The Yoga Teacher Training is currently going on at the Ashram and I gave a few lectures, too. In one of them I was talking about perfection in Yoga. Once a student in a similar course asked me ‘I don’t think I am really able to teach yoga, there are so many postures in which I am not fully perfect yet!’
Especially in the West I have seen often that yoga teachers feel like they have to be perfect in performing the Asanas. Actually they want to be perfect in everything and that at once. They give themselves a lot of pressure because they want to show their students the most difficult physical yoga poses without shaking, without any support and without any mistake. For many of them it is then very embarrassing if they have to search for support during a balancing pose. They even do not dare to do some exercises fearing that this would happen.
This hesitation does not stop with the Asanas, it reflects in everything the yoga teacher does. A new way of meditation will first be practiced alone or with the own children until it seems perfect and if someone asks an unexpected question, you get nervous. This wish to be perfect can really destroy your joy of teaching.
If a yoga teacher has a very deep wish to be perfect, he may even play this role of the perfect teacher. Even if he doesn’t know the answer to your questions, he answers quickly, no matter what you ask. An easy asana will be rehearsed for hours and the students will have difficulties looking as perfect as the teacher. Behind this mask of perfection however is the fear of not being perfect.
It is so unnecessary and unhelpful for your teaching to think in this way! Imagine what would happen if students thought the same way and would only come if they already knew everything. If they thought that it was embarrassing not to be able to go into a posture, how would you teach them?
You don’t need to be perfect, not as a yoga student and not as a yoga teacher. Also in our advanced courses we don’t teach perfection, we teach how to go further than what you have done before. You learn how to accept the limits of your body and maybe slowly extend them. Most of all you learn to accept and love yourself, no matter how far you can go in a posture.
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I am not a Yoga teacher but this is a very helpful read for me.
Working or doing in order to tell yourself and others who you are is an attempt at happiness. It doesn’t work. The ego is never satisfied.
If I feel like I cannot do yoga or something else without performing for others instead of engaging for myself; my own health and happiness, I take a breath and relax. My mind calms down and I can pay attention to what is going on around me instead of the noise in my mind that keeps me from noticing.
In my experience, if I am not present when doing Yoga, if I am thinking about whether or not I am correct or going far enough, I find that my flexibility and balance has left me. If I concentrate and focus my attention inwards, if I relax mentally and physically I surprise myself with how far my body will take me.
It is so sad that yoga is just an industry in the West!
It makes me very happy to read this, dear Swami Balendu! In my opinion a perfect yoga teacher is the one who is able to teach through love. Just let it flow through you and don’t worry about a concept.
Yoga doesn’t need to look perfect, but to have good effects on your body and soul and therefore for your feelings. Why do some people try to create a fashion of Yoga?