Healium owner and yoga teacher Jenifer Parker
Last week’s article Why I may never take another yoga class generated some great discussion.
Two of the comments were so beautifully written, plus added such balance and insight to my original article, that I asked their authors if I could publish those comments as an article.
This one is from Jenifer Parker, a yoga teacher, and a teacher’s teacher, based at Healium in Wellington. Enjoy! ~ KL
From a teaching standpoint, my job is to impart a skill. That skill is accessing prana through asana and pranayama.
Typically speaking, people will experience prana for the first time in two ways:
- through the spontaneous experience of prana
- through a diligent, specific practice that puts them in the position to experience prana.
For the first, it’s a joyous, thrilling taste that draws us to seek it out again (Ken Wilber writes about this in his book One Taste).
Sometimes, people find a method (there are many); sometimes people don’t, and they flop around seeking that experience again and again.
For the second, whatever method is chosen (and whether consciously or unconsciously seeking prana) skilled instruction and diligent practice go hand in hand to discover, and continually rediscover, prana.
Asana practice is a means of discovering and rediscovering prana. When a posture is properly aligned, the prana flows, and over time, with repeated proper alignment, the person begins to feel that flow. For many people, it is easiest to feel that prana through the body itself, and asana provides specific opportunities to feel specific workings of pranic flow through the body.
Proper alignment, taught through skilled instruction, is not “cookie cutter.”
Instead, asana is individually adapted to the individual body so that the energy body aligns properly and the prana flows. There is an energetic dialogue (at least in my teaching) between my body and that of the student. And through this dialogue, I help create a condition where a student can experience prana in a safe, open, and exploratory environment.
From there, it is up to the student what they choose to do with that experience. Truly, it’s not my business. I simply teach a skill that people utilize in their own ways—without any judgment from me about how they choose to use it, where, and when.
Even so, what my students report is that yoga begins to naturally flood their lives, streaming out beautifully into all aspects of their mind, body, spirit, and social interactions. The skills that they learn and practice in asana classes become skills and practices that they use in everyday life. Their experience of prana in class allows them to experience prana in life.
And even so, they keep returning to class to explore more, to learn more, to go deeper into their bodies, their asana, their prana, and their experience; and take those lessons from class out into their home practices and well beyond the mat. With the student, we create that environment together, where they experience again and again, at deeper and deeper levels, their own experience and truth within the asana itself.
As far as “not following the teacher” goes — this can be problematic for the teacher because of the needs of the students. I have no problem with a student “doing their own thing” within reason.
For example, if we are doing crow pose, and the person wants to do child’s pose or just a forward bend (which is how I prefer to enter the pose), then this is fine. But if we are practicing triangle pose and the student is working handstands, this is not appropriate.
Part of going to class is submitting to the teacher. At the very least, it is acknowledging and respecting that s/he is creating a specific space in the classroom for learning, and that the learning is specifically prescribed for that day. I can understand—and have also felt—the strong urge to “do my own thing” while the teacher is going in a direction my body (and more often usually my mind) is fighting. But, out of respect for the teacher, I have held myself back.
Why would I do this?
Well, again, because of my own teaching practice. In my classroom, I usually have mixed levels—beginner to advanced students. Beginners haven’t figured out the basics of the alignment for their bodies, or even the basics of any given postures. Many of them may not yet have felt prana, and they often look to other students for insight. A student doing his/her own thing in class is inhibiting the process I am creating for the whole class, and in particular the process I am facilitating for beginners.
Second to this, Dharma Mittra once told us that if one person in the room does the pose, everyone does the pose—our energy bodies speak to each other. This is why, he told us, he likes to lead mixed-level classes.
Advanced student’s body sings to beginner body!
He told us that the energy calls out and draws the new student in. Beginners’ bodies learn more quickly, find alignment to prana more quickly, when they are with experienced practitioners!
So, if you have a person doing handstand while everyone else is learning triangle pose, then what?
From my experience—which mirrors what Dharma spoke about — you have an energetic “clang!” right out of tune. Fourteen bodies going one direction, one body going the opposite direction. The body of a beginner—who doesn’t yet have access to the prana willfully—will likely be confused.
Dharma was so intent on this process that he was very specific:
Breathe together, move together. Advanced yogins! Practice WITH the beginners! Stay WITH them. You, breathe as advanced in pranayama! But with the same pace as beginners! SING to them!
In my experience—in my personal practice, in my teaching practice, and in my practice with my teachers—yoga is not something you do alone, ever!
When you are alone, doing it, your body does what you want—you align to prana in asana or spontaneously or while cooking or doing art or whatever — but that song radiates out from you and touches everyone! It sings to their energy, their bodies, their souls!
When we are in a classroom, we are tuning ourselves to each other, we are forming a choir. We are singing to each other, teaching others how to sing through their own bodies by our own bodies.
And out and out and out and in and in and in and through and through and through it goes in infinite Om. It is always uniquely the individuals’ but always uniquely ours too.
Or at least that’s how I see it.
really nice interview, esp liked:
“asana is individually adapted to the individual body…There is an energetic dialogue (at least in my teaching) between my body and that of the student. And through this dialogue, I help create a condition where a student can experience prana in a safe, open, and exploratory environment…
“From there, it is up to the student what they choose to do with that experience.”
i am curious though, how jenifer feels about your (kara-leah) initiating article, your impulse to go more on your own; it seems she would have good input into that (my apologies if i missed her addressing that)
great stuff kara-leah, thanks 😉
Good question, Adan!
First, it is not my business. 🙂 Kara-Leah is free to take the skills that she has learned from her teachers and through her practice and utilize them as she sees fit. If this means never taking a class again, then that is not my call, and i certainly support her in that decision.
Second — in my own experience and practice — over time, the student’s reliance on the teacher decreases as his/her experience with the practice and prana increases.
I have observed this in myself and in my students. I encourage them to take ownership of their practice (and utilization) of yoga, but I know that it can take a while before a student develops consistent practice (and, btw, this need not be asana/pranayama practice).
For my own part, when i find myself in new and uncharted territory, or i’m interested in learning a new skill or going deeper with a skill, i find myself wandering back to teachers and classes for that insight and depth, for the opportunity to learn from someone who has gone before, or forged ahead.
i then take that information and experience, and i bring it home and play with it. I find it blending with what i knew before, and in some cases, expectations completely blown but new found freedom, insight, and flow in my being. And in turn, i can then offer this to my students.
So, there is this constant flow between going out and drawing in: going out and seeking and learning from another, and then drawing in again to see what it really is, to test it, and to figure out what it means for me, and how I can best utilize it in my life.
jenifer, thank you, what a great reply
it seemed to address and clarify, in my own mind, most the things i’ve had rambling inside me – encouraging self ownership, yet available for further teaching & experiencing, and that “this need not be asana/pranayama practice”
the latter is really simply a recognition that jogging or dancing or using elastic bands aren’t “something else” so much as they are all part of the whole spectrum of being
from early on, i found many things i did outside yoga helping/informing the yoga i do; and now, more and more, i find so much from yoga informing my other fitness activities (not to mention just everyday stuff like walking 😉
regarding a student, or should i say practitioner or person? , going back & forth between attending class and being on their own, i gotta agree, that at some point, the social aspect is key, and that this must be the student’s decision
lex gillan, whom i did my immersion with, pointed out that literally, for decades, his advanced students attended the “graduate” classes, just to be with people they knew and wanted to share with, yet had deep home-self practices
silversneakers, a great seniors program that includes yoga among its classes, stresses to instructors the prominent need by participants to have time to socialize before and after classes
and as kara-leah pointed out in her reply, at home, she was able to practice an extended exploration of a pose that woulda been difficult to fit in during a class
so hopefully, from my pov, once a student has absorbed the discipline and consistency of being in a class, that person will find the ways to blend those competing needs of needing more instruction, needing to explore alone, and needing companionship, without feeling it’s an either/or choice
boy, i’ve really rambled on this time 😉
thank ya’ll for the thoughtful responses, and the best to all of us 😉
That’s a well-thought-out answer to a chlalenigng question
Hey Adan & Jenifer,
I can give you a concrete example of this alchemy between teacher and student that still takes place, even without classes.
Reading Jenifer’s article piqued my curiousity re. crow, so I played with it in my own practice, letting breath and prana guide me in using a forward bend as Jenifer suggests. Magic! Learned so much, and had some beautiful releases.
However, this integration & exploration of Jenifer’s teaching within my own prana-led experience took some fifteen or twenty minutes – and it’s a rare class where we’ll spend that long repeating crow 3 or 4 times!
Blessings all,
KL
Also, i forgot to mention: i love the community aspect of being in a class. practicing in a group is a ton of fun!
@ Jenifer, per my responses in the earlier, related post. I do not mean to paint a broad brush as against any and all Dharma Mittra-inspired teachers. There are some that would use the Dharma style as a way to inspire the practice of yoga in their students. Through the back door of irrepressible ego in someone young and relatively inexperienced as a teacher to all possible populations.
It was much more the studio’s fault in that it turned into what, in effect, had been a minor shakedown (about as much physically as financially for me)–but a shakedown that resulted in my more successful explorations of three other styles of studio yoga (I had originally come from a gym—and, thus, the relative tapas-inducing-indifference and general-audience palatability of Beth Shaw’s YogaFit™ style).
I had been assured in the second private session that I took, that I had in no way been ready for the pose I was shock-and-awe ambushed into by this Dharma teacher–pushed, prodded, yanked into; and held under overpowering force to hold–at risk of grave injury if I would so much as try to break the pose myself–and despite my loud and audible protestations, which had got the attention of at least one seasoned (in chorono years) teacher about 15 feet away from me (but she had drunk the Kool-Aid and thought what happened had been reason to celebrate.)
After the private session, which was weeks later; I finally took with the other Dharma teacher (but not in the Dharma-inspired style class). He was the only teacher who tried to teach me a handstand at that studio And even though it had been all through verbal prompts), I could tell it was going farther faster than it had to. I knew this from exploring a milder style, afterwards.
Being that I could not afford classes at these prices, let alone a series of privates beyond my number of index fingers, I decided to get to a studio that – for the money – was into teaching yoga and not what had seemed like asana leadership, no matter how skillful or spiritually infused. Three times I had not been disappointed.
Either the Dharma style is for somebody far different (younger? richer? less given to home practice whether or not they are well-off?) than I am or Dharma’s students where I live will all age out and move away in a decade or two …
Of course, there is always someone new to drink the Kool-Aid …
well, you know, i can’t say. 🙂
What i can say is that in the classes that i’ve been to with dharma himself (and not his teachers as i have not practiced with one), he is very specific about modifications for each individual body, that the alignment be right for proper energetic flow (and be kinesthetically safe and sound), and that our bodies do learn from each other.
If a person is in child’s pose taking rest while the others are continuing with the practice as lead by the teacher, that person gets all the same energetic benefits of the people doing the pose, because the bodies are singing to each other. 🙂 so, whether or not one can do a specific pose isn’t relevant at all — only that they are present in the breath while other people are doing the pose to receive the pranic benefit.
or, that’s how i experienced it. 🙂
You are lucky to have had Dharma. I am writing about classes taught in New York City, where Dharma is a big name, and there are many teachers who teach Dharma and graft their other teachings onto his lessons. Also, it could have been a short-term or one-time workshop.
In New York City, the law of large numbers rules; so why should teachers care?
Teachers will take risks.
What turns off one student completely and forever could inspire another completely (until the next big trendy thing, relocation, remarriage, or illness taketh away … lol)