Lessons Learned Last Week

Last week I was lucky enough to spend a few days in NYC studying with Srivatsa Ramaswami. For anyone not familiar with Ramaswami, he's a long-standing student of T. Krishnamacharya (the longest-standing student outside of the master's family, in fact), a teacher with over 25 years experience and a published author (The Complete Book of Vinyasa Yoga, Yoga For the Three Stages of Life, Yoga Beneath the Surface).

My first experience, which was at Yoga Bhavan, was a delightful experience. The folks at Yoga Bhavan are truly delightful and graciously offered all attendees chai tea and cookies at break time and free CDs as parting gifts. Ramaswami offered a delightful mix of lecture, asana, pranayama, meditation, and chanting. In true Krishnamacharya tradition, his teachings were balanced. I have to thank the NY Yoga Teacher's Association for sponsoring such an event -- an opportunity to study with someone of Ramaswami's expertise. I consider myself lucky for attending.

My second experience was a full-day workshop (the 3-hour workshop was just a primer for me) given at Integral Yoga. While I've never actually practiced the Integral style of yoga, I'm often at Integral because of their wonderful workshops and kirtans. While the Yoga Bhavan event was more general in nature (a nice overview of vinyasa krama), the all-day workshop at Integral was to be more focused. The title was Yoga for the Internal Organs. As someone with a keen interest in yoga therapy and a student of the Krishnamacharya Healing Yoga Foundation, I was delighted to attend such a workshop.

The workshop was wonderful -- it was chocked full of fabulous information about specific asana, mudra, and pranayama for each system of the body and the information was presented in an easy-to-understand manner. Ramaswami was a delight and his wealth of knowledge on the topic of healing yoga, the Sutras, and The Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Needless to say, I learned a lot about all of these things. I also learned a few things about my fellow yogis -- lessons that I could have done without.

Frankly, I was appalled by the disrespect shown to Ramaswami and the demeanor of the so-called yogis (many in the class were yoga teachers) in the class. Due to some confusion about the schedule, Ramaswami started the workshop an hour late. Because he was teaching another workshop at Integral the following day that started at 10:00AM, he thought that the workshop I attended on Saturday began at the same time rather than the advertised 9:00AM start. Gee, last time I checked, even revered teachers are human and make mistakes just like the rest of us. When Ramaswami came into the room, he apologized profusely for his mistake. In fact, he apologized many times throughout the day for arriving late.

At first, I was amused by how people reacted when he showed up -- everyone felt the need to talk about how we were going to make up for the lost time. Would we shave a half hour off of the allotted lunch time or would we run over by a half hour? Could we run over by a half hour (the answer was no, since a yoga class was scheduled in the very same room for a half hour after the workshop would end)? Could everyone stay late? Did anyone mind chopping down the lunch time? After 10 minutes of wasting time, I began to get a bit annoyed. After all, we had just wasted another precious 10 minutes of time when we could have been listening to Ramaswami's teachings.

The behavior didn't improve. I'm not sure what upset me more -- the rudely complaining woman who demanded that Ramaswami teach in a certain order or the staff member (and yoga teacher) of Integral who attended class and spent the entire time stretching and doing her own little practice while Ramaswami spoke. I wonder how this person would react if I attended one of her Thai Yoga Massage trainings and proceeded to RUDELY stretch and do my own thing as she tried to teach????? And let's not forget the student who decided that the 15 minutes that were spent on asanas helpful for pregnant women were a result of sexist teachings and made a statement about women being defined by their ability to have children and the students who started questioning Ramaswami's teachings, which were direct from ancient yoga texts (students were bringing up Buddhist teachings and mistakenly mixing them in with yoga teachings) What gives?!?!?!?

I realize that this isn't true for all yoga people, but I like to practice YOGA -- not simply exercise, not claiming I'm a yogi so that I can wear cool clothes, not trying to impress anyone with my acrobatics. I consider myself a student of yoga -- one who reads the texts and tries to live my yoga. That means that I consider the Yamas and Niyamas. I care more about being at peace than having a smoking, buff yoga body. I respect a teacher who has experience and I honor that teacher by listening to what he/she had to teach (if I find that I don't agree with the teachings after giving it a fair examination, then I will do something else, but I WILL NOT insult a teacher by attempting to disparage his/her teachings).

I realize that all of this sounds negative, and I don't mean for it to be. The fact is, there were plenty of delightful students in class. I enjoyed the workshop immensely. I was just shocked by the many yogis behaving badly. It got me thinking about what yoga truly is and how it's perceived by folks in the U.S. We all know that yoga has fallen prey to the marketing spin. Yoga tends to be more about buff bodies, chic clothes, acrobatics and sweat than it does about the true tradition and teachings. What a sad statement about our society.

My heart -- and my thanks -- go out to Ramaswami for offering his teachings. I'm thankful that there are teachers like him still out there. If only there were more true yogis out there...

Namaste!

Comments

[Nadine Fawell]

Ramaswamy conducted himself in the manner of a true yogi. He set such a great example, as do you!

And you know people will only learn what they are ready to...Even though McYoga is somewhat alarming, it's probably better than none.

[Suzi]

Thank you so much for sharing this story. I've also seen people do incredibly rude and distracting things in yoga workshops. It really doesn't matter if they do them in the presence of master teachers, or just to fellow students... It's as though people have forgotten the basic rules we learned in kindergarten.

Suzi

[Suzi]

Thank you so much for sharing this story. I've also seen people do incredibly rude and distracting things in yoga workshops. It really doesn't matter if they do them in the presence of master teachers, or just to fellow students... It's as though people have forgotten the basic rules we learned in kindergarten.

Suzi

[Linda]

BTW, I will be studying with Ramaswami next week and I would have no hesitation whatsoever bowing down to touch his feet as one does in India to a respected teacher.

[Linda]

the behavior you describe does not surprise me. I have studied with Ramaswami now for four years and I would have been appalled and mortified to witness that behavior. disgusting. that certainly is the difference between "yogis" in this culture and India.