That time I taught a yoga class
That time I taught a yoga class
Thank you Cecily
Or rather I taught people that teach yoga classes and like learning about yoga.
If I did yoga, I would probably do Cecily Milne’s or one of her student’s classes. She’s the founder of Yoga Detour, which at least in my glimmering perception started out as combining FRC/Functional Range Conditioning mobility training principles with, yoga.
My nemesis.
Yoga Pros:
Has become a culturally accepted form of moving on the ground
Exposes people to the experience of moving their bodies more in more variable ways
Often is the first thing people try when they want to figure out wtf “recovery” is - it’s a nice door to walk through
Often introduces people to meditation and mindfulness
If that’s what you want, it lets you turn off a little and just follow someone’s instructions as to how to move your body
Yoga Cons:
It’s stupid
It’s as arbitrary as any other stupid group class but it’s also painfully justified in some form of rightness in spirituality or other dumb reasons
Often teachers will say stupid things like, “this is a great stretch for your hip”
“Whose hip?”
There’s lots of bullshit. My friend Jenni Rawlings (actually I haven’t talked to her since Covid so I don’t know any more but it’s nice to think we still are) posts things constantly about how your knee won’t actually explode if it’s not where your yoga teacher said to put it, and maddeningly hundreds of comments will report that their minds have been blown by this revelation
But Cecily does things differently. She teaches people to ask questions and to tune their students into their own bodies. We like Cecily.
Look, I went to this major yoga and healing place in Massachusetts to see a speaker and in wandering around the beautiful campus discovered a display about the founding yogi. It said that the yoga he developed was a spontaneous set of movements that came to him. I remember that word spontaneous specifically.
The people wandering around this place were some of the most disembodied I’d ever seen, although the place was wonderful, the speaker was great, and the food was delicious and I’m sure they help people immensely there.
The thing is that yoga classes still for the most part tell people what to do with their bodies in a way that reinforces the insidious idea that someone outside of you knows better what to do with your body than you do, that there is a right/wrong to it and that you’d better adhere. The entire fucking world is trying to tell you this when it comes to your body, if you haven’t noticed. Since birth. And to your mother that birthed you. There is a mission or a coincidence out here that seeks to divorce you from your autonomy, and it has a fantastic marketing department.
That founding yogi had it right up until he taught it to other people as the “right” way. I could totally be wrong about this but statistically I’m right here when it comes to how most people teach yoga.
Did you know you are the founder of the world’s most perfect yoga system?
That’s right.
It’s called spontaneous yoga.
Just like the guru, if you sit down you will tune in and discover your own “spontaneous movements” that will heal your body.
If you do your yoga every day you will heal more.
You will gain discernment.
You will be easier to talk and relate to because you will be more tuned into your own body and you will OWN your experience of spontaneous yoga.
I know, I know that many will say that Western yoga isn’t even yoga it’s just the asanas, I get it and I apologize for any incorrect framings or disrespect to the spiritual elements of repetitive practice, etc.
But you already knew that as a sovereign person you can choose not to agree with me and still like me and see my points. I know this is true because you have homegrown spontaneous yoga on your side.
Your yoga might not look like an Instagram post. It might look like doing whatever the fuck you wanna be doing, and glorying in the fact that unlike the vast majority of the entire world, you asked yourself what that might be and then did it.
I was telling a story wasn’t I…
Cecily of Yoga Detour, which turns out a better form of yoga teacher, asked me to be a guest teacher on one of their courses a few years ago. They were delightful to work with, impeccably organized, appreciative and resourceful and I loved it and them.
Don’t listen to people that divorce you from your body.
My goal was to connect them to their bodies and their whys for doing things.
And I think I’ve already summarized what I wanted to with spontaneous yoga. (TM)
Podcast of the day: