Teaching From Inside Part II • Blindfolded Cueing
Teaching from Inside Part 2 Assignment:
Read the Essay below
Record and Upload your ‘Teaching From Inside’ Activity via YouTube
Use the Tite “Your Name-Blindfolded Cueing” for your intro
Choose a posture that you feel comfortable doing while blindfolded
Just one pose is enough. If it’s a one sided pose, take your time or even consider coming out of it and doing it again. You’re call, just make sure you have a solid experience of the concept.
Write one comment below as a reply to fellow students.
Essay
Teaching From Inside Part II • Sometimes you have to close your eyes to open your heart: Bob Sledding towards Growth & Blindfolded Cueing
20/500 to 20/20:
Steve Holcomb was a prodigy in bob sledding, yet he suffered from a degenerative eye disease known as keratoconus, gradually distorting his cornea until he was nearly blind. Two years before the 2010 Olympics he decided to have corrective eye surgery— his vision had degraded to 20/500, so it seemed like an obvious choice. The surgery went well, and his vision returned to 20/20. This would seem like a distinct advantage, Steve could now see the curves of his bobsled course better like a baseball player seeing the spin on a curveball. But the opposite of the expected occurred— his bobsledding got worse, and when you are performing at World Class Levels, even a small dip in performance can mean the end of a career. “Unfortunately, after the surgery, it had a negative effect for a little while,” Holcomb said. “I got away from driving by feel and started driving by visual cues.” His times slowed, the ride was bumpier, and he found himself distracted by the excessive amounts of visual information in his periphery. With the Olympics coming up fast he had to find his feeling again.
The path back to sensation:
He realized that what had seemed like an obstacle, his poor vision, had actually been a gift. “It [poor vision] was definitely an advantage to me because the best way to drive is by feeling,” Holcomb said. “Most people have to force themselves to learn it, but I had no other choice.” So how did he find his feeling again? By reaching down into the slushy ice next to his bobsled and smearing his face shield with it, effectively blurring his 20/20 vision and forcing himself to drive by feeling. His times improved, his ride smoothed, and he was able to find his flow and focus once again.
1 million vs. 250 million:
I’m not a huge sports enthusiast, and while living in the Ashram I have probably seen less sports than ever, but for some reason the Universe wanted me to see this Olympic event. I watched Live as Steve approached his Gold Medal run, the weight of the entire country on his shoulders. I saw him reach down and smear ice across his face shield just moments before his final run. From an outside perspective it honestly seemed like he was trying to lose. But what he was trying to lose was his mind’s dependance on his valuable, yet limited, sense faculty— vision. There is no doubt that vision is one of humanity’s greatest gifts— in fact, biologically speaking it has been shown to consume an absolutely unfathomable amount of mental processing power. Studies show that “The visual system ranks among the brain’s highest energy consumers. Visual processing accounts for 44% of the brain’s energy consumption. Just opening one’s eyes eats up a surprising amount of energy: glucose consumption in the visual cortex increases up to 50% when the eyes open onto a complex, dynamic visual scene.”(-Energy Efficiency and the Visual System, BY LEONARD J. PRESS, O.D., FAAO, FCOVD). This means that the body definitely prioritizes our need for visual information. But consider this— the connective tissue of your body is an even greater neurological super power, as the Article “Innervation of human superficial fascia” reported, published in the National Library of Medicine August of 2022, “It is estimated that the entire fascial network in the human body counts approximately 250 million of nerve endings (Schleip, 2020). This leads to consider the fascia as the richest sensory tissue of the human body, drawing the attention of surgeons and clinicians.” Compare this to the one million nerves present in our optic nerve, which is amazing and impressive, and we start to see that our eyes may not be our largest sensory organ— our connective tissue is.
And the winner is…:
And this is exactly what Steve Holcomb had to find out on the bobsled course for himself. He had to surrender what most would assume is the only path to survival in order to discover a fresh path to victory— he had to re-lose his vision to re-find his feeling. And that became the year that the United States bobsled team, led by Steve Holcomb’s blurry helmet and crystal clear connective tissue, ended America’s 62-year gold medal drought in the Winter Olympics— finishing first place and bringing home the Gold.
Loosening our dependance on vision:
Eventually, the goal isn’t to reject vision in order to find feeling, but as Steve’s story shows us, we might have to take steps to loosen our dependency on it in order to allow the slower quieter foundational aspects of our awareness to rise up— the feeling of our postures that is being observed and coordinated by 250 million nerves embedded within our connective tissue. How can we do that? For today, we are going to take Steve’s cue and limit our dependance on vision by wearing a blind fold while we teach. (If for any reason this is not comfortable for you, then please don’t feel obligated to do it. It is also alright to close one’s eyes to have a similar effect— the only difference is that the eyes tend to relax more in a blindfold, which is more conducive to the goal of the exercise. But if there is anxiety due to a blind fold being present, than that would be even more counter productive. Please feel free to talk to your instructor about options here, and at the very least, just knowing this information may be the inspiration you need to benefit from this portion of the training.)
The Exercise: Blindfolded Cueing
Step by Step
Pick a posture that is close to the floor, in a position that doesn’t require much balance.
If the posture is on the floor or middle position, start by standing on your knees. If the posture is standing, come to the appropriate edge of the mat and begin in tadasana.
Place the blind fold on, and begin with a centering breath. Remember, a centering breath is two full breaths, beginning at the heart, with the mantra Om Namah Shivaya silently repeated during it. Don’t teach the centering breath, take the centering breath for yourself.
Teach the setup and primary movement of the posture. Like we did in the previous exercise, try to take another centering breath (without using your arms) during the posture in order to dive into your own personal experience. Trust your experience, and give the class a cue based on what you feel.
Take the students out of the posture, and finish with a centering breath.
What to Expect:
Teaching while blindfolded is of course, at first, disorienting, but very soon you will begin to feel more than you could ever see. This is especially important when teaching because there are so many things to notice in the room, not only your own posture, but the posture of all those around you. And although we will take time to work with the concept of responsive cueing in later lessons, we first want to make sure you have taken time to find the space that responsive cueing will come from— inside of you.
Less Stress, More Energy:
Many students also notice a steep drop in anxiety by teaching blind folded, their mind’s rest in the intuitive comfort of sensation and the natural pulsation of their breath. And what’s more, student’s often report that the act of teaching suddenly feels so much more sustainable, like they could teach effortlessly for hours. Remember that earlier statistic of vision consuming 44% of the brain’s energy, when we close our eyes where does that energy go? If we use it right, it is goes to our body, breath, and spirit— we begin to overflow with energy, and our energy spills over into the classroom. As Sri ShambhavAnanda teaches, “Loving compassion is an inner state that overflows and that is filled with positive energy” (182, SP). We hope that by closing your eyes and opening your path to sensation, you too will overflow with inner awareness and be able to share that with your students naturally and intuitively through the art of teaching from inside.
Disclaimer—
This practice will be incredibly beneficial to you! In fact, it has been so beneficial in past trainings that student’s often ask to do it on a daily basis— which we tried, only to realize that eventually the blind folded cueing became common place for the student’s— ie. they found their minds once again active and consuming their energy and focus. This is ok, it just shows how adaptable our body’s and mind’s are. The reason I mention this here is to encourage you to dive into this practice of blind folded cueing, and pay attention not to the blind fold, but the feeling of inner awareness. Though the blind fold is allowing you to get a glimpse of this today, this is something we all have to learn to do through our practice. Similar to meditation experiences, they give us a glimpse of what’s possible, but eventually it is our daily practice, our effort over time, that truly transforms our reality from the inside out. With that being said, dive in, enjoy, and be prepared to get a glimpse of what’s possible when you learn to Teach from Inside.