Te acher zone
I
was lucky that when I first started
learning yoga it came with a ready-
made community, or sangha. As I
learnt meditation, a new lifestyle was
supported by a group of like-minded
people. Later, I decided that I wanted to
teach yoga and embarked on a British Wheel
of Yoga Diploma. Again, I found a group of
yogis and yoginis who supported each other
as we learnt. However, I wasn’t experiencing
this in the different drop-in yoga classes
I was trying around London, where I was
living at the time. It all felt quite anonymous
and when I ran my first classes I think they
probably left people feeling well stretched,
relaxed, but anonymous too. I would like to
share how I have evolved community over
time, why this is important and, as a teacher,
why it makes business sense too.
The anonymity in my classes changed for
the better when I started teaching pregnancy
yoga. There was a natural reason for the
women to want to get to know each other
because they were going on the journey
towards birth and parenthood at the same
time. At the beginning of classes I would ask
women to say their name, how many weeks
pregnant they were and update us on any
news like having a scan or starting maternity
leave. This facilitated women talking to each
other at the end of class and making lasting
friendships once their babies arrived; going
through their infants’ milestones together
during maternity leave.
What really shifted my perspective though
was when I started to attend women’s circles
in gatherings like Womb Wisdom retreats
with Uma Dinsmore-Tuli and Alexandra
Pope. Physically sitting in a circle to do yoga
practice or to talk about our experiences
of our menstrual cycles did something
special: it equalised everyone, teachers and
students alike, and meant that everyone had
a chance to be seen and speak rather than
hiding away at the back.
After these experiences I started teaching
all my classes in a circle: general, pregnancy,
mother and baby, relaxation workshops – all
of them! I also ask everyone to introduce
themselves at the start of a class. This is
particularly important in the relaxation
workshops and well woman classes where we
go straight into a yoga nidra. If you’ve heard
everyone’s name and how their week has
been, I feel you can relax at a deeper level
than if everyone stays nameless.
What is so important about introducing
this sense of community in a class is that
when we feel a connection with others, an
empathy, we can feel that it’s a safe space
to share our vulnerabilities. This is essential
for supporting mental health. You may thinkyou don’t go to yoga to be vulnerable, but
isolation is on the increase in our society
and meaningful connection through
something you attend frequently can make
all the difference.
For example, in my mother and baby
yoga classes it is common that a mum will
share her exhaustion from lack of sleep, her
worry over her baby with reflux who won’t
keep anything down, her anxiety about her
changed relationship with her partner and
so on. The other mums are wonderful at
truly hearing her experience and not offering
solutions or ‘one-upping’ her story (‘well
my baby sleeps even less than that’) when
she’s at breaking point. The atmosphere
engenders honesty and allows the women to
overcome the possible shame of not being
the ‘good mother’ or ‘good wife’ that our
culture pushes them to be.
From a teaching point of view, I have found
that creating community through going the
extra mile (like putting on a social once a
month for the pregnant women) enriches
my relationships with my clients and makes
teaching more interesting. There is more
scope for transformation when you get to
know someone and what practice could
really support them. Being in a circle reminds
me that I’m also a student: I’m always
learning from the people who come to my
classes and I know I have become more
compassionate as I hear the usually untold,
but common, stories.
I can’t help everyone and have healthy
boundaries in place, and that’s where the
community comes in: they start to help each
other. Getting to know one another leads to
friendships and they feel loyal to the class
not only because they like what I’m teaching
them, but because they look forward to
connecting with their friends on a regular
basis. For example, when I was training to be
a postnatal yoga teacher I was required to
watch three different teachers and reflect
on how they taught. I happened to observe
one teacher when she was teaching the last
session of a five-week block. It was a great
class in terms of content, but none of the
mums were signing up again and I think
that’s because they’d had no opportunity to
connect. That’s where I learnt the power of a
cup of tea and flapjack at the end of my mum
and baby classes! This feeling of community
ripples out way beyond my classes and really
does make the world a better place.
I realise that class size, time constraints
and all sorts of other barriers exist, but I
believe you as a teacher, as well as your
students, will benefit many times over from
supporting a community to flourish. Let’s be
creative in finding ways to do this.Tessa Sanderson is a yoga teacher
and menstrual educator supporting
women through all stages of the life
cycle (cyclicalwisdom.com). She has
also produced The Colouring Book for
Pregnancy and Birth with supporting
yoga nidras (tessayoga.co.uk)