When Yoga Means Rest
I’m a certified yoga teacher and I’ve never taught yoga in a cool, trendy NYC yoga studio. I’ve also never taught yoga to a group of advanced adults or experienced “yogis”.
Actually, most of my hours have been spent teaching myself.
I have taught children. I have taught strangers in a community garden. I have taught kids in low-income communities without mats. I have taught fellow friends and activists committed to community change. And, maybe my favorite of all, I have taught teen aged boys.
I never intended to teach teen aged boys. It was never a job I specifically applied for and it was never something I would have signed up for if you asked me. But, as the Universe often delivers with her divine timing and perfect imaginings, in 2015 I found myself teaching yoga to teen aged boys within an all boys therapeutic boarding school. And it is something that gave me life. And that I still think about today, years later.
The school was a US accredited high school located in Costa Rica, the country I’d been living in for almost three years. I was working with the school’s food system and experiential education department, so part of my work included teaching yoga.
I’ve always been very committed and intentional with everything I do, so, I dove in deep to try to make the most out of my time there.
I would wake up in the morning and practice my own practice. This usually looked like me on my mat surrounded by candles burning, my journal and coffee near by, music blasting and my body free flowing. I knew that I had to connect to my self first, in order to show up authentically.
Occasionally I would stop my flow to jot down something I liked that I felt the “kids” would like. After I finished my personal flow and scribbles of a plan, I would sit and I would imagine the guys that would be in my class. I would try to feel what they were going through at the moment in their lives. And I would let that guide me. I would let that dictate the music I chose and how much deep movement there was in the class I was envisioning and how much rest and how fast and how slow I thought we should move together.
After all, that was kinda of the bigger purpose for me of group yoga classes: moving together to move through our things together.
So, there I was spending all this time and energy to come up with “the perfect” class for my teen aged students. The time for class would arrive: I’d look out at their faces, which often looked a bit skeptical or resigned or well, like they were really just there to avoid PE/running or a teacher or. . . life.
And, I think they WERE there for those reasons.
And, I didn’t judge them for it.
I had no attachments to why they were there and if they worked their asses off in that class or if they were there for the completely wrong reasons.
I was just glad they were there.
Because I knew that yoga gave me answers in life, even when I wasn’t looking. Because I knew that even on the days I didnt want to practice yoga, it did something for me.
Because it’s not really about “yoga” at all, as it is about taking a pause. It’s about breathing, even if you only notice 1 inhale and 1 exhale. It’s about paying attention. Or, at the very least, it’s about rest.
So, we’d start with skeptic faces. We’d move. (some of us). There would be periods of moans and groans and periods of laughter and smiles. I tried to include some challenging poses and some fun ones - everyone knows a teen ager loves a good ego boost. And by the end, we’d wind down to some reclined stretches and then a final resting pose.
I’d be sitting with my own eyes closed and they would all be lying down on their backs. I would lead them through some visualizations of relaxing the whole body, hoping too, to relax their minds and nervous systems. I would say some things that I thought they might need hearing. I thought that even if they weren’t listening, maybe they might be absorbing on some subconscious level. I’d encourage some cleansing breaths.
And, then, when it was time to come out of the pose of deep rest and back to this world, about 75% of them were
sleeping.
Like, snoring sleeping.
My initial reaction was, "Oh, great. They just slept through all that good stuff. And now I have to wake them up.”
But, one day, I had an overwhelming urge to cry when I opened my eyes and I saw the majority of them snoozing.
I had this visceral surge of anxiety. . . not my own. . . but something remembered from my past or something borrowed from one of them. I felt the pressure. I felt the pressure of parents and teen aged friends and teachers expecting me to do and be things I often didn’t feel connected to. I felt confused. I felt the confusion of not knowing who I am or what I wanted. I felt tired. Not the sleepless kind of tired but tired of trying so hard and failing over and over.
And then I remembered what it felt like to let that all go. To have some experience or some person be with me in a way that made me take the backpack of BS off my shoulders. And to just feel like me for a minute.
ugh. that feeling.
So, when I saw all these boys’ bodies just resting, I felt so grateful that I could offer them this space for a minute or two.
Or maybe they were just bored out of their minds.
Either way, rest is rest.
I thought about that today when I sat down on my yoga mat for the first time in a long time. I actually didn’t wanna do much warrior II or any type of dog pose at all. I’ve kept my mat rolled up and hidden for weeks now because the pressure to complete a vinyasa felt exhausting. Of course, I’m the only one pressuring myself to complete a vinyasa. We’re a weird species ya know?
Today, I said, ya know what? I’m just gonna sit my ass on my mat and look at myself in the mirror. And if I feel compelled to move, I will. And if I just sit there for awhile looking at myself, at least I’m gonna enjoy looking at myself. And that’s what I did.
I have 2 pleasant things to report:
I can finally look at myself for a long time and not find a face full of flaws. For one thing, I’m weirdly into my grey hairs all of a sudden, which is surprising to me because like a year ago I’d kinda panic whenever I found one. Now I look at them kinda closely and like their shine. Now I imagine each new one is the birth of a story. Like a little medal you earn at the end of a race saying “hey! you did it! you earned this”. I imagine some sort of genetic code in each strand woven with experience only earned by someone who makes it through the sh*t and comes out alive. Ok, sometimes I still pull them out.
I did move. I did some twists. I stretched my arms. I lengthened my body. I did some Sufi circles and sexy cat-cows. I got to know my joints and where Im weak and where I still feel strong. It was like five minutes. But it felt good. It felt like something I’d been missing. And it didn’t at all feel like pressure.
I doubt any teenagers are reading this, but, if you are, I want to say - ugh, it’s hard being a teenager. I’m sorry. And, you can do it. Find some people and places and things you love that take some pressure off you and go be with them. (Maybe if you know a teen ager you can channel this message to them.)
I want to teach yoga again. But mostly I just want to create a space where we can feel free to move together and maybe bring some of our problems or celebrations to light (and maybe laugh) and be with those things together until we all feel a bit more connected to our selves and to one another.
And maybe to take a nap together at the end because oh man, this mama never knew what a good nap was until motherhood.
with (even more) love (than usual)
(& letting go & rest in mind)