The Yoga Teacher Mentor

A Reflective Guide to Holding Spaces, Maintaining Boundaries, and Creating Inclusive Classes

Jess Glenny

• Publisher: Singing Dragon
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781787751262
• eBook ISBN: 9781787751279
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Sport & Exercise Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

1

Where Have You Come
From, Where Are You
Now, and Where Do
You Want to Go?

This chapter is about trajectories. It’s about the disparities that can sometimes arise between the direction our head is taking and where our body wants to go. It’s about our hopes and what may prevent us from living into them, and about our fears and how they may be limiting us. It’s also about the process of becoming a teacher and the different phases of development we move through as we expand our capacity to hold people in practice.

Setting your compass

This first chapter is a little different from those that follow. It begins with a substantial piece of experiential work for exploring where you find yourself now on your teaching path. We will be working somatically – through the body – so that rather than reflecting on where you think you are, you can access your embodied awareness of your current position, and of any direction that may be emerging.

When I facilitate mentor groups, the first session always consists of this or a similar experiential process – and most sessions include a piece of somatic work. The majority of people come to mentoring with lots of questions. Most of the time I hold back on giving my own answers to these, and I discourage other mentees from offering opinions. What I do try to do is provide opportunities for mentees to access their own internal compass so that they can emerge their own path. Each person’s pathway is unique to them – and might be a blind alley to another teacher. When we proceed in this way from an embodied source of feeling, knowing and orienting, we discover a natural depth and authority in our teaching that is a unique expression of who we are.

REFLECTION

Offer some attention to where you are now in your yoga journey. Include both your personal yoga practice and your teaching. Let this be a meditation. Allow the point of your attention – the place you are witnessing yourself from – to drop back from your forehead, and allow your attention to float. Rather than thinking about what you know, open your awareness to feelings, words, images and sensations that may be different from those your cognitive mind anticipates. Whatever comes, allow it in.

How did you get to here? Were there moments of inspiration, key events, teachers, trainings, meetings, initiations?

HIf you could move in any direction, where would you go? Loosen yourself from any practical considerations. What would it look like if there were no limitations? What are your cherished hopes and dreams?

HWhere do you feel you are actually being taken? Is this congruent with where you deeply desire to go?

EXPERIENTIAL WORK: MY HOUSE

You can make this exploration alone or together with a yoga teacher friend or friends. Don’t read in advance beyond step 4 of ‘Drawing the house’ – you will spoil the big reveal and skew the exploration!

You will need:

About 90 minutes in a quiet space with a little room to move around in – somewhere you will not be interrupted. Allow an extra half-hour or so if you’re working with others.

A yoga mat, blanket or soft surface, plus any props you like to use.

A poster-sized piece of paper (I usually use flipchart paper).

Crayons, pencils, pastels or any other drawing materials you find inviting.

A notepad and pen.

Optional: a clock, watch or timer.

Entering the terrain of your body

We start this exploration with a little gentle, supine yoga. You could equally well dance in an improvised way, or do another practice in which your body leads and your thinking mind takes a back seat. I tend to start with yoga because it’s familiar to yoga teachers and so feels safe at a first meeting, when we don’t yet know each other very well, but you can do something different if you prefer. The exploration will work best if you avoid anything technical or alignment-based, in which your body has to follow a pre-set structure. This is about your body choosing and the rest of you following.

Any time you are invited to centre in your body during the course of this book, you can use this short process.

1. Choose three passive, lying-down postures that you really enjoy and can stay in with ease for about five minutes. Three that I often do are chest opening over a bolster, supine twist and child’s pose over a bolster, but you can do different ones if you prefer. Include any props you need to make yourself feel as comfortable as possible.

2. Lie down on your mat. Let your body settle into the floor… Allow the floor to take all of your weight. Let any expression dissolve out of your face…allowing your mouth to soften…including your tongue and the roof of your mouth… Let the hinges of your jaw relax… Imagine that the tough fibrous joints of your skull slightly soften so that your skull can be a little less pressed together than it might otherwise be.

3. Bring your attention to your breath. There’s no need to change it in any way; just notice it. If it changes on its own, follow. You might notice where you feel your breath moving (nostrils, rib cage, diaphragm, belly…); what the quality of your breath is like (deep, shallow, slow, fast, fluid, ragged…); whether your breath is flowing freely everywhere or whether there are places that it doesn’t go, and so on.

4. Allow your attention to expand so that as well as breath you include sensations. What is your physical experience in this moment? Track any shifts and changes. You can move towards any physical sensation or away from it. The intention is to keep finding the sweet spot where you can stay calmly aware of what’s happening. If you start to feel spaced out, panicky or overwhelmed, take a mental step back. If that doesn’t enable you to re-find equilibrium, come back to your breath, or to an awareness of your body in contact with the floor, or to the sounds around you now, or open your eyes and orientate yourself to the room you are in now.

5. Allow your attention to expand so that as well as breath and sensations you include any emotions you are aware of. How are you feeling? What does the emotional landscape look like? Include both what is so familiar it’s like furniture, and what is new and surprising. Pay particular attention to anything that seems to you ridiculous, inappropriate or not allowed. These responses may mark entry points to potential new awareness. Remember to stay where you can be fully present. You can choose to move away from any experience that is overwhelming or makes you want to zone out.

6. Allow your attention to expand so that as well as breath, sensations and emotions you include any thoughts you are aware of. How is your mind in this moment? Busy, quiet, compressed, full, empty, fuzzy…? You might notice what kinds of messages your mind is sending you at the moment, including any tone of voice. If you become entangled in the skeins of a story, notice…and simply return to witnessing.

7. Breath, sensations, emotions and thoughts are constantly changing. Let your attention shift to the part of you that does not change in this way. In the traditional Buddhist analogy, breath, sensations, emotions and thoughts are compared to clouds. Sometimes they are few, sometimes they are many, but behind them, whether we can see it or not, the sky is always present, always clear. You may think of this ‘sky’ part of you as soul, Buddha nature, atman or essential self, or you may understand it as the genetic knot that tethers all your you-things to you. Notice what’s there when you witness from the perspective of this place.

8. Enter your first posture. You are going to rest here for about five minutes. Without fixing your attention, allow it to include some awareness of where you are now in your yoga-teaching life and the direction you would like to take. Let your attention come and go. Include breath, sensations, emotions and thoughts, whether they seem to be relevant to your teaching or not. When the five minutes is up, rest in savasana for a few breaths.

9. If your posture has two sides, now enter the second side, or move on to your second posture. Hold for about five minutes. Continue to rest your awareness in all of your experience, with a particular curiosity about where you are now and where you would like to go as a teacher. When five minutes is up, rest in savasana for a few breaths.

10. Continue like this until you have moved through both sides of all three of your postures. End with a brief savasana.

Drawing the house

Make sure you allow plenty of quiet, empty transition space between the steps in this exploration. Move slowly and give yourself time to integrate each stage.

1. Allow 10 minutes for...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword by Norman Blair
• A Note on the Case Histories
• Introduction
• 1. Where Have You Come From, Where Are You Now, and Where Do You Want to Go?
• 2. Setting Out
• 3. Skills and Tools
• 4. Ethics, Boundaries and Right Relationship
• 5. Keeping It Safe: Creating Generative Spaces
• 6. The Art of Relating (or ‘I Have a Difficult Student’)
• 7. Including Every Body
• 8. Experienced Teachers
• 9. Going Forward
• Further Reading
• About the Author
• Endnotes
• Index
• Join Our Mailing List
• Acknowledgements
• Epigraph
• Copyright
• Of Related Interest
• Endorsments