Unteachable: She’ll Take Your Class, But Not Really

She glides into your yoga class like Hanuman on his epic leap (perhaps she walks in on her hands). She arranges her enlightened mat for a pre-class demonstration of what she’s got going on. Maybe she tells you, beforehand, that she is also a “ yoga teacher.” Or she waits until later. It does not matter. It will be obvious once she starts practicing.

At best she’ll humor you as you guide her through poses and alignment, but don’t kid yourself. She knows what the bandhas are and she’s not afraid to use them. Oh, and heaven help you if you start talking yoga philosophy. Come on, can’t you just tell that she is a recently ordained graduate of a singularly spectacular 200-hour teacher training that changed her life? Her perky eyes have danced over the yoga sutras, she has written the Sanskrit alphabet out 108 times, she knows at least two really good quotes from the Bhagavad Gita by heart, she can meditate, like, the way you are supposed to, so please, I don’t care who you think you are, but she is not likely to swallow whatever hollow horseshit version of the aforementioned that you are hawking.

She’ll take your class, but not really. She hates it, and you, from the very beginning. Everything you are doing is wrong, by the way. Oh, and, if you hadn’t noticed, she is keeping track, even if the mental review she is dutifully composing remains invisible to you. (In a word: it’s disastrous.)

You can try to teach her – you notice, despite her pretty practice, that there are a few places you might be able to add something even in your handicapped state (her words, not yours) – but don’t hold your breath. At worst, she’ll interject to reverently pass judgment, or show you her middle finger in a metaphoric way—that is, ignore you; at best, a trickle of some of your currently inaudible worthy offerings will find a place in her brain where they shall lay dormant until she is ready to hear them). Odd are, most of it will go over her yoga-full head, because she is kind of busy knowing way more way better than you possibly do (she’s knee-deep in noting as much in her mental audit, by the way). Stop interrupting. She has to get back to the hard work of not being present in the moment.

She is unreachable. She is unteachable.

She is “taking” your class because, wait, why is she taking your class? Seriously, why the f*&k is she even here? She’s not a “student” obviously (that would imply someone here to learn) – that’s right, she’s a “teacher.” You don’t ask why, because that would only kill the small inclination she might have had to grant you a slice of mercy in her incredibly detailed screed about your yoga teaching. Her entire practice is a nothing but a euphemism for “I don’t know why people think you are such a great f—ing teacher”; an hour later, her carefully chosen words: “Thank you for class” are more obviously nothing but a euphemism for “Thank you for wasting my f—ing time. I hated every minute.” (She is trying to honor those yamas and niyamas, okay?)

After class, she’ll ask a question – about an asana, perhaps, or maybe your training. Make no mistake: this is a test.

You’ll wonder if you should have tried harder. You’ll think: “I could have helped her. A little “microbend” here, a slight move there, more legs in the backbends– maybe I could have made that pretty practice fly. Then again, could she be right?  I f—ed up. I wish I’d had the guts to teach her something.” After all, if she doesn’t give a sh&t what you are doing, what do you have to lose?

Save your second-guessing but hold onto that lesson. Hopefully you are still learning, after all.

She’ll depart to teach her own class, uncluttered by openness. And she’ll wonder why she’s having trouble, why she feels “off”, why people aren’t showing up or coming back. As for you, if you are lucky, you will remember that when you stop being a student, you simply stop. Because there is no end.

That’s right! You remember it now. A wave of profound oneness with the author of your unwritten horrific review washes over you as you concede:

“I erected the greatest obstacle I faced in my first year of teaching. It was a wall. I thought I knew everything and so I was impermeable to learning anything new. Because I stopped learning, I stopped truly teaching. Man, did I ever lose out.”

Forget it. She’s already gone. Still, you keep talking to yourself. “But you can’t know anything well or teach it if you don’t believe in it! You can’t release all boundaries when you walk into the shala.” Hmm. So you’ll work on finding a balance. “Perhaps I’ll leave a door open,” you tell yourself— “A space with some permeability. When you erect a wall against learning, what can you possibly be teaching?”

Oh, wait, I’m so sorry— I didn’t notice we had company. Allow me to introduce you to the stars of this play. Actually, there’s only one.

Me.

“She” is me. No, “was,” well, maybe I wasn’t that bad; this is a caricature, obviously (I cannot walk on my hands). Maybe sometimes she still overtakes me. And the “teacher” —well, that’s me too. Maybe somewhere —the past, the future— a smidge of she and me are also in you.  My sincere wish:

I hope you learn something.

14 thoughts on “Unteachable: She’ll Take Your Class, But Not Really

  1. This is so good! I thought, “Who the hell was this person and how dare they treat Jean with such…oh, hi, Jean!” Haha!

    The greatest measure, for me, to gauge if this yoga stuff is working, isn’t by asana or progression, but whether I can honesty taste and feel the dissolution of my own ego. I want it completely extinguished. I want someone to insult me, for me to be able to smile, and walk away completely unaffected because my ego is nothing more than mere camouflage for a state untarnished and ever-bliss.

    We’ve all been that person you described above. Thank you for the reminder!

  2. Thank you Lu! I don’t know about extinguishing the ego (frankly, sounds impossible, so maybe it’s not worth worrying about) but I find I am less harsh on others when I see aspects of where they are coming from in myself. There are plenty of times and situations where this is beyond tough or even impossible, but in light situations like yoga and driving my car, I do try. If I can show others a break I can better give myself one. I think you are untarnished as is, btw!

  3. I love this! I’ve definitely been on both sides of the aisle in various ways… Fear of judgement always appears when I am the one doing the judging.
    Here’s to being a student, living with a beginner’s mind. 🙂

    • Thank you Valerie for sharing! That makes so much sense to me. If I can look inward and be softer on myself (although I’m purposely being funnily harsh here) i’m better able to do that for others. I still fail all the time. it’s easier to write it than do it.

  4. Extinguishing the ego, impossible? Remind me to pass along a few of my Ramana Maharshi books to you (or any Advaita Vedanta book will do). And, if you’re lucky, a macaron or two for you and the hubs along with it 🙂

  5. Ha Lu, I meant “impossible” for the likes of me. Happy to borrow whatever you want to lend! Please, though, spare me the macaroons. I may be forcibly cleansing myself of sugar this week!

  6. Always watchful of that ego creeping in, and the moment it does, I reflexively chase it away with words like, gratitude, truth. I go to yoga classes because yoga is medicine and I need it constantly. Sometimes I feel impatient with instructors who go too slowly, who don’t challenge us enough, who don’t interact and notice their students. Those are the moments when I remember Gratitude. Because the teacher is always consistent, because she (I’ve never been impatient with a “he” yet) cares enough to be there, because every teacher has their unique style, their unique repertoire, and every teacher teaches me something I did not know and I am ALWAYS in awe and great respect for things they know that I had never thought of before.

    Honestly I thought this article was going to be about a girl who can do yoga very well but doesn’t internalize it or learn spiritually from it.

    Then again, maybe it is.

    • Thank you for writing this thoughtful comment. Obviously this was a caricature of me, taking my worst and amplifying it all at once, but I think yes you’ve got something with your observation. As for me, I rather enjoy the classes I take now (outside of them I usually do home practice/mysore self-practice). When I don;t enjoy a class, it’s usually because of me and no one else, though sometimes that is not always immediately apparent.

      Thanks again for sharing and taking the time to write.

  7. I am a personal trainer and also teach 13 group exercise classes a week, in four formats, one of which of yoga, and only saying this as a means of creating context. I find that with the high “output” required with my job, I often find myself wishing I had more “input”. One of my favorite things to do, in fact, is to take a class that is taught by someone else, someone who knows more than me or at least has a different perspective. As teachers, we are not bottomless pits of wisdom and inspiration, these things need to be replenished. I think it’s quite refreshing to just STFU and do what I’m told for an hour. This post made me laugh though, I too have been both characters in the story. Eventually one gets lonely and exhausted (and/or gets their ass handed to them) and is brought back to the beginner’s mind.
    Great post!

    • Thanks for writing Deanna! I really like your point of view here. thank you for sharing and for the kind words 🙂

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