questions

What makes a good yoga teacher?   What makes a bad one?  It is said that no one can be good at yoga.  You either practice or you don’t and all practice is good.  That’s true in a way.  But a person can be good at asana, or good at pranayama.  If someone is really good at asana, will that make them a good yoga teacher?    Some of the best teachers I’ve ever known couldn’t do any “fancy poses”, and some of my not so favorite teachers have crazy physical practices, but are the two things even related?   I have a lot of questions today as I ponder my relationship with my yoga practice.  Do I have a good practice?  Am I a good teacher?  I have been told, by someone very serious, that my style of yoga isn’t real yoga.  I like crazy vinyasa flow.  Or power yoga for lack of a better word.   Some people believe that the crazy fast work out style yoga is somehow missing the point.   If it gets me into what I call “the ether” or yoga state, the  blissed-outness, whatever the hell you call it, then what does it matter what the practice is?  One of the most profound “yoga” experiences I’ve ever had didn’t happen in a yoga class.  I was not on drugs, I was not sleep or nutrition deprived, I wasn’t doing any asana or pranayama. What I was doing was a practice called Suzuki, a Japanese theater training technique.  We had been doing some of the physical training for about an hour, then we all stood in a group, the leader was just talking to us.  Our eyes were open, we weren’t in any special form or posture, just standing there with our eyes open, and he kept asking us to open our eyes more. Open our ears.  Can you hear the birds outside?  Can you hear the cars going by?  Can you see the people in the cars going by? Can you hear them talking?  It lasted only minutes but children, I could not only hear the birds in the trees I could see them. I could feel the people outside the building and count them. I knew who was happy and who was sad, and I knew, completely and fully KNEW, that everything is connected, and that we are, in fact, all one.  And ever since that day I have been chasing that feeling.   And when I find it I know that I’ve also found a true yoga teacher.  We are lucky here in Austin, we have a bunch of true yoga teachers, we also have some people who know how to put poses in a sequence so that it’s fun, or know how to kick your ass real good, but that doesn’t make them true yoga teachers.  We also have some people I consider to be really bad yoga teachers.  But here’s the funny thing, some of the people that I believe to be true yoga teachers?  Not everyone who takes their classes gets that.  Some of the people that I consider to be bad?  Some people really dig it.  So I say again, what makes someone a good teacher?  What makes the difference between getting a nice ass whopping, and being able to see all the birds in the goddamn trees?   If one of you has the secret I’d love to know about it.