The Yoga Practice that Collapsed into Ashes

(This post was from my previous Blog. Since I'm going to be writing a lot about Yoga in the future, I wanted to keep for posterity, this post from the last time I took a Yoga class, back in September. It marks the point of collapse, but also, the point to rise from.)

 I wrote this note on my Facebook wall today:

One of my biggest problems with getting back into yoga is my attachment to the teacher- student relationship. I'm constantly in fear the teacher will leave, I can't trust them, I will leave, i will sabotage my relationship, my schedule will change, the school will be unsupportive, the school's owner will be psycho and send me hate mail, they will hate yoga but still profit from it and me, my practice will fall apart as soon as it gets good, and my disappointment will take refuge in my eating disorder: all these things I have seen over the last 4 years, and whenever I feel like I have had enough excuses and want to jump back in, this huge wall appears and I just end up running away from it.

You wait for the teacher to appear, but the student is too battered to believe they are ready yet, again.

Not sure what to do tonight, holding my clothes and mat. New school, old school, new teacher, old teachers, third and fourth restarts and chances, yoga therapy, Jungian therapy, back to martial arts, take up zumba, take up racket ball, cycling, not sure.

One decision could change everything. Or reenforce everything.

I need more grace than I thought, or perhaps, a teacher- student relationship that is sustaining.

Not creating these cycles and situations, envisioning something sustaining and empowering, also a good thing.

***

I find that, after years of identifying myself as a Yogi, it's time to admit that this is indeed not the case anymore.

When I posted that above note, I was looking for some support some wisdom, a reach out from Yoga friends and teachers that I know, also, create some dialogue in the Boston/New England Yoga Community about how isolating this system is for some people. 

One of my friends who is an amazing Yogi in Maine wrote me back, gave me his usual awesome advice, but the silence from all the Yogis I know here in Boston was absent. There's a tradition in Boston that, if there is any criticism of something or someone, you write someone a private email, and then you stick your public head in the sand. The silence was actually a bit deafening this time around. It helped to reenforce some of the issues of my FB status, that I feel like I have lost that very important connection, that teacher-student relationship, and that missing element is probably the only thing that could really get me back in.

I have indeed seen a lot in Yoga over the last four years.

* I have seen great teachers leave the school, move away, right as I started to get attached to them. This one, I understand, but it's always hard to get close to a teacher and wonder: "when are they going to leave me?"

* I have been left alone in a studio by a teacher because she didn't want to be alone with a male during a Mysore practice.

* I have been hit on by more than a few teachers (not complaining mind you, but I have seen it)

* I saw a famous Yogi put my $1200 into a money counting machine in India, while outside of the school, an old woman poked at a garbage heap for something to eat.

* I have received horrific and angry emails from Yoga teachers after a YELP review (Back Bay Yoga,  Maine Bikram)

* I have watched Yoga teaching mills grind out teachers with less than 2 months of actual Yoga experience

* I have seen a chain of Yoga schools run by kind, but non-yoga-loving owners, and felt the effects of being a part of school where it was clear, the Yoga was not only unimportant, there was real resentment about being stuck in the industry

* I have poured my heart out to a teacher and then found out he was still in constant contact with my abusive ex-wife, of course, he never told me about this connection, despite how much I was pouring my heart out to him

* I have seen teachers value the practice of Yoga over the health of their students

* I have seen Yoga teachers either not intervene when a student was using Yoga to mask an eating disorder, as well as glamorize their own eating disorders as well

* I have watched drop-in classes climb from $5, to $7, to $10, $12, $15, $22, and even recently $27 dollars, and monthly unlimited memberships rise from $60 a month to $160 (on average) and as high as $220, while the infrastructure and the quality of teaching does not improve as rapidly and drastically as the prices do

* I have seen students injured in freezing cold studios (and been injured in them) and watched students faint in 104 degree rooms

* I see students take a sweaty practice and then walk right out, soaked wet, into 12 degree temperatures in february

* I see schools eliminating changing rooms

* I see Hip Hop being used to sell Yoga classes, played in Yoga classes (as one person said to me, "I went to the school to be free from misogyny, and then I'm doing Yoga and hearing someone rap, "I wanna put my dick your ass, bitch, take a dick in your ass")

* I have been given shit by a Yoga teacher for me being Vegan

* I have seen the context of Yoga change over the last 500 years, and yet, I see Yogis interpreting texts, the same way they approach their Bibles and Torahs: as if they speak from the now, to the now, and the context hasn't at all changed

* I see classes taught for the skinny students and observe teachers with no understanding of how obese or elderly bodies work, chase away students, damage them

* I have seen Yoga schools serve as a cover for a dangerous Cult, and seen cult-like mentality dominant how teachers and students interact with each other

* I have seen Yoga teachers NOT teaching, instead, they are leading, and yet, they think they are teaching, just because they are in the front of a class. It's actually very rare that I have been in a Yoga class and been TAUGHT

* I see people offering seminars on the heart chakra, and then their Facebook shows a life that is both DEVOID of a healthy heart chakra, let alone, they complain constantly they can't find someone to fuck them.....how do hot Yoga chicks have trouble finding people to have sex with?!

* I see Yoga being watered down with Tai Chi, Pilates, Zumba, Barre, Strength Training, Sambo, anything but diving deeper into the core history and traditions of Yoga itself

* I see one of the most famous Yoga "masters" in the world, killing animals, wearing animal pelts, taking her students hunting, and then talking about the sacredness of life, and then teaching Yoga on top of that (a tradition based on Ahimsa, non-violence)

* I have seen Christian Yoga, Jewish Yoga, Pagan Yoga, Hip Hop Yoga, Muslim Yoga, Non-Hindu Yoga, Buddhist Yoga, anything BUT YOGA pass for Yoga

* I see Yogis romanticizing celibacy as if it was at all a healthy practice that honored the fundamental design of our biology and ecology and psychology (yeah, the "brahmacharya" thing is absolute BULLSHIT, and it's as unhealthy for a Yogi as smoking or drinking or juggling live chainsaws with a blindfold on)

* I see Yoga schools catering to celebrities, worse still, catering to those who cater to celebrities

* I have seen great teachers ONLY teach at schools that cater to wealthy clients, and then offer retreats and seminars that only the wealthy can afford--creating social divisions between who learns Yoga, who doesn't, and why.

* I see Yoga schools turning into daycare centers

* I see Yoga schools locking their doors and making students wait in cold staircases, outside in the cold, because the school won't hire enough staff to keep the school open and inviting to their students

The hardest part for me, outside of these things I've seen, and more, is that I do come from a tradition where the teacher-student relationship is sacred. I come from Martial Arts, traditional Martial Arts, and when I first approached Yoga, I was all about the sacred connection between the student and their guru (plus, remember, I'm a teacher, and I consider my industry a blight on the sacred tradition between student and professor). But my relationships with teachers have either been:

1. They are amazing, but they leave (either my school, or the area)

2. They are okay, but only okay, and the Yoga quickly becomes a job to them, and they end up being dreadful

3. They are bat-shit crazy and I learn that early enough to get FAR away from them

I miss Yoga, I really do, but I also feel damaged by Yoga, the way Yoga is taught in the USA at least, the Yoga I've encountered in Maine and Boston (for the most part, few exceptions). I think about how lucky I was to experience Ashtanga when it was at Back Bay Yoga (before the owner became a manipulative psycho) and had this great community around it, great space to practice in, I was lucky enough to study for 6 great months in Asheville at Asheville Yoga, I was lucky enough to have a brief Ashtanga community (that rapidly fell apart from teacher/owners who didn't want to be) in Maine that was very supportive, and I have been fortunate enough to study with a few teachers here who are amazing, before they changed schools, moved away, or stayed at schools I could no longer afford, but overall, I think I have studied under 5 good teachers, 2 great ones, and at least 50 teachers who either didn't care if I ever came back, if I qualified as a human being, if my practice mattered at all, or who were just entirely bat-shit crazy with no way to come back.

The loss of the student-teacher relationship has been tough on me. I freely admit that I have abandonment issues, stuff from my childhood that I always think I have routed out, but when a teacher I like leaves, it comes running back up to the front again. I'm that same helpless 4-year-old begging his mother to not sign away her parental rights to her sister, and leave for good, all over again. It's so pathetic, but it's there, it's victim-identity, it's bullshit, it's grow the fuck up, but it's there.

One of the reasons I am so afraid to go back to Yoga, or that I keep starting and stopping and starting and stopping again, sitting outside of Yoga studios crying, looking at schedules for hours at a time, is I am staring at the fear of being let down again, of not having that great connection again, of being disgruntled, dismayed, disheartened, disengaged, and wondering: "why?"

I also admit that the more weight I gain back, the harder it is to go back each time. I started Yoga at 272 pounds, then worked my way down to 233, and here I am again over 300 pounds, and each time I attempt to restart, I restart in worse and worse shape, and I am grasping at a body that no longer exists, in a teacher-student relationship that also doesn't exist.

I know that, on some level, I must be creating this, conjuring this, that this is all a projection of a reality I must really want or else it would be very different, but I also think to myself: "Why would anyone go from a GREAT practice and life that they are in Love with, to no practice, and a life they are heart-broken over?"

Maybe, Yoga represents a passage for me, and I'm not letting that passage go, the way it should be let go of. Maybe it's time to do something else for a while: running, power walking, cycling, weight-training, and get my body back in shape so that someday I can indeed go back to Yoga, I can get into Martial Arts maybe (maybe it's time to go back to Martial Arts), or maybe get into some new form of body expression. Maybe some therapy would be good, find a way to process this journey the last few years without Blog and Facebook drama.

I just know that, the way I hear some people say that Academia destroyed their love of Academia, Yoga has damaged my ability to love Yoga, and I feel like the child constantly going back to the parent waiting to be loved, and then stunned when the parent just follows their own path, and says: "No." I'm projecting even more.

Perhaps the teacher, the opportunity will appear, sooner than I think, and before I think I am ready.

In the meantime, I just have to focus on my eating, getting in activity, and working on the things in my life that I can indeed change.

A fallen Yoga practice should not mean, a broken life, anymore. Hibernate, wait for Spring to appear within the practice, once again.