WHEN YOU TAKE A CLASS, TAKE THE CLASS

When we came back from our first teacher training, our good friends and mentors--- David and Ken---gave us an important piece of advice: When you take a class, take the class. They explained that as you progress as a yoga teacher, your idea of what is correct, good, effective, etc., is going to grow. It will become harder and harder to take classes without being judgmental, and worse yet, arrogant.

This becomes tricky, because of course we have ideas of what a class should be. Even if we are not a teacher, we know what we like and dislike. While you should never feel unsafe in a class, it is not appropriate to voice any objections to the class either verbally or with your actions. If a teacher asks you for feedback, that's different. Otherwise, you are the student and the teacher is the teacher. By showing up for a class, we accept the responsibilities of the student: to learn, listen and practice.

As we progress as yogis, this becomes more important, not less. We learn that we all have constructs we've built, and part of the practice is noticing and attempting to quiet these constructs. During a yoga class, it is not our job to educate the teacher about the mistakes they've made. In that moment, all it would do is take us down the wrong path by disrespecting the teacher and building up our own ego. Of course, this is not the same as having no opinions. Rather, it is simply a chance to practice humility. We all have opinions, even strong ones that form the foundation from which we teach. When we choose to take a class, we must take the class.