Hers: UPDATE: Regarding His and Teacher's Voice

So there we were, sitting at our dining room table with this printed sequence in front of us…

I'd been looking forward to going over Gary’s sequence. Been waiting days really. I was a bit nervous, a bit excited. You see, Gary and I learn from each other every day, but we never really sat down in such a formal way. Except maybe when we were learning to sail – and that didn’t always go over too well. I seem to remember myself threatening to take sailing lessons from a sailing school on more than one occasion… But sail we did, and create a safe and intelligent sequence we will.

Now, I do this kind of thing all the time. It’s part of my role at the studio, The Yoga Sanctuary. As Director of Teacher Development, I mentor new yoga teachers: review their sequences, go to their classes, and give them feedback. So, this is like any other day…except…this is my husband…and I pretty much think he's the smartest guy in the world and that everything he does is stupendous.

But what if this isn't? Would I be able to tell him?

So there we were…

"Okay, what’s your intention here?" I ask, "What’s your focus?”

"Trikonasana, triangle pose."

"Great, you're starting in a cross-legged seat. Perfect. Then you're moving into Virasana. Okay...Why? And how do you plan to do that?

"Why are you talking like that?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're using teacher's voice."

"Ummmm, I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to talk. I guess I'm being a teacher right now."

"It sounds like you're talking down to me."

"Oh. I don't mean to."

Teacher’s voice…We stopped there, stopped reviewing the sequence that is, and instead reviewed this idea of teacher’s voice. For Gary it was all about the tone, the way I was saying what I was saying, it had an affectation. I was taking on a role; telling, not showing, as he would say. For me, after some thought, I realize that this teacher's voice comes from a place of insecurity and self-doubt.

[UPDATE: As I re-read this, I see something is missing....What is this insecurity and self-doubt? What was happening that made me take on the big-serious-all-knowing-teacher's-voice? Well, as I said, I generally think Gary is the smartest guy in the world - read: smarter than me. Now, this is NOT to say that  I don't think I'm smart. I am. But as my good and sweet friend Christina (of we are revival and more) has said, "I always knew you needed someone smarter than you." So with that...I'm sitting down with this guy who I think is super smart...
And then there's the yoga practice. This is a centuries old tradition; knowledge passed from teacher to student, teacher to student, teacher to student ad infinitum. The great yogis practice(d) in ways that are beyond my understanding. Who am I? Who am I, as I sit here with a Sam Adams Porch Rocker, to say what is a balanced, safe, and intelligent asana (yoga posture) sequence? Granted, I didn't have the Porch Rocker then....but still. Forty-five to sixty minutes of meditation and asana practice a day a great yogi does not make me. I mean we were in the same training together...
So there I go, with the self-doubt. This isn't the first time it's come up and it won't be the last. Part of me even thinks it's one of the things that keeps me on my game. It keeps me real, knowing that I have so much more to learn, I've barely begun.....]

The Yoga Sutras refer to this as one of the nine antarayas or obstacles that distract. These obstacles distract us from our practice – which in this situation we'll call life. My self-doubt was not allowing me to be truly present or authentic in my interaction with Gary. Instead, I was telling him that I am “teacher.”

In our summer Prajna training we received a handout with excerpts from Parker J Palmer’s The Courage to Teach. Palmer writes:

In a culture of technique, we often confuse authority with power, but the two are not the same. Power works from the outside in, but authority works from the inside out….Authority is granted to people who are perceived as authoring their own words, their own actions, their own lives, rather than playing a scripted role at great remove from their own hearts.

This is my practice, my svadhyaya or self-study practice. With Gary as my mirror, I'm able to see myself more clearly.

In every class I teach, my ability to connect with my students, and to connect them with the subject, depends less on the methods I use than on the degree to which I know and trust my selfhood – am willing to make it available and vulnerable in the service of learning.

Do I know and trust my selfhood?  

Gary and I made it back to the sequence, as can be seen by the notes and scribbles. (Quick FYI: most of those are his!) And like any other practice, asana, meditation, once I let go of my idea of what should, could, or would be, it just flowed spontaneously - question, answer, thought, idea, give, take, all of it merging into one. That's when I know that I know and trust my selfhood.  

I'm sure that self-doubt isn't gone for good, the sutras say it takes time and diligence, but it's not a bad start.