I teach several yoga classes at a local gym. The classes are one hour long and they are all intended as all-level classes. As instructors we've been given certain limits about what we're allowed to teach.
A couple of weeks ago I had a new student approach me before class wondering if I would be the regular instructor. What exactly was I planning to teach? he wondered. We chatted a bit and he expressed his frustration with being unable to progress in his practice by taking classes at the gym. He wanted to do other poses–harder poses–but the teachers wouldn't teach them. Would I be willing, if I saw the same people showing up week after week, to progress the class? Could I maybe give him extra pointers?
I offered my sympathy and had a few suggestions of my own: Maybe he could take some extra classes outside the gym? Or if not classes, perhaps a workshop here and there or private lesson? If he knew the poses he could use extra knowledge from books or videos or online instruction to try some other things while in class. The problem, I explained, was that these classes are intended to be all-level. While I can certainly adapt my class to the people I see attending, I have been hired to do a particular job and I need to honor that.
Each suggestion I made he responded to in the negative. He didn't want to spend extra money on classes, his other gym had an instructor who was willing to teach more advanced poses, he didn't have enough knowledge on his own to experiment.
He was a nice enough guy but I was really struck by something in our conversation: his problem-solving was doomed to be unsuccessful because it was based on changing reality, rather than on working within real constraints. And I thought about how often I do that as well–rather than looking at an actual situation, I try to make the situation change around me and my desires. Problem-solving HAS to be based in reality or it's not problem-solving.
So, you know, this guy? He taught me a lot, it turns out.
copyright 2011 J. Autumn Needles
Friday, April 22, 2011
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