Member-only story
The Realest Feedback a Yoga Instructor Can Get
And what do I do with this?
I recently gave a yoga lesson to my uncle, who is in his fifties and had never done yoga before.
He has extremely tight shoulders from his job, so we focused a lot on that.
When we were done, I asked him how he felt. I was expecting him to give me the usual feedback: I feel more awake, I liked X pose, but not Y pose…
He said:
“Usually I feel like I’m just caving in, like the hand of life is coming down on me. Now I feel like I’ve pushed it back a little bit.”
All right then.
That’s a pretty odd thing to put on my website or business card, but it’s probably the best and realest thing a yoga teacher (or any teacher, really) could hear.
So…what do I do with this feedback?
It’s easy when the feedback is something you can fix in class. This was an awkward transition, or the practitioner needed more props, or maybe they needed a harder variation of the pose.
His feedback made sense on a physical level, not just a spiritual one…he’s constantly hunched over, with his shoulders rounded. So the psychological feeling of shrinking and then expanding makes sense.
