Learning to help folks stay upwardly and outwardly mobile: Teacher Training at Stillwater Yoga, Atlanta

Iyengar Teacher Training at Stillwater Yoga in Atlanta is a reservoir not only for new insights and teaching enhancements, but also for learning more about moving vertically and horizontally in the practice of yoga. Stillwater Yoga owner, Kathleen Pringle points out that our vertical expansion is about knowledge and our horizontal expansion is about wisdom. While most of the basic elements of the training are similar, the nuances are as unique as the group of student teachers who attend.   

Our February training this year addressed how to effectively assimilate the vast amounts of information we get from various sources. As many Iyengar students and teachers know the Iyengars are constantly enhancing and clarifying teaching techniques. In addition, there are hundreds of workshops and resources that interpret what the Iyengars’ are doing. Kathleen emphasized the imperative of understanding the basis of any new information or technique. If you think about it, the applications go far beyond the yoga mat.

In yoga, we are often in workshops where someone with an impairment of some kind becomes the impetus for the teacher to introduce a particular new action.  If we isolate the new action from the impairment and incorporate it into our students practice, we are acting on one of the nine obstacles that block our progress known as alabdha bhamikatva or “missing the point” as highlighted in Patanjali's Yoga Sutra 1:30 below: 

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra 1:30 

Vyādhi (sickness), Styāna (lack of mental disposition for work), Samsaya (doubt, indecision), Pramāda (indifference or insensibility), Ālasya (laziness), Avirati (desire), Bharānti Darśana (false knowledge, illusion), Alabdha Bhūmikatva (missing the point, inability to hold on to what is achieved), Anavasthitattva (instability in holding on to concentration which has been attained after long practice)

Students without the impairment may not need the new action in their practice at all.  In fact, in some cases the action could have negative consequences. Therefore, it is important to take extreme care with how we receive new information, so that when we share it, we are doing so with full awareness of why the action is being introduced.

Our April training addressed the issues around how students respond to questions.  As you know, we are all students no matter how advanced our practice and we all experience the same obstacles.  What is wonderful about being in the teacher-training environment is that we can pause to witness ourselves in others and learn. 

Often when a teacher is faced with a student with an injury or pain the teacher asks certain clarifying questions:  Where is the injury or pain?   How long does the pain last?  What is interesting is that the responses very rarely answer the question.  Instead, people tend to attach the pain or injury to a story and want to tell the story, so the question doesn’t get answered.   

Kathleen helped us understand how to separate the pain or injury from the story.  In doing so, we can isolate the specific impairment so we can apply a more accurate modification.  At the same time, we encourage the student to loosen their attachment to the story around the pain or injury. Thereby strengthening their consciousness by getting them to the root of problem, which is the only place real healing can happen.  

Of course, Kathleen Pringle can quickly identify when a student needs help in this manner. After she helped someone in our training, it occurred to me look at myself and discover just how many stories I have that are keeping me from healing or moving forward.  If you take a moment to think about it, I’ll bet you can find you have a few of your own.

Teacher Training at Stillwater is a community event.  It takes wonderful peers willing to make mistakes, ask the hard questions, and put themselves out there so we all learn.  It takes the efforts of experienced teachers like Nancy Mau and Kquvien DeWeese, who volunteer their time and expertise to share with us and show us the magnificent results of many years of teacher trainings and trips to Pune. It also takes our incredible Stillwater patrons who come to learn and are open to having student teachers bring their nerves and growing skills to the front of the room. Most of all it takes a veteran Iyengar Yogi like Kathleen Pringle, who puts up with all of our “stuff” to help us see our obstacles, improve our skills, and find our voice, so we can share this amazing practice with you.  

Thank you all.  Namaste.