Last week I was teaching at the Omega Institute, my first yoga home. I first came to Omega 11 years ago to work and learn, and became a yoga teacher there the next year. I had a great experience going back and teaching, and met a lot of enthusiastic students. Even though I was well-received overall, I still sometimes struggled to connect with everyone. I’ve had a few humbling experiences that week that taught me that I still have a lot to learn.
First, in one of my beginner classes, an older woman came in – probably 80 years old – walking very slowly. Her daughter was with her, and I said hello to them both. I was teaching a mix of really gentle, restorative postures along with some invigorating postures, which is usually a good “beginner” experience. I was definitely trying to teach to the majority of the class, and at Omega, the majority of people are very fit (and often quite young). However, there are, on average, about 60 people in yoga classes this week, so there’s a lot to look at.
I was watching the woman, and she did well at first, but then struggled as we got to the standing postures and the more vigorous asanas. I went over to help her and she told me she’d had a stroke recently and wasn’t feeling well. I suggested she sit and relax, which she tried, but she felt sick and had to leave the class. She came back at the end and we were able to set her up in a relaxing position for the rest of class. The humbling experience was that I wished I had paid attention to my impulse and gone over to talk with her before class. I don’t usually do that, especially in a huge class of strangers. However, in this case, as she was pretty clearly not physically as strong as the majority of the class, I think I could have created a better experience for her if I’d reached out. The happy ending is that I’ve talked with her a lot since that class, and we became fast friends!
My other humbling experience was with a walk-out. This happens to everyone – occasionally someone leaves in the middle of class, particularly in this kind of situation where you’re guest teaching. Often you’re not sure why someone leaves – sometimes someone will tell you they’re not feeling well, or they have to leave a little early. I have a lot of the staff here at Omega coming to my classes, and sometimes they’ll need to leave to get back to work. One man came (a staff member) to my intermediate class yesterday. He was doing very well, but it was a tough class and he wasn’t the most experienced. We’d finished the most challenging postures and we were starting to come closer to the ground and wind down when he started packing up to leave. I could sense he wasn’t happy. I didn’t know if he wanted more strenuous work, or less. I didn’t know if I’d said something that set him off. I tried to go check with him, but he really didn’t want to talk.
It’s hard not to take something like that personally. The fact is, though, you just don’t know what’s going on. There could be something you could do better, but you don’t get the feedback. It might not have anything to do with you. It’s an interesting place I found myself – for a few minutes after he left, I was a bit on auto-pilot teaching. Inside I was mulling over what had just happened, and what the possible reasons could be. It was hard to draw myself away from the pondering and get back to the rest of the students who seemed to be enjoying the practice. Practicing getting present to whatever comes up is a never-ending job! I’m better at it now than I was 10 years ago as a new teacher, but it’s still a struggle.
Namaste,
Barrett
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Re: the Walkout: I feel terrible, as I think the first time I ever came to one of your classes — a couple of years ago now, I had to leave bc I had a migraine coming on and realized that it would be exascerbated rather than headed off by phys exercise at that point, esp anything involving an inversion! Just goes to show, though, that like you said, much of the time there’s nothing you could have done differently, but it is still hard not to second-guess one’s self.
I feel this often as a teacher and academic, and I know my friends/colleagues do, too — eg I agonize over why/when students tune out (and they think you can’t tell, even in a lecture class, but you CAN! whispering, note-passing, blank stare, overly-preoccupied with laptop, etc. . . and in seminars, much more subtle cues are all that’s required) — and while students in college classes don’t tend to walk out at will (esp in seminars), people DO come and go at talks at academic conferences and etc. Like you said, it is hard not to take it personally if you are the one giving the talk, if only to a small degree, EVEN when one does the same thing oneself (and the very reason you may have turned up *at all*, knowing you couldn’t stay the whole time, is bc you so much wanted to be there). I try to remind myself of something Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his daughter — paraphrased, something like: people tend to assume that other people are thinking about them MUCH more positively AND negatively than they are . . . most of the time, people are actually thinking about themselves. And yet, in a *teaching* situation, it is harder to figure out that line, since being a good teacher does of course entail attunement to how students are responding, while still according the students their autonomy as people who have lives apart from you (hard for me to believe sometimes, as I think my class is SO important, but . . I realize that this is both true and not true). Anyway, I think that what I’ve learned from yoga classes — esp yours! – is that all I can manage is my own response to that, and to try not to judge my response, the other person, etc., but just to try to *notice* and yet absorb that information in a non-reactive way (and w/o attaching it to an account/explanation immediately). It really has helped me teaching-wise (which I already loved, but was perhaps over-invested in in particular ways) and life-wise. Thanks, Barrett!
(and apologies to all for the long-winded response …)
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