Teaching Yoga
Grateful Adjustments
April/18/2011
When I’m training new instructors, I talk a lot about physical adjustments. I think that a teacher who can provide a useful and appropriate touch at just the right moment can invite an entirely new understanding in a student’s practice. I have often seen kinesthetic learners left behind, feeling confused, leaving instructors frustrated by why the student “won’t listen” to them or do what they’re showing them how to do. There is really little understanding of what that style of learner needs, and while self-reflection can be a useful tool for them, nothing replaces a well timed touch.
That said, I also am a huge advocate of the student’s right to refuse to be adjusted for any reason. Sometimes students just want to focus the mind and find touch distracting, or maybe there’s an experience in their past that makes touch challenging for them. Maybe they’re injured and nervous, or have had a negative experience with physical adjustments in the past. The reasons for not wanting to be touched are as many as there are students in the world, and days in a week. As instructors, we need to make room for this.
So, how did I figure this one out? Well, unfortunately the hard way...
I was a relatively new teacher teaching some years ago in a health club with a group of students I knew well, aside from one new woman. She was very friendly and outgoing with me and seemed very comfortable with the group. So towards the end of the class, I decided to do a simple partners yoga exercise. It wasn’t a “big pose” or a very “handsy” assist, and it seemed like a nice community builder. So I watched my class excitedly partner off until I noticed that one man and this new woman were on opposite sides of the room and still looking for partners. I took a moment and suggested that they work together. The woman said in a pretty relaxed way, “Well, I have an injury so I would prefer an alternative.” I said, no problem and partnered with the man myself while giving her a simple version of the pose to do on her own. The interaction was fine and she also seemed totally at ease with the exchange. After class my students were asking a few questions as they departed and I noticed she was sort of hanging out, waiting for me. She waited until everyone had left and approached me apologizing for not wanting to do the partner pose. She began to tear up and proceeded to tell me that she wasn’t comfortable being touched, especially by a man, as she had been attacked recently and sexually assaulted. I pulled myself together, and did my best to really help her feel supported. But this experience was a huge lesson for me about how I worked with touch, whether my own or as partner work, in a yoga class.
So I started to implement various tools for making it normal and comfortable to refuse touch in my classes. Whenever I teach, even with students that I have worked with before, (because every day is different) I take the opportunity when they are in their first devotional/child’s pose to ask permission and suggest that if they would prefer not to be adjusted for any reason today, just raise a hand. I will see them and be happy to skip over them while adjusting. There are a myriad of ways to get permission I just find that any private exchange between each of them and myself really helps us all get on the same page. I ask every time I start a class (just once, so it doesn’t become a whole new tension) and have only very rarely had anyone prefer not to be touched. But I keep asking.
Then this week after a class at a local gym a student approached me and told me somewhat emotionally “ I just wanted you to know that even though I never raise my hand and ask not to be adjusted, what it means to me that you ask. It completely changes the way I receive your touch and the quality of that interaction. I just thought that you should know that I feel so taken care of and respected every time you ask.” She became tearful and I welled with gratitude. I was amazed that even a student whom I had been adjusting for some time now, noticed this care and attention as she was moved nearly to tears by her own sense of being respected.
So the point? Never take it for granted. Any of it. And remember, it’s about your student’s experience not about you or your agenda for their growth.
Namaste (I mean it ),
Bhakti
That said, I also am a huge advocate of the student’s right to refuse to be adjusted for any reason. Sometimes students just want to focus the mind and find touch distracting, or maybe there’s an experience in their past that makes touch challenging for them. Maybe they’re injured and nervous, or have had a negative experience with physical adjustments in the past. The reasons for not wanting to be touched are as many as there are students in the world, and days in a week. As instructors, we need to make room for this.
So, how did I figure this one out? Well, unfortunately the hard way...
I was a relatively new teacher teaching some years ago in a health club with a group of students I knew well, aside from one new woman. She was very friendly and outgoing with me and seemed very comfortable with the group. So towards the end of the class, I decided to do a simple partners yoga exercise. It wasn’t a “big pose” or a very “handsy” assist, and it seemed like a nice community builder. So I watched my class excitedly partner off until I noticed that one man and this new woman were on opposite sides of the room and still looking for partners. I took a moment and suggested that they work together. The woman said in a pretty relaxed way, “Well, I have an injury so I would prefer an alternative.” I said, no problem and partnered with the man myself while giving her a simple version of the pose to do on her own. The interaction was fine and she also seemed totally at ease with the exchange. After class my students were asking a few questions as they departed and I noticed she was sort of hanging out, waiting for me. She waited until everyone had left and approached me apologizing for not wanting to do the partner pose. She began to tear up and proceeded to tell me that she wasn’t comfortable being touched, especially by a man, as she had been attacked recently and sexually assaulted. I pulled myself together, and did my best to really help her feel supported. But this experience was a huge lesson for me about how I worked with touch, whether my own or as partner work, in a yoga class.
So I started to implement various tools for making it normal and comfortable to refuse touch in my classes. Whenever I teach, even with students that I have worked with before, (because every day is different) I take the opportunity when they are in their first devotional/child’s pose to ask permission and suggest that if they would prefer not to be adjusted for any reason today, just raise a hand. I will see them and be happy to skip over them while adjusting. There are a myriad of ways to get permission I just find that any private exchange between each of them and myself really helps us all get on the same page. I ask every time I start a class (just once, so it doesn’t become a whole new tension) and have only very rarely had anyone prefer not to be touched. But I keep asking.
Then this week after a class at a local gym a student approached me and told me somewhat emotionally “ I just wanted you to know that even though I never raise my hand and ask not to be adjusted, what it means to me that you ask. It completely changes the way I receive your touch and the quality of that interaction. I just thought that you should know that I feel so taken care of and respected every time you ask.” She became tearful and I welled with gratitude. I was amazed that even a student whom I had been adjusting for some time now, noticed this care and attention as she was moved nearly to tears by her own sense of being respected.
So the point? Never take it for granted. Any of it. And remember, it’s about your student’s experience not about you or your agenda for their growth.
Namaste (I mean it ),
Bhakti
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