What was the last transformative learning experience you had? Can you pinpoint, and then put into action, lessons that resulted from that experience? I recently wrapped up a 200 hour YTT, and it was certainly that kind of experience for me.
Spending more time at home over this past year over lockdown, and also craving ways to be more physically active, 2020 and 2021 has meant more time on my mat than I’ve enjoyed years prior.
Moving, breathing, doing my best to challenge but also care for myself, I realized that I was feeling called to get back into teaching adults (which I mainly stopped doing towards the beginning of 2019). I knew that I would need training again in order to do that safely and effectively.
I was scrolling Instagram one day in mid-spring of this year and saw a post, from a Boston-based instructor who I love, promoting a virtual 200-hour teacher trainer. The price was manageable and the scheduling (though intensive) workable -- so I decided to take the leap!
Ananda Garudasana 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training Summer 2021 Cohort
Fast forward to August 2021, the cohort recently did our teaching practicum and held our closing ceremony. The two months of this training went incredibly fast -- but those sixty days were also filled with an immense amount of learning, personal discovery, laughs, difficult (but fruitful) moments, and so much more.
Here are three main lessons that emerged for me over those two months -- not an exhaustive list, but the most prescient for me, and I hope useful for you!
Everyone has unique work
I’ve learned that my work in asana (posture) practice is to strengthen rather than stretch to the limits of my mobility. I’ve danced since I was thirteen and practiced yoga since I was nineteen -- now thirty-two, that’s more than half of my life dancing and short of half of my life practicing yoga.
That’s all come with a lot of deep stretching, on a consistent basis. My own approach to working and growing has also intensified all of that work; I haven’t always understood that more is not always better. Genetically, anatomically, and physiologically, I’m also mildly hypermobile (very mobile in muscles, ligaments, and joints).
Add all of that together and the result is that I have a quite mobile body. Is there a problem with that? Well, first off, let’s look at all of this with the yogic perspective that nothing is plainly “good” or”bad”, it simply leads to certain outcomes (positive and/or negative). Let’s go a bit deeper and investigate the what and why rather than branding things as 100%, always “good” or “bad.”
So, that said, here’s the main issue with hypermobility: mobility has an inverse relationship with stability. In other words, when mobility goes up, stability goes down, and vice-versa. Lack of stability can lead to injury, repetitive stress issues, and even some technical limitations (not being able to achieve certain postures, and in dance not having access to certain movement vocabulary).
So, that all means that my work in yoga practice is finding stability rather than going to the limits of my mobility. What does that look like? In something like a Lizard Pose (a lunge with hands down and both hands on the inside of the front leg, that front leg stepped out wide towards the long edge of the mat), I’ve often placed my back knee down and sitting into my hip mobility.
I now instead keep that back knee up and engage my leg musculature to encase my knees in protective muscle. In something like a Low Lunge, I used to sink deep into the lunge. Now I lift and steady my hips higher -- again securing my knee through engaged leg musculature, and focusing on the alignment that allows for safety and stability.
Practicing a Lizard Pose a few years ago, sitting deep into my hip mobility
What’s that been like? In all honesty, a little challenging and requiring diligence; we can’t just decide to change habits -- rather, it takes consistent practice of something different to do a sort of manual override. There’s also that little voice from inside telling you to go deeper and push harder just because you can -- dancers, can you relate?
But I try to tell that voice to shush, that I’m making a different choice and have a different goal. I keep at that manual override. That right there is yoga, as far as I see it -- that consistent coming back to the better choices for you, and the growth that results from that diligence.
And here’s the really key thing that I’m hoping to impart: while that’s my work, the person next to me on the mat has different work. Ergo, we’ll likely make different choices in our yoga practice, and -- if supportive and nurturing for each of us individually in practice and as people -- none of those choices are "wrong."
We’re all different people, coming from different places and with different needs -- so why should practice look the same for each of us? How could it and still be supportive of all of us who come to our mats? Another aspect of all of this is how it's a multi-step process: finding out what your work is, beginning that work, and maintaining it. There's no fingers-snap magic moment and no silver bullet. It's in coming back to the practice, and your unique work in the practice, again and again.
An even more concrete illustration of this concept is a short daily practice, such as the one that one of our teacher trainers taught us -- a Baby Cobra and a Forearm Plank, held for one minute each each day. There are many physical benefits to practicing those two poses every day, as well as a practice of tapas -- diligent, consistent work towards a particular goal, and through that finding calm and focus at extremes (within safe and supported limits, of course).
Arguably, one could customize such a daily practice to best serve them, according to where they are physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. I'm working towards such a short daily practice of my own. Perhaps it's a Lizard Pose and a Low Lunge, focusing on engaging my musculature rather than going as deep into flexibility as I can go -- that's my work in the practice, after all!
2. There's always more to learn
Again and again over the course of the training, I was struck by how much I was learning -- even after having taught yoga for eight years (2011-2019) for all ages and in a variety of settings and practicing yoga for many years. Some of what we were learning was a "refresh" for me; it relit nuggets of learning in my memory from prior trainings, workshops, and classes.
Yet just as much, if not more, was totally new information -- or at least an intriguing and useful new way of understanding something within the practice. Indeed, there are boundless perspectives out there to hear, be in conversation with, and take something from. Indeed, another wonderful thing about yoga is that it’s an endless well of investigation, discovery, and growth.
Ever since I started practicing in 2008, I’ve known that to some extent, but this summer’s 200-hour training illustrated that for me on a deeply embodied, soulful level. The learning isn’t ever really done; there’s really no "ta-da!" moment when you know everything and your yoga journey is done.
Moreover, my teacher trainers even attested to learning things from us -- I know I've learned a whole lot from my students in the past. They were all 500-hour certified instructors, with extensive experience in practice, teaching, and study with remarkable teachers -- and there was still more to learn for them as well.
Practicing a Low Lunge, refraining from going as deep as I can
The teacher trainers actively cultivated this atmosphere of everyone learning together, through a sense of humility and active listening. Attesting to it all, we would end some practices "bowing to the student and teacher within." We all have both in us!
While always having more to learn might feel overwhelming to some people (and understandably so), to me that’s the exciting part. I wouldn’t ever want to be done! We have our whole lives to keep drawing from that endless well. So -- while of course taking rest, and also times away if we need that -- let’s keep drawing from it! Let’s keep enjoying all that yoga has to give. I hope that I always do!
3. There are multiple means to the same end
A key part of that new learning was that there are multiple approaches to safely and effectively set up a certain posture, understand a yoga philosophy concept, or intelligently sequence a certain class.
For example, I learned at least two additional ways to set up a Warrior II Pose, to support a wide variety of students and instill important learning. I learned important sequencing concepts for keeping students safe and helping them to reach closer to their potential in the practice -- but, meaningfully, within that is so much room for creativity.
Two different sequences building up to the peak pose of Flying Pigeon (for example) can have different poses, but both can still safely set students up to approach the challenging pose as best they can on that particular day. That's indeed something I've always loved about yoga, the freedom and creativity possible within a certain structure (I am a dancer, after all) -- yet this concept came truly home to my heart and mind from this training.
As another way this concept manifests, different yoga instructors can have different strengths and growth areas -- and, through teaching from that unique place, all accomplish the goal of offering a class that supports and nurtures their students. In our cohort, this dynamic was clear in our final practicum, in which we each taught the rest of the group a portion of a practice.
We then got individual feedback from our Teacher Trainers, from which I saw that we all had different strengths and things to work on -- but we all accomplished the goal of teaching the group safely and effectively. One mountain, many paths, as they say.
I hope to go forward on my path in this practice even more greatly appreciating multiple instructor's ways of being creative within the established, well-known structure of this practice -- including my own. I hope to always honor that tradition, in words and in actions, while bringing my authentic creative self to it.
What a thrill and what a journey! See you on the mat? I hope so! I also hope you keep learning, honing your work, and appreciating the multiple ways there are to achieve a certain goal -- in whatever craft or discipline calls you.
Yoga posing after our final practicum!