One of my greatest fears about teaching is the terrifying possibility that the students will stage an uprising. Meaning, the great majority of kids in my class will be people who’ve had the utterly uneventful experience of watching my own practice year after year. They know good and well I have zero credibility.
Sure, the occasional first timer will wander in and take me seriously, but that will be the exception not the rule. Of this I am sure.
My most twisted worst case scenario fantasy (well, my second worst case scenario fantasy…my first worst case scenario fantasy is forgetting my top and having to teach in a sports bra with my abdomen exposed. The mere thought makes me tremble and shake) is that I will find myself standing on a small carpeted podium directing ‘standing head to knee’ and shouting “KICK YOUR LEG OUT! DON’T WAIT! KICK YOUR LEG OUT! IF YOU’VE BEEN PRACTICING A WHILE YOU MUST KICK…”
While I say these words I gaze out on a small crowd of sweaty, half naked students just standing there…not doing a single thing I’m telling them to do.
They are sipping water, staring out the window, cocking one hip to the side in defiant stances. Once again, thinking maybe they haven’t understood me, I say the dialogue a second time and more forcefully. KICK YOUR LEG OUT FROM THE KNEE. Still they stand, unmoved by my words.
Suddenly, one of them steps up, girl gang style, all head rolls and finger snaps and says, “how’s about you kick your leg out, bitch, and then we’ll talk. Until you can bring it, spare me the crap.”
I see no reason why this couldn’t happen.
Simply said, there are a few postures that—quite frankly—I’m not especially good at.
Foremost among them, Dandayamana-Janushirasana…aka standing head to knee pose.
Back in the autumn, when the initial and sporadic thoughts of doing this training started rearing their ugly heads, I began addressing my issues with this pose. I have, basically, been operating (for years now) off the hope that somehow, someday it would simply disappear from the series. It would finally be recognized as the sixty seconds of pure evil that I firmly believe it to be. An urgent memo from headquarters would appear at the studio door…carried by a messenger and hand delivered…demanding we cease and desist with standing head to knee immediately.
Maybe a student somewhere would have to die in standing head to knee for the winds of change to finally blow.
This would be fine with me.
Throughout history, many a solitary life has been heroically sacrificed for the betterment of mankind at large.
I accept the necessity of such human sacrifice. I accept the brevity of life.
I just do.
But revolutions take time and I only had a few months. So, I knuckled down and began the arduous process of stretching my pathologically tight hamstrings.
Class after class, week after week, I worked on this hateful endeavor. And, finally, after much misery and hard work I managed not a fantastic success…but, rather, something vaguely resembling competency and total mediocrity.
That was enough for me.
I arrived in Hawaii certain that I’d experience a wash of flexibility unlike anything I’d known before. Two classes a day in heavy humidity. I’d take my posture to the next level and return to the lower east side of new york city totally entitled to holler out orders at anyone stupid enough to show up for one of my classes.
My hamstrings are now so tight that I can barely walk. I can not touch the ground without bending my legs and my ass is in perpetual discomfort. The posture of pure evil has once again sucker punched me and beaten me down. I am furious.
We are not supposed to rewrite the dialogue. But I have.
Here is my new version of dandayamana janushirasana…which I will be reciting, verbatim, upon arrival home:
“Inhale breathing. If you like, you can kick your left leg forward to the mirror.
You don’t have to if you don’t want to. No biggie. I totally understand if you don’t.
And, listen, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a great person if you are still holding your foot.
You get 100%…no, wait! You get 110% of the benefits from just holding the foot.
Everyone still likes you if you just hold the foot. No worries guys.
LOVE YOU LOTS!
Take a deep breath.
And change.
Now the right side……”
namaste.
3 comments:
The water-sipping / gulping, window-staring, the defiant stances…they happen from time to time. But don’t fret. You get used to it and it’s fun to learn to laugh about it and vent to others about it after your body temperature returns to a cozy 98.6.
Just wait until a few months after you return from training: your postures are going to be so much improved. That’s the magic time…just wait and see.
Oh my god, this blog is effin' hilarious. I've been practicing at the Soho studio for 4 months now (hope to go to training in a year or so), and I just came across your blog while googling "Shakti Shorts." I'm very excited for class today after reading a few of your posts. SO FUNNY! Especially this bit about standing head to knee. Today is my 131st consecutive class, and I still can't bend my elbows or lower my head (or even keep my leg extended for more than a few seconds!). One day!
It's 3 years since your teacher training but I'm avidly reading your blog while considering attending, some time in the future. Thank you for your perspective. And I've also been holding my foot with the tightest of hamstrings.
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