When you take classes from a new teacher, what qualities do you look for?
It is intriguing how one evaluates a teacher before taking the classes. If we respect fine distinction between words, you could be looking for an instructor/ demonstrator, and not a teacher.
In Yoga tradition, teacher is a much revered person. A respected fact is that the teacher is at least a few steps ahead of you in knowledge and experience. One has only to gain from such a person. Secondly, a greater emphasis in Yoga is on ?svadhyaya (self-study)? to which a teacher has to be a trigger, guide and facilitator. In this sense, a truly hungry student can learn from a kind act of a stranger on a street or self-less love of a pet or the nature?s unremitting cycles; just a few examples. So, before writing a shopping list for a teacher, one has to severely introspect whether one is ready to learn.
Readiness to learn works like a fire in the belly for a true student. Yoga traditions promise that when a student is ?ready?, the teacher appears. Teacher-student is a soul connection and spans across lives. No two individuals come together in life without a purpose, some legacy of the past. That we don?t understand the purpose makes us either ignorant or ill-prepared to be a student.
This is not a complex answer to an apparently simple question. This is my anguish over quite a few similar threads and the everyday transactional mindset that people bring into Yoga discipline.
I’m glad I gave you the chance vent your frustration. Perhaps when you were climbing onto your soap-box, you forgot the question to address.
You took a stance as if the context is “I”. The context is you. I am not shopping for a teacher.
Nor did I say the qualities I inquire about will be defining in anyway.
The question is simple, your answer was complex. Your post contradicted itself on every level.
Now that I’m correcting the one who mistakenly took the spiritual high ground, It’s also paradoxical as well.
[QUOTE=JSK;65473]When you take classes from a new teacher, what qualities do you look for?[/QUOTE]
teacher is one who is an enlightened person and is able to nake other person enlightened at first sight. till the time you are alive you should find true teacher otherwise you will waste this life. true teacher is one who inspires you to go inside of you everytime whenever you talk to him for anything. his whole life is all about inspiration for you to find a way to go insideof you so that you can know yourself. you can find youself . “you need a master unless you become a master”.
I seriously read some of the answers in this forum and wonder how much ‘kool-aid’ has been consumed.
In an asana class - I look for someone who teaches in a manner that I can follow. Can I understand the instructions? Can I do the poses? Am I causing myself pain? Is the instructor/teacher there to help or does he/she have another agenda?
In a meditation class - can I understand what I’m supposed to do or are the instructions so airy-fairy that I’m lost? Is there spiritual snobbery going on? Is the type of meditation something that ‘fits’ with me and my beliefs - if not - does it challenge me?
In a retreat - is it balanced (time-wise) as far as asana/pranayama/meditation/chanting or is it severely lop-sided? Am I made to feel welcomed even if I don’t worship a specific guru?
The question seems to be about a teacher which is not at all an inquiry about a guru, satguru or gurudev.
A teacher can be your math teacher, your violin teacher, or your language tutor. This is not the only method of learning. You can learn from the wind, the trees, the behavior of your neighbor, or a day spent using google. I would not however call Google “my teacher” for it tends to muddle clarity in communication.
When I take a Yoga class for the first time, my first “hope” is that I am not taking an asana class. If I’ve willfully wandered into an asana-only class then my look-for is a bit different than it is in a Yoga class.
Generally speaking I look for a teacher who above all else is teaching from integrity. To me this means living that which you are teaching and teaching that which you are living. Ergo I don’t expect a teacher to convey a particular pose to me unless that is a pose that teacher understands. I much prefer a simple set of poses well taught from integrity than physically challenging poses taught from nothing at all.
Pragmatically (to me) the teacher of yoga should not be teaching from their ego and the class should always be about the student (not the teacher or their popularity). I also look for a teacher who can use simple words to reach me. I call this economy of language. And the teacher (for me) should be able to use command language infused with compassion.
I also look for a teacher that understand teaching, the protocols of assisting (by all definitions) and an ability to superimpose the final pose over my less-than-final pose in order to direct me. Finally I look for a teacher (in asana) who understands the primary safety concerns and uses that understanding to find the perch between safety and efficacy.
JSK,
My view was about the very process of evaluation of a teacher. But if it doesn’t serve any purpose let us set it aside. (The central figure in what I wrote was a generalised ‘one’, occassional ‘you’ was meant to be taken in the same sense. I apologize, if it didn’t appear that way.) Sometimes being born and brought up in different cultures creates fundamentally different grounds,there is nothing high or low about it.
Please specify the contradictions and explain the paradox to help my own learning. Thanks.
I find it a responsible. Evaluation factors - experience, following, philosophies embraced, styles taught, adaptations, etc.
If we respect fine distinction between words, you could be looking for an instructor/ demonstrator, and not a teacher.
I refrained from using the word guru, else, teacher, instructor, demonstrator, tutor, coach, etc can all be used interchangelbley.
In Yoga tradition, teacher is a much revered person.
A teacher may be revered in yoga tradition, however, real life has taught me to not place ideals upon human beings.
A respected fact is that the teacher is at least a few steps ahead of you in knowledge and experience. One has only to gain from such a person.
I would disagree that this is less of a fact and more of a judgemental assumption. I get the point that you’re trying to make. If there’s nothing to learn from a person, why seek their knowledge. One may have much to gain, but one may also lose sight of the true facts, that the person they endear, is but only another human being.
Secondly, a greater emphasis in Yoga is on ?svadhyaya (self-study)? to which a teacher has to be a trigger, guide and facilitator. In this sense, a truly hungry student can learn from a kind act of a stranger on a street or self-less love of a pet or the nature?s unremitting cycles; just a few examples. So, before writing a shopping list for a teacher, one has to severely introspect whether one is ready to learn.
This would be the paradox, as introspection itself is by way of comparison, learning.
Readiness to learn works like a fire in the belly for a true student. Yoga traditions promise that when a student is ?ready?, the teacher appears.
Similar to the manner in which when I decide to illegally park in the metro area, parking attendants appear.
Teacher-student is a soul connection and spans across lives. No two individuals come together in life without a purpose, some legacy of the past. That we don?t understand the purpose makes us either ignorant or ill-prepared to be a student.
Purpose can be derived from any event or action.
This is not a complex answer to an apparently simple question. This is my anguish over quite a few similar threads and the everyday transactional mindset that people bring into Yoga discipline.
In my envrionment, I see yoga students aspiring to be even greater students without even scratching the surface of the system of yoga. I have taken classes from instructors who “fell in love” with asanas mere months ago and are now “teachers”. I have been devout students for the controlling, the superficial, the entreprenuer and even the occasional charlatran. I have never been in the presense of a guru, but I was in the presence of a indian professor who studied yoga for nearly 50 years of his life. He claimed to be nothing more than a retired professor, yet when I was in his presence, it was being with so much more. I recognize that there are worthy teachers capable of hessid or agape and can teach and love their students without alterior motives. What qualities speak volumes of such character?
JSK,
I don’t see any self-contradictions as you mentioned in the first response and the suggested ‘introspection’ is about ‘own learning preparedness’ that involves no judgement about the teacher.
Anyways, our perceptions are vastly different, much of its experiential origin is mutually unknown. For example, I have never been to any Yoga classes and I equated teacher with guru that you specifically didn’t mean. Or I consider ‘illegal parking inviting a parking attendant’ as an insignificant but learning moment that ultimately brings forth spiritual insight; but you consider that worthy of no attention implying that ‘the teacher’s arrival in one’s life’ is an equally hollow idea. Thanks for your time.