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The phrase “accessible yoga” has grow to be increasingly common in recent times. Although there’s no denying this can be a helpful thing, it’s essential that those that take and teach yoga truly understand what that idea means and the various ways in which it takes shape. In his latest book, the founding father of the Accessible Yoga Association, Jivana Heyman, explores a few of the ways in which teachers misunderstand our role and overlook the actual needs of those that entrust themselves to our classes. His insights remind us that we teachers must remain students first. —Renee Schettler, Executive Editor

For a lot of reasons, being a yoga teacher can feel confusing. On the one hand, you could have knowledge of the practices and experience practicing and teaching. The coed probably has less experience and knowledge of yoga, but they do have their very own inner wisdom. So the paradox is that you could have knowledge they usually have wisdom. That’s potentially the right combination to create the alchemy of yoga, but it could actually be a fragile balance. Ultimately, our job isn’t a lot to show yoga but to guide the coed to grow to be their very own teacher.

Within the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks in regards to the difference between a smart and unwise person, which feels vital for yoga teachers to contemplate. He explains that an unwise or unenlightened person simply has more attachments than the smart person. Attachment, vairagya, refers to our relationship to the things on this planet that we mistakenly think we must be completely satisfied. As teachers, our job isn’t just doing longer meditations or more complicated asanas. Our job is to release our attachments and to guide students by example. He explains:

“The unenlightened do things with attachment (wanting some results for themselves). An enlightened person does things with the identical zeal, Arjuna, but without attachment, and thus guides others on the trail of selfless motion (karma yoga). A smart person won’t disturb the mind of an unwise one who remains to be attached to the fruits of their actions. But by constantly performing perfect (selfless) actions the smart person influences others in all they do.” 1

When a recent student involves you, do you see problems that must be fixed? A “bad” back, a hunched spine, a stressed mind? Is your goal to vary them, improve them, make them “higher”? What sort of relationship starts like that—with only seeing the opposite person’s limitations? Regardless of how expert you might be as a yoga teacher or yoga therapist, you’re not going to heal anyone from anything. They could heal themselves together with your guidance, but that’s on them, not you.

A participant practicing in an accessible yoga class at a community center. (Photo: Tara Walton | Getty)

Your Students Don’t Need To Be “Fixed”

A student once shared a story about his experience with one other yoga teacher. He uses a wheelchair, and hesitantly went to a yoga class. The teacher immediately pounced on him and, relatively than asking him questions, began to make claims in regards to the advantages of yoga. She even had the nerve to inform him that if he attended her classes usually she would help him walk again!

This was improper on so many levels. Probably the most insidious thing about that teacher’s statement was that she assumed that the coed desired to walk. She had no idea why he was using a wheelchair or what using the wheelchair meant to him. Let’s just say that he almost gave up on yoga after that have.

This story jogs my memory of the ways we use language. For instance, saying someone is “wheelchair sure” or “bed sure” makes an assumption about their relationship to the supports they’re using. Most wheelchair users that I do know say that they consider their chair a source of freedom, not limitation.

In case your goal is to repair your students, you’ll be fighting an uphill battle. Life brings illness, disability, and eventually death. It’s unavoidable. While yoga provides tremendous advantages, it’s dangerous to bring a strictly therapeutic approach to a spiritual practice. It may create confusion and infrequently relies on ableism and healthism. While it’s natural to want to cut back your students’ suffering, it’s vital to reflect on where that desire comes from.

Reflection

Do you assume your older students are attempting to regain their youth, larger‑bodied students are attempting to drop extra pounds, or disabled students wish to be fixed or healed?

Recognizing Your Students’ Agency

In case you see your students as already whole and full, you might be cultivating a really different relationship with them than you can be in case your intention were to repair or change them. Plus, if you happen to start taking responsibility to your students’ healing, how will you’re feeling once they get sick or die? Consider the burden you might be carrying, and the way much pressure you might be putting on yourself. I discovered that taking up that responsibility was burning me out.

Early in my teaching journey, lots of my students with AIDS passed away. Each loss was devastating and made me query what I used to be doing, but by some means I discovered the need to maintain teaching. Then just just a few years ago, I used to be working with a young woman who had an unusually severe type of multiple sclerosis. Each week when she would come to class, she would have worsened symptoms, and he or she was really struggling. I felt completely powerless, and wasn’t sure methods to help her.

So I approached one in all my yoga teacher friends to ask him what else I could do to support her. He stopped me and easily said, “You’re making it about you.” It was such an incredible example of how helpful peer support is. His reflection made me see the situation otherwise.

This student’s journey was hers, and I used to be judging it and deciding the way it should go. Once I used to be in a position to let go of my desire to manage, I spotted that her journey of illness and wellness was hers alone. I used to be just supporting her personal evolution. Soon afterward she passed away. It was very upsetting, but my friend’s insight made it more bearable for me.

Constructing your students’ agency means encouraging them each to hearken to their inner voice, their intuition, and their inner wisdom. That’s the way in which they will access the true power of yoga. I often tell my students, “Take heed to me, but don’t hearken to me.” Hear the words that I’m saying, but follow your inner guidance.

The opposite day, during class, a student asked me, “How should this feel?” That query is the sign of an open mind, which I appreciate. However it also speaks to their desire to do it “right,” to slot in, and potentially, to their expectation that growth will occur in a selected way. I responded to the coed with, “You tell me. What are you feeling?”

Interoception is the sense of what is going on contained in the body, and may be cultivated through yoga practice. By bringing their awareness inside, students can create more capability to hearken to that inner voice, reply to those inner sensations, and practice in a way that’s in alignment with what they’re feeling within the moment. That’s the mark of an experienced practitioner—increased sensitivity to their inner world, not increased sensitivity to a teacher’s instructions.

Some ways to encourage that inner journey in your students is to ask them to hearken to themselves, to discover the sensations that they’re experiencing as they practice, to do body scans, and convey awareness to different parts of the body in a neutral, non‑judgmental way. That last point alone is transformational. Asking them to note how they feel before and after they do a selected practice may be very effective in increasing self‑awareness. Also, helping students grow to be aware of the way in which they consult with themselves is usually a lifelong gift.

Reflection

Is it difficult for you to take a seat together with your students’ suffering?

Do you’re feeling like a failure in the event that they come to your classes and don’t have less suffering?

1 Swami Satchidananda, The Living Gita: The Complete Bhagavad Gita, (Recent York: Henry Holt & Co, 1990), sloka 3.25-26

Excerpted with permission from The Teacher’s Guide to Accessible Yoga by Jivana Heyman (Rainbow Mind Publications).

About Our Contributor

Jivana Heyman, C-IAYT, is the founder and director of Accessible Yoga, a company dedicated to increasing access to yoga teachings and supporting yoga teachers. He’s the creator of the books Accessible Yoga: Poses and Practices for Every Body; Yoga Revolution: Constructing a Practice of Courage & Compassion; and The Teacher’s Guide to Accessible Yoga: Best Practices for Sharing Yoga with Every Body. Learn more at jivanaheyman.com.