Lecture 1: Review & Teaching from the Present
We started by saying that alignment cues alone are like the stars of a constellation— essential for the sake of guidance, yet somehow lacking the bigger ‘picture’ of the experience— ie. The experience of Ursa Major as a bear, or Orion the hunter, all ask that we expand our experience of the constellation to the space surrounding it.
Through the lens of science we saw that this space surrounding the matter of the stars is far vaster than the stars themselves— 99.9999999% vaster. The cues that define a posture, it’s shapes and angles, only account for a single pea in a football stadium, or a sugar cube in the entire sea of humanity— what we call the pose is only a fraction of what we experience in the pose itself.
The Sutras taught us that when we start to identify ourselves more with the pea than the stadium, we lose touch with our true nature, which is the source of our suffering. Like the princess and the pea, we attempt to fill this empty space with objects and experiences, but it’s our awareness that really makes the difference. As ShambhavAnanda taught, when he feels himself getting too sucked into the ‘goal’ of a workout, he knows he’s missing the point of the workout. He stops, he gets ultra-present, and that takes him towards his real goal.
For so long, we have described movement in terms of individual muscles and bones, like a simple machine. But the last 30 years of breakthrough fascial research has shown us scientifically what the yogic tradition, and many other ancient movement modalities, have always known— we’re missing the forest for the trees, or the stadium for the peas so to speak. The body is meant to move holisitically— as we saw with rolling, entire chains of musculature are responsible for enabling us to perform even the most primordial actions, and that it is these full bodied movements that define all of our movements through our fascial tracks. This connective tissue permeates and connects every cell of our body, and not only facilitates but orchestrates this symphony of motion. In everyday life, a muscle never works alone, and if it does it usually indicates dysfunction, and is destined for strain or injury. Our work, then, is as Patanjali put it 2,000 years ago, to find the balance of effort and ease, to seek movements that can persevere without tension, in order that we can actually transcend duality and experience the infinite.
These pathways of natural movement can become crystallized, or blocked, on both a physical and energetic level. The postures of yoga help us to remove both levels of these blockages. They were derived from the state of meditation, and emerged naturally form this state of awareness in the form of spontaneous movements known as Kriyas. In our personal practice we too have to allow our practice to emerge from a deeper state of awareness, not just the mind, in order that we do the postures that our fascia and spirit need. Otherwise, we tend to overdo it, trying to squeeze a football stadium into a pea, or become distracted, wandering around an empty stadium.
This kind of reflective practice is derived from the yogic precept of Vimarsha, the conscious turning of our awareness to the source. Our inner awareness is like a light, a sun, shining from the heart illuminating our reality. Like the Goblet and the faces test— the projecting light of Prakasha easily illuminates the goblet, but the reflective light of Vimarsha allows you to see the goblet and the faces simultaneously. This type of refle.
In scientific terms we practice vimarsha every time we turn our attention inside to feel our breath, or our heart beat— it’s called interoception. This simple practice has been shown in multiple studies to not only increase self-esteem, but promote better eating habits, decrease pain, and increase receptivity to therapeutic treatments. Of course, as meditating yogis, we know this is only the tip of the iceberg of spiritual growth.
In our asana practice, this inward turn allows your awareness and your fascia to inform your movement, ensuring that your practice will be the most beneficial for you today. You can’t step in the same river twice, and you’re made mostly of water, so you get the idea.
But Vimarsha requires practice, and we begin that practice with intero-surfing, as we work incrementally with filling our movement with felt-sensation, and then allowing that sensation to guide our movement, in an infinite upward spiral. The effect is graceful supportive movement that harness your awareness and fills you with the present moment. Starting your personal yoga practice with this each day is essential if you want this kind of experience to infuse your sequencing.
The practice of Vimarsha, and the concept of intero-surfing, can be done in the postures themselves too. In the setup we saw that you could explore different possible foot positions, different widths and weight shifts— all to encourage a felt-sensation and movement exploration. In the primary movement we saw even more opportunities to awaken awareness such as moving in and out of postures, noticing front/ back or side lines evenly lengthen or shorten, weight shifts and ripples effects, breath patterns, as well as rhythms and pace. Each of these approaches to your asana helps you come into it from a slightly different path, ensuring that you are moving form your space of your fascia and awareness when you arrive. And within the posture, we continued the explorations with Snaking, Spiraling and Waving patterns to keep the inward gaze alive.
Your meditative practice, intero-surfing as preparation, and explorations in the postures themselves, have helped you expand your awareness from the linear constellation of the posture to a fuller experience of the posture inside and out, and this is what we are here to practice teaching today. Before we begin that, though, there is one more aspect to this process that becomes the bridge for this deep preparation to make it’s way to the teaching space of the classroom— and that is the practice of teaching from the present.
Teaching from the Present:
It’s important to recognize that no matter how much preparation we do, the cues we discovered yesterday, or 3 days ago, or last week, may not be the exact cues that serve us or our students today. Remember, as Muktananda taught, only through being in touch with the inner creative force will we “automatically perform postures appropriate for us”. You’re a different person today, and your students are always different than you too— so we can’t just connect to this force when we prepare, but we also have to connect with this force when we teach.
As ShambhavAnanda said earlier, our definitions of reality, which in this case are our definitions of these postures and ourselves as a teacher, are like anchors we are holding onto at the bottom of the ocean. We like our anchors, they make us feel secure as they keep us in one spot and appear to keep us from being pulled by the currents of change— but spiritual practice is literally the practice of letting go of that anchor consciously so we can learn to ride the current of the present with just as much focus. This is the practice of begin a teacher, it’s what makes being a teacher so rich in spiritual growth, and it’s what makes a teacher such a valuable asset on the path of growth to their students. A teacher not only does the work of preparing, which is essential, but they also do the work of sharing, the work of the moment of teaching, which is equally essential.
So how can we start to incorporate this and grow as teachers?
We can actually build in many reminders of this goal into every yoga class we teach. The first way is by working to speak from an internal space when we teach, specifically to work on surrendering our ‘teaching voice’ in order to allow our words to come directly from the heart of our experience. In the Yogic tradition the power of words is called “Matrika Shakti”. This term literally means the power of sound vibration. In Yoga, the vibration of a word is where it gets it’s power, by the time it reaches the tongue, that power is diminished, and by the time it reaches your student’s ears it’s all but gone and all that remains is the form of the word. But if you can get in touch with the vibration of your words while you speak, then the power of your words is not lost, but is actually magnified.
This is what is meant by “teaching from the heart”— it refers to power staying in touch with the heart vibration of a word while speaking. It’s like the feeling of swimming ‘with the current’, you feel like a super hero— that’s the power of teaching from the heart, the flow of the moment. “At a deeper level, words exist in the heart. This is the third level of speech, paśyanti, which corresponds to the causal body. Here, words are hidden, and what arises at this level is matrika… The moment one understand the matrika Shakti and its work, one is no longer a human being. When the matrika Shakti expands within, in this very body one becomes Shiva.” (Nothing Exists not shiva, p. 7-9)
This takes practice, though. In everyday life we are usually “speaking from the head”, not the heart, and this usually follows us onto our yoga mat. Many of us have “teaching voices” that although different from our everyday voice, are just the same thing in a different shell. We tend to default to our ‘teaching voice’ when we are on un-steady ground, as we all are in upper level training, yet surrendering that teaching voice could be a massive growth spurt for many of us. Because although our teaching voice might make us feel more ‘in control’ or ‘professional’, the control we really seek is derived from surrender, and that is what makes us truly ‘professional’.
Let’s try the Internalized and Externalized OM practice to explore this possibility in our teaching voice. First, we’ll do a few OMs from a very externalized state— a little loud. Imagine like you are yelling to your friends or family “dinner’s ready”. Hear your voice, notice how your awareness is projecting out away from you, feel the experience of doing this— let’s call this your ‘default teaching voice’. Now let’s just humm the OM sound with our mouth closed. Feel the vibration in your mouth, throat and even heart. Connect with that vibration, and then allow yourself to simply open your mouth and say the om sound from that connection. That’s a glimpse of what’s possible when you allow your voice to come from an inner experience. Notice how much more sustainable it is than the dinner bell om.
Of course, this represents the other end of the pendulum— your actual teaching voice will probably fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Nonetheless, this is a great time to experiment with letting the pendulum swing to this new side, even if it feels a little foreign.
So as you teach today, let’s all begin with 3 OMs— and try to let yourself humm your way into each OM, and then begin speaking from that place. Throughout your practice today let yourself play with this— when you have an opening, do a humming OM and let it transform into your next cue. If you hear your externalized voice popping up, hum an OM and then hum into your next cue. Really try it out today, this is a safe space. Take this opportunity to experiment with your teaching methods, that’s what upper level training is all about.
Lean Into It!
Another built in method for helping you ‘teach from the present’ is beginning your session with Intero-surfing. If you can actually take a few moments to let yourself get into the movement in a real way, you will gain many insightful ways of begin teaching from the present. First, interosurfing allows you to feel something spontaneous in a simple way, which lets you step out of the teacher role and simply be a yogi. Second, you will no doubt feel something that was not planned, which allows you to break the ice on a giving a cue from off-script. And third, this will give you insight on not just what you want your students to feel, but how you want them to explore feeling— ie. how are you finding sensation right now? Share that methodology with your students
This also means being vulnerable, as moving in the grey areas is not as aesthetically pleasing per se. But how can you expect your students to be vulnerable and explore their grey areas if you don’t? So lean into it and get into it— go a little over board if that’s what you need to actually try some new things here. See if you can actually have an experience of the present while you’re up there teaching.
And last, as we know in preparation for today, intero-surfing follows us into every pose in small effective ways. Don’t just tell your students about the destination, guide them in the exploration. Help them explore sensation right now in this moment. Make mistakes, get lost in sensation now and then— Trust that you have done the preparation, and that this has earned you some wiggle room in the moment of teaching. Lead your students not just in word, but in deed, as you work to stay in touch with our own sensation as you teach.