Blog
November 2008
This past weekend I attended Baron Baptiste's One Day Personal Revolution Workshop in Jacksonville, Florida. I have enjoyed the few Baptiste Power Yoga experiences I have had to date, but had never taken a class or workshop from Baron himself. I went to see what all the fuss is about and experience my own "personal revolution."
The day started with Baron introducing himself and then asking students to stand up and talk about why they were attending. The responses ranged from "I love you, Baron" gushings, to some really powerful stories about how Baron had changed people's lives. It was clear that Baron has a very powerful impact on many of his students. The rest of the day consisted of a strong 2.5 hour vinyasa-style morning practice, a post-lunch Q&A session and a slower, more focused (but still intense) afternoon practice.
So...did I experience my own personal revolution??? I would have to say that I did have a very powerful experience, though I am not sure I would call it a revolution...it was more like a revelation. What keeps coming back to me in the days since the workshop is how much mental resistance I have developed in my own yoga practice and teaching style. While I have spent the past year learning Ashtanga and developing a deeper personal practice and much more flexible body, I have built up a set of mental boundaries about what my body can do and how I think about teaching and practicing yoga.
During the morning practice Baron led us through a progressively more and more intense vinyasa sequence, which closely mirrored a lot of the poses I do in my personal Ashtanga practice. This makes sense, since most power yoga is drawn from the Ashtanga vinyasa tradition. The Baptiste style, though, adds a few things to the Ashtanga sequence that I never do in my own practice. When we got to these poses, which were difficult for me physically because my muscles have no memory of doing them over and over, I confronted a type of mental resistance that I had not seen in a while. "This pose hurts my back." This pose can't be good for my back" "I should come out of this pose to prevent injury" "You're just being a wimp" "Breathe through it" "What if I hurt my back and have to sit out the afternoon practice?" and on, and on. Ironically, one of the poses I was struggling with, Crescent Lunge, is exactly what my body needs to open my quads, hips and thoracic spine for the back-bending poses that challenge me the most in my daily practice. A year ago I had the same reaction to some poses in the Primary Series, but I have done them so many times now that I have learned how to find ease or "sukkha" in them.
As far as teaching style goes, I went to the workshop wondering if I might sign up for Baptiste style teacher training at some point on the future. Because of this I paid close attention to the sequencing, verbal cuing and assists. While I enjoyed the workshop, I found my self critiquing some of the things that are different from the teaching style I have developed over the past 2 years. I thought the assists were too frequent and sometimes I felt like I was on the assist assembly-line. On the other hand, the comments from the students during the afternoon discussion were that the assists were great. I also bristled a little at the Tony Robbins-style life coach approach to teaching Yoga. When I reflect on that reaction, though, I realize that my reaction is a result of the personal dogma I have created about how yoga should be taught. The truth is that a lot of people respond well to motivational speaking, including myself, when I open myself up to it. I am still not sure whether or not I will sign up for Baptiste style teacher training, but I do have a much better sense of the practice and philosophy. Over the next several weeks I will chew on my experience a little and see where it leads me.
So...what were my revelations? (1) while attempting to become more flexible by practicing very consistently, I have have become more inflexible in terms of my thoughts and (re)actions (2) I need to loosen up and be more flexible with my personal practice and my teaching.
