Friday, August 03, 2007

Ego preview...

Whoa, have I been remiss. The combination of another Yoga Journal deadline looming and my 9th month low energy and resulted in a delay of blog posting. Sorry about that.

This next article—working title “Your Ego and Your Teaching”—has been extremely interesting to research. It’s a very complicated subject and paring it down to 750 words has been rough. During a conversation for an earlier article (“Enliven Your Teaching”) with Iyengar teacher Chris Saudek, she commented that you should practice detachment in your teaching; i.e. not get too emotional or involved with your own issues when dealing with students.

The idea of detachment, or vairagya, gets thrown around a lot. What my sources all emphasized was that it doesn’t mean you should disavow or disown the emotions that come up while teaching, but that you should try and understand them. You don’t want to remove your personality from the classroom, you just want to clear out the personal “stuff” (insecurities, arrogance, anger, etc.). A noble, but tricky proposition.

This all goes along with my current yoga-is-not-just-asana kick. So I have a lot more to say about expanding your yoga practice, but I need to do a bit more thinking. On Monday I'll start sharing these reflections.

Have a great weekend!

1 comment:

shinyyoga said...

It is extremely tough.. and something I've really been trying to assess in my teaching - this leaving of personal woes behind when you step onto the mat.

Generally I find I can do this after my first sun salute, and also having a class plan really helps.

I look forward to yr article!