Hello Fellow Yogis,
Very excited about contributing to this new site. I am a longtime yogi, with a daily ashtanga practice, but experience of many years of Iyengar, Jivamukti, and countless workshops with teachers famous and not so famous. Yoga practice is the most important part of every day. And yet… there’s an awful lot of censorship in the yoga community and it would be great to have a forum to give honest feedback about teachers and experiences of various forms. I don’t want to slag anyone off, but I do want to know, when I’m deciding whether or not to pay £200 for a weekend workshop with a teacher, what to expect. Some yoga students like to hear a teacher talk for two days and not get round to leading asana practice. I don’t.
So, having just done a one day workshop with a reasonably famous yin yoga teacher, here is what I’m thinking about today -
Why do yoga teachers talk through meditation?
This teacher didn’t even lead us through shivasana at the end of a seven hour workshop - he led a seated meditation. My body SO wanted to lie down and let go. But we sat, cross legged, listening to his instruction, which never stopped. There was no silence, and there had been none during the whole workshop. Is that a lack of confidence on the part of the teacher? Are some teachers afraid to let go of the students’ attention? Or just uncomfortable with silence? I think meditation is about exploring silence, and hearing the noise in your head, and trying to let it go.
So please, teachers, let us lie down and be quiet. It’s the space to end a practice and let go of listening.
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