...or Yoga for that matter. (
WARNING: This is going to be a long post).
I have been trying to think of a way to write about this in an enlightened manner – without coming across as negative. After much soul-searching on the matter, I am not sure if that is possible.
It is not so much Yoga that I am negative about. It is the way it seems to be practiced in this country, the politics surrounding it and the way it’s become a multi-million (possibly billion)-dollar industry and how can anything that big stay pure. The answer, it would seem, is that it can’t.
This is a commentary and purely my opinion and the opinions reflected on my blog are always mine – no one is holding a gun to my head, there is no higher source here than me….
That being said...
I came to Yoga almost as a fluke – I had been studying the spiritual, philosophical and yes the ‘Tantric’ aspect of it since the tender age of 17 years. I was immersed in books and reading – not the physical practice but things like the ‘ideals’ of Yoga (Yoga’s ‘romantic’ side).
Then when I was pregnant with my second child, I had a midwife from India – her name was Gita – she noticed that with my first labour and delivery I had been struggling for 48 hours (and ladies it was a dry labour!). She told me that I needed to learn how to relax and she recommended Yoga. Well that day, after putting my daughter on the bus to ship her off to kindergarten, I came back in the house (we had been watching Sesame Street) and there was a Yoga program beginning on my PBS station (out of Houston, TX) – I figured it was an omen and I have been practicing Hatha Yoga ever since…
4 years ago I decided I wanted to give something back – I wanted to teach others Yoga. I looked around for a school. I was shocked at how much it cost to study – most schools wanted $3,000.00 or more. Up front - Or with at least half down. Not having the money I decided to look some more and finally came across the Yoga school in Hudson, Ohio – it was a pay-as-you-go program and, as I was to learn, one of the best things that was ever going to happen to me. They are wonderful, incredible and I learned so very much about Yoga - I actually am certified now in Raja Yoga (to me this means the whole enchilada *laughs*)...
I jumped in full throttle. It was a bit embarrassing my first session because when I was asked about my Yoga experience which had mainly been the PBS shows (which I did every day for a decade), tons of books and a class here and there, my teachers were shocked to hear I had not regularly taken classes. In fact the senior teacher introduced me to the group by saying ‘this is C – she’s been practicing Yoga in a vacuum for 12 years’. I was mortified. I think he was skeptical of my commitment and my experience but after taking his classes he seemed to soften towards me. So there I was, learning how to be a Yoga teacher. I attended classes 2 times and week and every Sunday for 2 years. I had to read about 20 books, I had to study anatomy, physiology, and psychology of Yoga, the ethics of Yoga, the spiritual history and also take 30 hours of elective classes with another teacher. To me, to this day my Yoga ‘education’ continues. (As an aside – not to take away from this experience; the reason why my ex claims he felt neglected was because of the time I devoted to becoming a teacher).
As things progressed, there was an opportunity to participate and put my knowledge to good use at the place where I work. We as employees were offered the opportunity to use our skills in the alternative/complimentary healing techniques to begin a department that would be devoted to such practices. Again I felt this was something I could not pass up – a chance to change the direction of medical practice – to use ancient healing techniques that would help up to be on the cutting edge.
At the time I was still a student-teacher and I let my colleagues know about this – I also told them I had been studying Yoga for 13 years by that point. (Which I had on my own) – I also said I was in a teacher-training programme. We had our fist meeting – I was thrilled that we had 20 people at the table for this meeting. We had people from various backgrounds. The tow I was most impressed with were actually from India (one of them had been studying and teaching Yoga for 30 years). This was great! And then it happened. A nurse opened her mouth and in a very nasty manner she asked everyone for their credentials – their ‘piece of paper) – so she could see whether or not they were ‘Certified’ by the Yoga Alliance. Well up until this point I had not heard of the Yoga Alliance. I have to tell you though, I did not like her attitude. She was rude, mean and I knew I’d never take a Yoga class with her...
The older Indian gentleman softly cleared his throat and said ‘in India we don’t use certificates like that – I have been teaching Yoga for 30 years and I don’t have a piece of paper that say I can teach Yoga.’ – the nurse was furious. The meeting was useless. There seemed to be no way to agree that any of us could or should teach and if so, how we would do that. At that time our target consumer was the employees.
After a couple of weeks I was called on to speak to the head of this program. He is a wonderful man, and a brilliant doctor. He wanted to know if I would teach the Yoga class to the employees. He said no one else seemed interested. He also told me for the time being I needed to not get paid to do this – in other words we were offering the classes for free. I felt honoured and I also felt in the interest of furthering the cause I should do this. I told the doctor that I was not completely done with my training but he told me that was fine, and that he trusted me.
They put out ads, they ran this on the company’s internal intra-net and they put my pager out there for info on the classes. For one week I was getting paged 24/7. I received about 100 calls – I was totally inundated. I felt that maybe half of the people would show.
The day came to teach – I was a nervous wreck. I was given a space in a lobby I was not thrilled – I wanted a private room – but I figured we would see what happened. 70 people showed up for the class.
70 PEOPLE! I had tears in my eyes – not only out of joy but because I realised how stressed out they must be to be there wanting me to show them Yoga….
After that I had 2 classes per week. I was given a beautiful room where I could play music, turn down the lights and we had a garden to look out on as we practiced. I had a blast. For one entire year I offered the classes for free. Then I began to get burned out. One of my teachers suggested it was time to get paid to teach. He said even in India – gurus are given something – food, clothing etc. He said my karma would get all out of whack if I did not get compensation. He knew I loved my students (I did indeed) – but he said it was time.
And so bravely – I asked to meet with the ‘powers that be’. I put together a presentation of data I collected (I made all my students take a survey of my class) – I put together information on how the classes were helping the employees and how Yoga helps people in general. All I really wanted was $25.00/class to teach. The doctors did agree with me – however they wanted to charge the employees instead of just paying me $25 to teach a class. I would have to ask my students for $5.00/class and then take the $25.00 and turn the rest over to the department. At the time this happened I had 40 students spread over 2 classes. When we asked the students to pay –I lost almost all of them. Seriously. I was really frustrated.
So we decided to take the summer off and start again in the fall – this time the classes would be advertised as a 6-week course for $25.00 (which is a savings of $5.00). I began again to get tons of phone calls. People were thrilled and we had to turn some of them away. The classes were a success. For two years we went on like this and eventually I even got a raise – I made 60% of the take. It was nice. I had repeat students. It was really flowing – sure we hit snags here and there but it was great.
Then last summer – I took some time off because my son needed surgery. As the summer drew to a close I got in touch with the people in the now Center for Integrative Medicine. I was excited to begin another season of teaching. I had some great ideas so we could expand the practice. I kept getting the runaround though about setting up. SO finally I asked for an ‘audience’ with the woman running the program. We met – she told me things right now were in flux and she was going on to other things…in other words she was no longer working with the Yoga programmed. I was basically a Yoga teacher without a country if you will. My students began to get in touch, anxious to start up again – I told them things were up in the air….
Not long after this I was told there was a new person in charge of the Center. I also had recently met the new medical director of the Center – she was a joy to be around and no typical ‘white coat’. She in turn wrote to the new doctor who was overseeing everything asking when we could start up again. The e-mail he wrote back was pretty clear. ‘At this time, we are no longer pursuing offering Yoga classes to the employees…if and when we decide to re-visit this matter, we will contact you.’ – it was also hinted that I had to be a nurse to teach Yoga….um OK. Now while I have o problem with nurses BECOMING Yoga teachers – there is a certain training involved in being a Yoga teacher (see below for further comments on this) – this also ‘pissed’ me off because here I had been teaching for 3 friggin’ years and not one person said I ever had to be a nurse…
I was devastated and that’s an understatement. I was getting calls daily about re-starting the program and I didn’t know what to say. Nor did I know how to hide my frustration. Finally I decided to write to the students to let them know what happened. Immediately I was being written to by people who ‘knew’ the man who had decided to not ‘re-visit’ the classes – they told me I had better rescind what I said – I refused. Nothing happened. But still we had no classes.
I began teaching at the fitness center where I work and during the fall/winter months we had some good attendance – but it was not the same as the previous classes. My students and total strangers still were trying to get the classes re-instated. In January of this year (2005) – we were asked to come up with ideas to help promote health and wellness amongst the employees. These ‘ideas’ were something that everyone participated in for various issues here at work. There was an outpouring of interest in getting the Yoga class together. In fact I received call asking if I would be interested in starting again. I of course said yes. Once again the program was shot down….because as they put it to all of us. This idea has been implemented (it’s kind of like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing – there’s a lot of that in a place this big).
So here I am...
In the meantime I teach at the fitness center. I teach semi-private lessons and I sub here and there for one of my friends. Recently by the grace of God, I was given the opportunity to start my own Yoga ‘studio’ and so now I am in my very own private practice. For this I am thrilled. But I can not help but be upset by how Yoga was treated here.
**************
Over the years as I have been practicing and teaching Yoga, I have been slowly finding out about how Yoga is viewed not just by the medical profession (as quackery without double-blind-randomised studies to prove it has any basis in science or can help patients – yes Doctor, nevermind the
FACT that the
SCIENCE of Yoga is over 5,000 years old and there HAVE been studies in India and Great Britain (that actually made the medical journals over there – but whatever...)
Yoga is BIG money here in the states. Yoga has become corrupt. One of the wisest comments I ever heard from my senior teacher was ‘Don’t get caught up in the Guru trap’ – because that’s what happens to these big-name teachers like – Rodney Yee, Amrit Desai, etc. Also there is a huge brouhaha over being ‘registered’ with the Yoga Alliance. Now, I do not take issue with Yoga being regulated; early on in my search for a Yoga community – which by the way is a really rich and varied community – in reading msg boards, talking with other teachers, being around others with an alternative practice background, and people seemed to come down on two different sides. Either for the Yoga Alliance or against it - it was like you'd be asked 'where did YOU get certified from' - almost catty - the piece of paper mattered more than your ability, (and if you don't think there is competition and in-fighting in the Yoga community, think again.) What I saw increasingly was that the Yoga Alliance wanted money for you to be ‘registered’ with them and supposedly they set out the ‘standards’ by which Yoga schools would be granted a certain status and therefore be able to claim that their students met the Yoga Alliance’s requirements. I want to say right here and now they are good requirements. They are thorough. Here is my problem – no one acknowledges the Yoga Alliance – in other words no one is governing them (like the state or the feds). Here’s another issue I have; There are Yoga teachers (some of them are actually friends of mine) – that have had absolutely
NO FORMAL TRAINING. They read some books or they went for a 1 or 2 weekend training session and all of a sudden THEY are Yoga teachers. I totally am against this. Totally. As far as I am concerned when you decide to do this it should be a life-long learning experience (at the very least a couple of years –
NOT A WEEKEND THING! ).
So now there is a brouhaha over the State of New York (Albany, NY to be exact) wanting Yoga teachers to be registered with the state. Everyone is up in arms about it. Here’s my two cents (for what it’s worth): If we don’t want the state regulating Yoga then we as the Yoga community need to step up to the plate and regulate ourselves. And that means standards that are the same, all the way across the board. Licensing, re-testing. A sort of ‘state boards’ if you will. We need to all carry liability insurance and we need to all be safe in our practices.
Here’s wherein lies the rub – Yoga is a SUBJECTIVE experience. I don’t care how educated a teacher is - either you like them or you don’t. Also there are so many different TYPES of Yoga being practiced out there – how are we going to find a standard that fits all the way across the board. I mean it’s practically like specialized medicine. (Shit – as far as *I* am concerned it *IS* specialized medicine)...
So there trouble in paradise and I think we all need to get our acts together – otherwise the government has every right to look into what we are doing – especially when there is the potential to cause harm to our students. I know *I* want to go to a teacher that knows what they are doing...
Feel free to comment – I know this has been long winded.
Thanks as always for listening
Namaste
Aum Shanti, Shanti, Shanti
