Musings on the Student-Teacher Relationship

Series

1. Yoga as a View Practice and Tool - Part One a View
2. Yoga as a View Practice and Tool - Part Two a Practice
3. Yoga as a View Practice and Tool - Part Three a Tool
4. Q. Which habits - perhaps habits of mind......
5. Personal Commentary to Yoga Sūtra Chapter 3 verse 50
6. Personal Commentary to Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā Chapter 1 verse 17
7. Notes from my personal conversations with TKV Desikachar
8. Musings on the Student-Teacher Relationship (This post)
9. Musings on Yoga Student and Yoga Teacher Trainings
10. Trumperies and Tactics for the Discerning Gardener
11. Responses to three questions for a media article
12. Prāṇāyāma within Rāja Yoga and Haṭha Yoga
13. Medicine, Mastery and Mystery
14. The commercialised in-Corporation of Viniyoga is in danger......
15. The concept of the viniyoga of Yoga is a fundamental hallmark......
16. There are times when we feel compelled to ponder......
17. Further musings on Yoga Student and Yoga Teacher Trainings......
18. As his student my teacher worked at guiding me towards......
19. The first four verses in the Yoga Sūtra Chapter One are very significant......
20. Its interesting to remember this again a decade later and reflect on......
21. Yoga is about Relationship......
22. Observation on Modern Yoga Practice?
23. Yoga is a journey to be experienced. However, that journey not only......
24. Aṣṭāṅga Daṇḍavat Praṇām
25. Yoga is the art of......
26. One of the roles for a Yoga teacher is to hold a mirror to reflect......
27. I find myself reflecting on the notion of 'authentic lineage'......
28. One way it maybe helpful to reflect on the relationship between......
29. Vinyāsa Krama is pronounced according to its meaning as......
30. Its potentially complex these days when something taught......
31. There are some forms within the postural resources developed by......
32. Cale Vāte Calaṃ Cittam - As is the breath so is the psyche.
33. Even these days the influence of Krishnamacharya's teachings around......
34. Amongst the many concepts taught to me by my teacher......
35. It appears that Yoga folks often talk about the spine in Yoga yet......
36. The Westernisation of Yoga Āsana with its emphasis on structural focus......
37. TKV Desikachar and AG Mohan, the co-founders of the KYM.......
38. A day of clear clear blue, no past no future, just the present......
39. When working with the breath in Prāṇāyāma its perhaps less appealing......
40. Yoga Sūtra Chapter One verses 1-4 epitomise our Yoga Journey in......
41. The role of ritual is the engaging of the psyche......
42. Having recently seen a website for a company promoting teaching......
43. Often people have little distinction between exercise and Yoga.
44. For me there is an existential difference between teaching exercise as......
45. One focus in my apprenticeship with my teacher was that the main priority both ways was on how to practice......
46. One focus in my apprenticeship with my teacher was that the main priority both ways was on how to transmit......
47. It is the student in us that must realize 'Avasthānam'.....
48. Increasingly I observe Yoga teachers, even if not trained specifically in......
49. The Press tells us that over 20 million Americans 'practice' Yoga......
50. To help guide our Dhyānam Sādhana the Indian tradition offers precious......
51. Thus Yukti Anumāna or skilful inference through the process of......
52. Something I do feel the need to emphasise is that this training is neither......
53. My teacher taught me that a Yoga teacher needs four things around you......
54. I do feel that verses 10 and 11 Yoga Sūtra Chapter Two offer......
55. I also feel that 121 priorities must take precedence over workshops and......
56. Yet, whatever the advances in the medium of the manual, I feel as......
57. What is Yoga? - An interview with Paul Harvey on BBC Radio Bristol 1986.
58. I feel reflecting on the recent three posts on īśvara Praṇidhānā......

Memories from my early days, over 40 years ago now, of going to teachers to teach me Yoga were generally around the notion, replete with conscious and unconscious expectations, that the teacher was there to bring out the best in me.

For example I feel that many of us as group class teachers are used to working with the Lazarus factor (raising folks from the dead each week). Here we can get caught or even need the expectation, both in you and/or in the student, that you will be or are ‘the one’ to revitalise the students tired and/or wired bodies as well as restoring confident dispositions.

However my experiences arising from working with TKV Desikachar stood that notion on its head. This was not through anything he said or did but from my own slowly acquired realisation that my way of looking at the relationship was confused.

What arose for me was the realisation that if I was going to be able to have access to what I wanted and needed to learn from Yoga it was up to me to bring the best out of the teacher, rather than expecting/wishing/hoping for it to be the other way around!

Furthermore that shift towards committing to this attitude of engaging in learning as my responsibility rather than expectations around my teachers teachings continuing to inspire me had an interesting side effect.

The very act of cultivating ways to bring the best Yoga Teaching out of my teacher forced me discover what was latent within me in order to do this. Developing working with and from that place brought out the best in me as a student in ways that still continue to inspire me even though its now over 35 years since I first worked with my teacher.

I had shifted from a place of dependence on the ‘other’ to resurrect me to one where I could look within myself and find what was needed to bring the best out of the situation. Yoga would perhaps call this process svatantra.

This can also help to shift us from expectations, projections and associated judgements around ‘the desirable and undesirable’ qualities of the teacher towards a mood of what can I learn and how can I facilitate this learning, in spite of or as well as from these qualities, as part of my growing into Yoga.

Chapter four of the Yoga Sūtra tells us that there is nothing to be acquired from outside, it all already exists within our inherent nature. We just need a means to realise and express its potential. One outcome of this process is an understanding of the appropriate relationship between independence, interdependence and dependence that remains with you irrespective of the presence or absence of the ‘live’ teacher.

For that I am grateful to my teacher.

“The target of Yoga is ‘svatantra’ 
which means to discover our own technique.
‘Sva’ means itself and ‘tantra’ means technique.
The techniques are in oneself and we must discover them;
if not we will depend on others. I am sick and I go to the doctor;
but finally I must become my own therapist.
This is ‘svatantra’.”
TKV Desikachar

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