

The other piece of feedback I had was after the class, from a student who’s been coming fairly steadily for about four months now. She’s a lesson in all of the things your students never tell you, even when you ask them to, and how much there is to learn from making time to talk with your students outside of the class.

Because until last night, I didn’t know she had fibromyalgia (no mention of it on her initial registration form!). She told me that doing yoga has transformed her health, which honestly makes my heart do a little dance. Yay, yoga!

BUT she wasn’t happy with the way the last two classes had been somewhat “disrupted” by individuals asking questions that were specific to their own needs. She likes it when the classes flow and we just get into what we’re doing. Which isn’t always possible, as I explained. This is a beginner’s yoga class and sometimes the beginners are total newbies who need specific help.

So we sat down for a little chat. I talked to her about inflammation, knowing from my conversations with Rachel that fibromyalgia/ME has a LOT in common with Hashimoto’s. And we talked about how anger and its cousins: irritation; frustration; annoyance (etc), are basically inflammation – which doesn’t help her health issues. She knew exactly what I was talking about.

I also told her that knowing all of that doesn’t mean that her frustrations don’t matter. They do, but that it’s another aspect of yoga, to work on finding ways to let go of that which irritates us because ultimately, it’s better for our health.

Holding onto anger = holding on to inflammation.

The win in this situation is this: her practice is showing her how easy it is to get irritated, and that’s actually an opportunity to do something about it.

So. What am I saying here?

I guess I’m saying… okay, from time to time, get into a little conversation with your yoga teacher. If they’re caring, they’ll be open to it. Tell them if you’re enjoying their class and/or if there’s something that bothers you. They’ll be very thankful for your words, I promise.

I’m also saying this – even if you don’t have fibromyalgia/ME, Hashimoto’s or any other condition caused by inflammation in the body, letting go of all the things that irritate you means less chance of ever succumbing to chronic inflammation and therefore, dis-ease.

So: work at defusing your road rage, and/or all those little things that niggle you in life. The stuff that makes you snarky, snippy or snappy at yourself/others on your bad days.

Because my lovelies, THAT is all inflammation. And too much inflammation will make you sick.

You can try things like kinesiology, yoga, massage, dancing and other kinaesthetic-based practices that help you connect with what’s really going on with yourself.

It isn’t easy, but it’s possible, says the formerly VERY ANGRY person writing this post.

Coz life is better when we’re not snarky at a moments notice – for us and everyone around us.

~ Svasti

The skinny on Shadow Yoga – part 1

Tags

Acupuncture, Asana, churning, connectedness, massage, orgasm, physio, Prasarita Padottanasana, Prelude, Shadow Yoga, undone, Yoga, Yogasana

True story: If my shoulder could’ve had an orgasm in yoga class tonight, it WOULD’VE!!

Sure, I hear what you’re saying – that’s possibly way too much information for some of you, and certainly for the opening line of a post, right? Okay, okay! Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here.

BUT seriously folks, this injured shoulder of mine has not had the sort of release it got this evening in the entire time it’s been injured. I’ve tried all kinds of yoga and stretching of course, massage, acupuncture and physio. Truly, I’ve tried a lot of things. And tonight oh, tonight… I found the asana that makes all the difference – the rehab manoeuvre that brings incredible relief (it is of course, still mangled but this REALLY helps). And riding my bike home, so happy was I that I cried and I screamed and hence the opening line of this post! *giggles*

(The asana in question by the way, is a form of Prasarita Padottanasana where each arm clasps the opposite leg while you hold a deep forward bend. I tried to find a photo of it but couldn’t! It makes sense that it helps though: the shoulder is moving in the opposite direction than it normally does and it’s both intense and very releasing! YAY!)

So anyway, this is my next attempt to talk about Shadow Yoga, in a much less poetic, more straightforward manner. Let’s see how that goes, shall we?

I took the above photo with my mobile phone camera before going into class tonight. Just off the main drag of my lil burgh. Once through the door you head up two flights of an old wooden staircase with a large studio off to the right and a smaller one to the left. Luckily, I mostly get to work in the larger one which faces the street with its incoming tram and traffic noise. Not that it matters in that wide-open wooden floor-boarded room…

I’ve been practicing Shadow Yoga for about seven months now. It’s been a bit of a progression through the introduction course, then the introduction to Preludes, before the actual Preludes themselves (which are before the full-on asana practice!).

You see, Shadow Yoga takes quite a different view of asana than almost any other school I’ve come across. Their view is that most of the asana found in your average yoga class is actually quite advanced, because it requires a lot of knowledge about how to move the body and the joints that just isn’t taught in said average yoga class. And so a Shadow Yoga class doesn’t look much like any asana class you’ve ever been in before, and it is incredibly detailed!

There is pre-asana asana, there’s a lot of focus on breaking movements down in minute detail, placing awareness in the joints and the bones, and a huge focus on Uddiyana Bandha. And yet it is very hard work! Really hard, no matter how much yoga you’ve done before.

There’s a series of forms to learn, kind of like they have in kung fu (although the moves are yoga-ish, not kung fu-ish) and they’re very specific. Nothing it seems, is included in a Shadow Yoga form without purpose. And part of the work is unravelling what everything means to you – letting the forms wash over you and play out in your mind and body.

And how.

A couple of weeks back, I had to work out if I was going to step up into my first Prelude class or stay where I was in the Prelude Introduction series. You might think that given my years of yoga experience, I’d just naturally want to move forward, but… not necessarily. There’s so much to learn!

Because I couldn’t make up my mind, I had quite an involved phone conversation with the teacher I’d been working with up til now (moving forward would also mean a change of teacher – hello attachment issues!). And I confessed that I always find myself feeling excited but also just a little bit terrified before every class.

She asked me why – and to be honest, I hadn’t even tried to answer that one for myself before her question.

So I was surprised to find myself saying this: Because I never know how I’m going to leave each class. Sometimes I want to cry, or throw up, or I feel really energised. And sometimes I just feel completely undone and not sure what to do with myself. I don’t even know how to write about it all properly right now, and I’ve tried…

In response, she said: Well you know that Shadow Yoga is a physical form and that it also works on your organs and your energy/chi. But it ALSO works on your emotional body, and if it’s churning up so much stuff for you like that, then you know the practice is working. So it’s a good thing to feel terrified…

!!DING!! [That’s the sound of lights turning on in my squishy lil brain]

Because of what we talked about (a lot more than just the above snippet), I eventually decided that I’d move into the Prelude class. But also, I’ve found a way to start explaining Shadow Yoga to myself (and any readers of this blog) more succinctly. And while I still find each class incredibly exciting, I’m not quite as terrified any more (even if I still find myself in some state of un-done-ness at the end). It’s all good!

To summarise, and before I dig deeper into my explanation, Shadow Yoga is the nitty gritty of yogasana. It’s a very serious and intense class, and yet we often laugh. We work without yoga mats for better grip and more connectedness and yes… that’s how I’d put it… Shadow Yoga is connectedness like no other kind of asana class I’ve come across to date.

What’s in a shadow anyway? Light falls onto an object, a shadow sits behind the object or form. Hidden. But does that make it insubstantial or unimportant? I think not! A shadow is the underside, that which we don’t normally pay attention to. But if there was no light, there’d be no shadow. So it’s the other side of what’s seen and known. The less obvious, but part of the same.

[Read part 2]

~Svasti