Growing Into Myself
I ran across this quote over the weekend and it fit nicely into the theme of our Teacher Development program along with how I am feeling on my 54th birthday. For some reason I got to thinking about a training I gave over a decade ago. I remember the students asking me questions about what I thought about different poses and I could say what the Iyengar yoga school said about the pose, what John had said about it in Anusara yoga, and what they said in Bikram yoga, but I really hadn’t formed my own perspectives yet. One student pushed me a little bit and said, “Yes, but what do you think?”
I was not a new teacher at the time, but my primary teaching work had been teaching other people’s teachings— whether those teachings were poses, philosophy, or even life ideals. I have spent the last decade growing more into myself— into what I enjoy, find important, feel interested in, and clarifying what no longer holds me, my interest, and my loyalty. It was not a conscious inquiry but more of a natural process of developing my own perspectives on the path, the practice, studentship, teaching, and living.
In the teacher training we were working with a few teaching drills, none of which ever feel “authentic” but many of which can form a foundation of habits out of which authenticity can emerge and flourish. I have a ton of metaphors for this type of paradox such as “play the scales before you try to play jazz” and “learn the alphabet before writing poetry” and “walk before you run,” etc.
I don’t regret the long years of adhering to forms, learning standards, and practicing within structures. On the whole, I was more served than damaged from the way I was “brought up” in yoga. (I know not everyone feels that way about their own training background.) And, I am very grateful to have expanded beyond that upbriging to grow more into myself and my own opinions in a way that allows me to use what came before while not being limited by it.
In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer wrote “Technique is what you use until the inner teacher arrives” and Miles Davis reminds us that “It can take a long time to sound like yourself.”
So, yeah, something like that.
