Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Boredom and its evil twin....restlessness

Yeah...I am bored and/or restless - and perhaps it's because of some of the things I am getting ready to get involved with. I’ve got a bad case of cabin fever and really just want spring to break so I can go walk in the park, by the beach, or hike through the woods – I want to get back to nature...

Perhaps it’s just a general dis-ease with things, perhaps it’s my frustration over things I can’t control rearing its ugly head again (yet another one of my flaws as a non-super-hero-type-person).

A couple of Yoga things involving both of my current classes pushed my buttons yesterday...

I sent out an e-mail to both my Monday night group and my Wednesday night group as a reminder about there respective classes. When we began the Wednesday night group, I did it as a favour to one of the girls here at work – I get $5/head (this is incredibly cheap for a Yoga class and no, it’s not about the money but it’s still less than half of what a LOT of Yoga studios charge in fact in some cases it’s 1/3 of what they charge). I had a group I was e-mailing – a couple of the ladies only showed up one time to the class. So I took them off the e-mail (I have been chastised in the past for sending out e-mails to people when they are no longer interested in the classes) – I immediately get this snotty letter from the person who made arrangements for the room asking me to put the name of one particular woman back on the e-mail. I was a bit taken aback by her request. I explained my reason for removing her from the e-mail and I asked her if she felt the student was really interested; her reply: ‘Well she came to the first class, remember???? *I* was there!!!’

Uhm, OK, coming to one class out of 6 does not make you interested in coming to class (no, I did not tell this to my frantic student) – instead I told her to either find out if the girl was indeed interested and have her come to class or have her contact me – I also told her I would put this person back on the e-mail. I decided to take the matter into my own hands after thinking about it a bit and wrote the ‘student’ myself – she did tell me she’d be interested in coming and thought class was cancelled due to me having to have surgery – I had never said any such thing – I DID write to all of my students to let them know that from the dates of 2/20 until the beginning of March we would not be having classes – so I don’t know what made this person think we did not have the already scheduled and confirmed past 5 weeks of classes – I mean whatever let’s see if she shows up this week.

Then my Monday night class (the one with Sniffles)- is one of may favourite groups we have a lot of fun and the students are pretty nice – I had one late-comer and she has this ‘mind set’ about Yoga - she seems like a throwback from the Grateful Dead days – I mean she seems like an old dead head. The first time she ever showed for class after talking to me in depth about what to bring and what to wear – she showed up in street clothes and brought along a garbage bag to use as a Yoga mat – if you have ever practiced Yoga you know that you should use a regular Yoga mat – barring that you should use a beach towel – barring that you can just be on the floor (we have non-skid indoor/outdoor type of carpet in the room)- it's for safety reason - you don't want to slip while your feet are spead 4 to 5 feet apart - you could pull a groin muscle and that hurts like hell – so I asked her to put away the garbage bag and just use the floor and to bring a towel/matt next time. She refused and used the garbage bag – the second time she came she used her winter coat - again it was made out of a slippery material – and AGAIN this is a really DANGEROUS thing to do and I don’t know how to deal with students who blatantly refuse to listen to me in class – so I wrote her a note in private e-mail and I told her that I was not trying to be authoritative but I was concerned in a very real way for her safety and if she needed a mat I’d be happy to bring an extra (the set back to doing classes where I work is that I don’t have my *own* Yoga space and I have no place to store mats for students – I do bring neckties and straps for them but I figure if someone has a beach towel they should be ok to bring it to class...I mean homw much space does a folded beach towel take up? Have you seen the size of purses that some women carry?

She wrote me back and told me she’d bring a matt next time. So last night she came with a mat and dressed all in white; she's got flowing long grey hair – I am telling you I can smell incense and other substances and see the hippies from Haight-Ashbury district every time I see this woman – I mean it’s cool and all but a bit dated – still OK just somewhat disconcerting at times. Her personality is a bit of a challenge as well - I know ALL teachers go through this – no matter what the subject matter – it’s all a matter of ego and making sure you’re not on some power trip – my main concern is (and always will be) the safety of my students.

So last night was the night I was introducing Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) – I walked them though it by showing them me doing perfomring the postures – explaining as I went along and then we all began very slowly – I don’t rush students through this flow series of movements, however I believe that you should tackle it all at once not in bits and pieces. I could see and hear that this woman was struggling – but a lot of students do struggle with these poses. So we went through it once and then began again – with each consecutive pose, she was struggling more and more – I always help my students when I see them having a hard time – I will go to them and adjust them and talk to them. So I went over by her and I was giving her some one-on-one time and giving her variations so that she did not have to do the poses the same way as everyone else – there are variations to doing the Sun Salutation for beginners. She waved me off saying ‘I just need to practice more’ – even the other students were encouraging her and perhaps it was a matter of her being a bit embarrassed and not wanting to acknowledge she was having problems so I stepped aside and got back in front of the class and reminded everyone again that it’s not about competition or what other people are capable of - that the mat is a mirror and you need to honour your own body’s limitations and not be judgmental towards yourself. I wanted to go through one more set but decided against it and moved onto other asanas. I feel that the best way to learn from a teacher in these situations is to deal with the issues right then and there – let the teacher guide you but some people are very resistant to that and they learn differently than other people – my main worry was that this woman would harm herself by trying to accomplish something that would be too taxing on her body – worse yet – that she’d beat herself up over the inability to do such poses – and that’s not a good thing either. I want all my students to be comfortable and feel like they can work on the same asanas as anyone else with variation or using props – but of course they have to be open to it too – dealing with stubborn people isn’t my strong suit – I know my own teachers must get frustrated with students (I am sure they got frustrated with me too) – it’s difficult at times...

We ended the class on a good note and believe it or not Sniffles came up to me to talk after class and we had a really nice conversation and she may have possibly saved me from having to talk with the other lady (not that I would not have but she has such a negative affect and I just didn’t feel like dealing with it – I get really tired at times from teaching – those end up being 12 hour days for me) – today though, I wrote to her and told her I hoped she was doing OK today and that if she had any questions or wanted to discuss the poses or what we could do to make her more comfortable to feel free to call or write to me anytime.

It’s really amazing that I went from hardly anything with Yoga to now not knowing how I am going to handle all the classes they want to do now. I get a feeling that down the road this may turn into a full time position (pun intended) and that my dream of bringing Yoga to a lot of people through a respected facility would be realised – to be on the cutting edge of such work is a thrill and a humbling experience at the same time. Good things seem to be dotting the horizon – hopefully it’s actually a rainbow or a sunset breaking over a new day/time in my life and not a hurricane.

^_^

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