I love the way that teaching redeems my many mistakes, turning them into touchstones for compassion, empathy, and connection. On the path of teaching, so little is wasted because, regardless of the subject I teach, I am teaching people. Every human experience I have deepens my understanding and weaves me that much more surely into the fabric of our shared human condition.

The only way I have been able to teach through it all is by relying on the basic skills of teaching— sane sequences, simple themes, clear instructions, active commands, observable actions, etc. I can teach a solid class feeling happy, sad, scared, or mad. I can “verb your body part in a direction” in a heart-breaking election, a pandemic, a death in the family, with no money in the bank, and with a marriage on the rocks. Of course, I prefer teaching when I feel happy, inspired, in touch with my beauty, and with hope for humanity in my heart, but I do not require any of those things to deliver a solid class. Notice I am saying solid class, not the “best class ever” or the “most inspirational class ever” or any such thing. If I keep my skills up, I default to decent under pressure— whether that pressure is my internal state, the state of the world, a personal crisis or a political one.

My point here is that I would rather be a rabbi than a priest when it comes to teaching yoga. I would rather take the seat of the teacher as a learned member of the community than as an intermediary for God. I would rather find the confidence that comes from belonging to my community in a shared process of awakening than what might exist in standing above, outside, or beyond others in my specialness. Each one of us is on a unique life journey; each one of us is special in our own ways. Each one of us is seated at God’s right hand because each of us is sitting down next to ourselves, the teachings, and one another in the shared intention to move toward greater expansion. And what else is God other than the power that binds all this together in Love?

The best part of this series is that revisiting some very basic principles of teaching under the guise of “Advice to New Teachers” has reminded me to take everything down a notch, simplify, relax, and enjoy myself. I am currently in a big personal asana learning curve right and sometimes that means my offering isn’t simple enough, not distilled enough yet to be delivered succinctly. But well, its an ebb and flow and I am being nice to myself about it. Today, when Michelle’s essay reminded me of my own words from almost a decade ago I thought to myself, “Ooooh.. good one…. I should probably take my own advice!”

I have students with far more anatomical knowledge than I do, with psychology backgrounds that exceed my own, who are more deeply steeped in philosophical studies than I am, and who are more established in meditative practices than me. I am rarely the strongest or the most bendable person in the room. And yet, enough people like to practice and learn with me that I’ve managed to stay the course as a yoga teacher. I used to think I had to be “the best” to be a good teacher and that not knowing or being able to do everything would compromise people’s confidence in me. Turns out, there is more to the story of teaching than being a know-it-all.

So, on the days we are inspired, creative, and fresh as a teacher, great. If we are lucky enough to be someone for whom that state arises frequently, we should count our lucky stars. Most of us are going to teach on good days and bad days. If we walk the lifetime path of teaching, we will teach through heart-break and joy, through betrayal and reconciliation. We will fall from grace and we will be redeemed. We will teach through long stretches of burnout that feel as barren as the desert and we will be present for others in moments of exaltation where the shared, living Presence in class has us all knocking on heaven’s door.

We will teach through it all.

So, while some people are better prepared and more mature than others when they get started teaching, he reminded me that teaching is a path of direct experience. Everyone starts too soon.

I also like to think of yoga asana as an experiment, rather than a protocol of promises and guarantees. Some experiments fail. Others produce surprising results. Some experiments confirm the hypothesis they began with, while others don’t. I figure the evidence of the efficacy of my personal experiment in yoga isn’t really the poses anyway, it is about a movement toward, and expression of, Love. And if you know me, you know that on any given day, there is evidence to suggest my experiment is not going well. I am far from perfect with plenty of rough edges that need significant smoothing out. Of course, I am also playing a long game and so for all the refining left to do, I am decidedly not the creature who first went into the lab. For that reason, if no other, I stay in the lab and remain, dare I say, somewhat hopeful.

New Blog Entry is posted- "Growth is not easy, nor is it a constant upward movement of “every day in every way I am getting better,” no matter what the new-age aphorisms promise. Seems to me that much of the path involves staying in place through those times when repetition is marked by a mood of dull-sameness until that very state becomes the fertile soil in which the seeds of inspiration and expanded understanding grow."

Reorder emerges when fundamentalism has been questioned, the pink cloud has burst, the doubts have been examined, the good and the bad is integrated, and a new relationship to the path emerges organically. Like spring flowers that grow according to a timetable that can not be forced, I have yet to find a way to accelerate my own process beyond its intrinsically determined pace.

Okay, to be clear, I am not saying the bumps and bruises I got in my childhood equate to the complexity of issues facing trans youth today as states like Arkansas pass legislation to deny medical care to transgender youth or South Dakota where there is a bill to ban transgender girls from competing sports that match their gender identity. I am saying that the gender binary has been too small for the full range of human experience and expression for as long as I can remember and well before that, if we are brave enough to take the evidence to heart.

I have never been a person for whom the advice “take it to the mat” or “keep sitting” or even “practice and all is coming” was sufficient. Maybe I am a tough case, but I have needed a whole lot more than the poses to sort through my particular complexities over the years.

I am willing to consider aging with grace, however. The Christian faith of my childhood taught that grace is the mercy of God. Later my yogic studies defined grace as the revelatory power of Supreme Consciousness. I experience grace as the merciful, yet not-always-easy-or-pleasant impulse of Reality to reveal itself to me in and through life as it is. Another way we might say it is that, Reality always wins. In terms of aging, it’s happening whether I like it or not and no one gets out alive. Not at the level of the body, that is.

New Blog Entry is Posted- "The thing is, having it all together is a myth and does very little to connect me with my own humanity or to you in yours. Being a compassionate mess, on the other hand, goes a long way to breaking down the walls of projection, suspicion, and competition that separate me from myself, from you, and from life as it is."

If every time I recall Locket, I put her leash on her, give her a bath, clip her toenails, put her in her crate, or in some way stop her fun, what incentive does she have to return to me? Over time, she will learn that coming when called stops her fun and she will make the well-informed choice to revel in her freedom while she has it. In the same way, when my practice is too austere, too strangled by notions of “good/right” and “bad/wrong” or motivated by the fear of what will happen if I don’t do it, I will find myself less interested in practicing because the freedom of doing my own thing will be more enticing that the restrictions I have imposed on myself.

Of course, all of these ideas are easier said than done. After all, giving a dog a treat is simpler than offering ourselves compassion in the midst of a cycle of self-criticism or in a moment of self-betrayal. Sometimes the best we can do to put the difficulty behind us is go to bed so we can wake up another day and try again. After all, there are no magic formula or guarantees.

At any rate, wherever we find ourselves on the pathways of our aims, may each of us find small moments to celebrate and discover the process of loving just a bit more fully to be its own tasty treat.

Next, in any given moment, I have to get my dog’s attention. Years ago, during an agility lesson with Locket, she was roaming around the ring sniffing and doing her own thing. Our trainer looked at me and said, “What you have is a disinterested dog. You have to find a way to be more interesting than that dirt she is sniffing.” (Note to self: be more interesting than dirt, be sexier than a squirrel, become more thrilling than barking at other dogs.) As we all know, sometimes getting to our mats, to the cushion, or even to the kitchen to make a wholesome meal is not at all as interesting as sniffing around Facebook, not as sexy as it seems on Instagram, nor is it as initially exciting as barking at others.

Sometimes I miss my people with a feeling that can best be described as a tender ache. From the the sound of ujayi breath in a practice hall to the warm embrace of a friend’s arms around me, from smiling at a stranger to lounging on the couch with a friend and a cup of tea, my increasingly isolated life offers endless reminders of what has been lost— or put on hold— in the pandemic. So there is that.

In addition to more open quads or a moveable thoracic spine, we are investing in the dynamic unfolding of a deepened relationship with ourselves, of a strengthened bond with ourselves as a good guardian, and in an ongoing choice to practice because we have become increasing valuable to ourselves over time.

After a point, however, the dominance model— be it authoritarian teachers, high-demand communities, or internalized self-imposed strictures— was decidedly not useful for me and, like a dog who is made to submit becomes anxious over time, I found less joy, more pressure, and a need to rebel from what had previously felt like a saving grace.