The Heebie Jeebies of Teaching
THE HEEBIE JEEBIES OF TEACHING
feel a little nauseous just before your new class?
sleepless night before a workshop or training?
weary of the endless monologue of self denigration about your teaching abilities?
Mary Paffard has been teaching for over 25 years and she still gets the wobblies at times. This article is her attempt to share ways of working with the wobbles and to see how one can explore this “asana’ just like every other yoga challenge to enhance ones practice and self-reflection.
It often amuses me when new yoga teachers are consumed with surprise when they hear that old timers like myself still have moments of teaching neurosis! Some evidence of vulnerability and uncertainty prior to teaching is inevitable if one honors this magic journey into the unknown that each teaching situation embodies. Unless we want to become thick skinned and complacent, learning to fine tune the wobble so that it enhances the teaching relationship and doesn’t completely take over, is an art that is worth exploring.
Over the years I have met highly skilled and effective teachers and trainees who are paralysed by their own inner dialogue prior to a teaching encounter. Any talk of the value of uncertainty is not appreciated as stomachs turn in knots and voices from all the judgmental figures of the past hold sway convincing the teacher that she/he has no right to even breathe. For most new teachers, this does begin to ease as ones own confidence deepens and one notices that not everyone ended up in the emergency room after ones class. Occasionally a students kind comment or the fact that the feeling tone at the end of the class is palpably easeful, reassures us to keep on going, slaying the dragons of our nerves for the next time. I remember when I first started teaching weekend workshops in the late 80s with friend and colleague Rodney Yee, I would be anxious for the week prior, and then after the weekend, the nerves would be gone and the exhaustion would last another 3!
This crazy cycle improved over time but, as my partner Berni, who has seen all stages of this melodrama, tells me, even seasoned baseball stars have majorly unpleasant physical symptoms before the game. Most of us have had some experience of public speaking or theatre and we can acknowledge the humanness of being that exposed and “on trial” that any new similar type of situation can demand. It is interesting to note that the number one fear of all people - beyond the fear of incapacitating sickness or death, or nuclear holocaust or some of the biggies we have to contend with – is the fear of public speaking or presentation. Until we learn to master this to some degree, it can make a good teacher give up his/her craft and at the very least create a huge amount of wasted energy for the individual and for those who have the misfortune to be around when the fear and trembling are rampant. These days, new places, studios, teaching tasks are part of the deep enjoyment I have for the practice and the times when I notice more of a “heightened buzz” I can usually appreciate the adrenalin it brings and also a sense of curiosity, knowing that I am about to learn something new.
So what are the strategies and reflections that have been useful in this shift and what are the little gems that I have learnt from my teachers and my colleagues who have all dealt with this issue in some way or other.
COMPASSIONATE SELF TALK
Hadas Rin, a friend and teacher, talks about the possibility of cultivating a much kinder, calmer inner voice with issues like this in her workshops on Wise Livelihood. She gets a wave of laughter moving through her audience when she talks about how we have all been trained to consider our neighbour like ourselves. “Poor neighbour” is all she can say to that! The Dalai Lama has on several occasions in discussions with western audiences been incredulous at the degree of self-hatred there is in the western mind state. So first of all, we need to encourage the seeds of a new kind of a dialogue with ourselves. When the wobble, or nausea or self- denigration begins, we need to embrace ourselves in some way and recognize what is going on. “Having a
tough time?” “How are you feeling right now? “ “What would help you feel more easeful?” Sometimes simply the recognition that fear is here, and noting the intriguing body sensations that accompany it, is all that is needed,. No need to personalize it or possess it. The dreary monologues seemed to be fed by some kind of denial of the fear, or some kind of resistance to the fear “I shouldn’t be feeling this I’ve been teaching for .... years” “Why cant I get over it?...nobody else feels as miserable as I do...” etc. Compassion can often cut through the deluge of self judgment and moribund self-pity and once we feel that someone – even our miserable selves- is listening to us, we can own up honestly to our fears and expectations with more clarity.
This is a good beginning and sometimes the minimum possible before one is “on stage”! If all you can do is say to yourself “I’m really an OK person....underneath it all”, before the first instruction to get into dog pose, you may ease yourself into a kinder way of being than if you are battling horrendous negativity at the outset.
HUMOUR
Ajahn Amaro, one of my meditation teachers, is a strong proponent of the kindly inner dialogue. He suggests we take it a little further and at times when we are not stressed out, we sit down and talk to ourselves as if we were our own best friend. “So those weird jitters you had before that workshop, what was that about? Did you feel OK? Are you alright now?” Sometimes when one puts oneself in the seat of compassion and looks at the bedraggled tongue tied mess we have gotten ourselves into, all we can do is laugh or befriend this endearing bunch of hopelessness!
It can help to exaggerate the situation – consider the students as man-eating monsters with 5 heads a piece. Oneself as the supreme, prima donna full of self pity or recrimination, or pre-production melodrama....that would be on the scale of an Olivias de Havilland, Betty Davis, Madonna., John Macenroe, Britany Spears, .....Blow it up and report it back to yourself and see the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Who really gives a damn what your inner drama is? Who is the actual audience to the truth inside your head?
Expectation is a huge part of the neurosis we build for ourselves. Consider the drama from the perspective of one of the people attending your class – known or unknown, and imagine your self explaining what you are feeling and what your mind body is dong - if you were the student wouldn’t you say something like – “ I’ve come here in good faith that you have something to share....could you please just teach me a yoga class? “
ENJOYING THE UNKNOWN
Once we have recognized the wobble and attempted some kindlier language with our incredible inadequacies (joke here), possibly even a calm inner dialogue as to the roots of our dilemma, we may well find there is an inherent fear of being out of control. Many of us folks , self included, came into yoga swapping one addiction for another and seeking some kind of salve for the inherent groundlessness of existence. Not necessarily a negative thing. It doesn’t really matter how you get into yoga but you don’t want to perpetuate some of your more fundamental negative thinking – the yoga ideally wants to uproot the places where you sabotage yourself. It’s not surprising that control is an issue for most of us. Our society is constantly implying that through advertising and the education that if we just had..........,we would be OK. In this country we have been living at the red level of security alert for goddess knows how long. In politics and the press we are daily bombarded with how crazy our world is, and the implication is that it shouldn’t be. ( Aside – I recently read that in the 2004 elections, studies were done that showed that individuals who were asked to reflect about death and their inevitable demise, were much more likely to be inclined towards political propaganda for a Bush presidency and swallow right wing panic rhetoric than others who had not been asked to do that.)
So what am I saying? – fear of death and the uncontrollable are at the root of our teaching heebie jeebies? Well, yes in some ways but beyond acknowledging there might be a tad of the control freek and perfectionist in us, that in itself is not super helpful. What has proved time again more productive is cultivating in ones practice an understanding that everything is in flux. Noticing the moments when things are changing and are beyond our control and we are actually ok with that, we even delight in it at times. This is where the art of teaching can become pure joy. How many of us have remembered a workshop or a class for the worthy preparation that we have done and how much we kept on target? More often the thing that most we appreciate
is those memories when we or the students open to the unexpected, the unusual expression of a pose, the inspiration that came from a question or comment, the joy of seeing folks in their bodies and at ease in that unique moment.
A TOUCH OF REALISM: It is necessary to open to our expectations and see if they are realistic or not. If you are always in a state of nervous preoccupation and some deluded expectation before class, and are simply exhausted and dissatisfied after class, then maybe we should look at whether you are in the right employment. Perhaps you would have more fun and job satisfaction as a plumber or a stock broker.
Lets do a little check list:
Are you qualified to teach what you are teaching? Class/Workshop/Training
Is the timing, situation, location conducive to the subject and to your temperament and needs ? eg is this the 5th workshop you have done in 2 weeks and you really need a break? Are the students the appropriate level for the material you are presenting? Is anyone interested in you being there?
Are you ready? Have you done due diligence to the subject without over planning?
If you can answer yes to all these, and you still have the heebie jeebies to a point that is effecting your teaching and your relationships to others, lets pry a little further into the ego expectation and possible teaching style that may perpetuate your fears and discomfort.
THREE SIDES TO THE CREATIVE ACT
There is the teacher and there are the students and then there is this mysterious third element which is the yoga created, shared and enjoyed. In any situation where there is creativity whether it is a play, a class or a relationship, it is not simply presenter or protagonist, and audience. There is this other powerful smoke from the fire of creativity which is egoless– it is the play and the other actors not just the individual actor facing the audience. The baseball player working with his team not worrying a jot about the crowd. When the teaching process becomes only 2 pronged, it becomes simply one ego trying to satisfy other egos, one ego wanting approval from other egos. In any creative endeavour this has very limited potential. Now, to some degree this depends on how you think about teaching. If you feel that you are supposed to be all-knowing and your students are simply empty vessels that you are filling up, then you may pass on a few yoga tricks, you may even inspire someone to practice but its very ego heavy and you will not be nurtured in the process (except perhaps by fame and fortune – which has its limits- another attempt at a joke!) Often this leads to a dead end. When the audience is the one you are playing to instead of all your attention going to the music rather than those people, you will never be carried by the music of your art and will constantly need pumping up and ego refurbishing.
We all think we are so much worse than we actually are. We also think we are so much better than we are. Somewhere in the fuzzy middle is where we actually are. And the sooner the practice of Anatta comes into our teaching, the easier it flows. Anatta can be seen as the softening of the “I” voice. The Buddha never said there was no self, nor did he say there was a self. He implied it was very unproductive to keep feeding the sense of self and this sense of identifying. Perhaps, as implied at the beginning of this article, a smart way to begin with anatta and the wobbly moments is letting go of the language of me, mine and I. This wobbliness is Mine. I am sole possessor of it. This teaching yoga is Mine....its all ridiculous and when we get the most panicked we are the most identified with this small sense of self. Some teachers have suggested to me that this very uncomfortable process is just the way it is and some kind of karmic dues they are supposed to pay. This is – forgive my humble opinion – lazy and unexplored thinking. We are just so ingrained to the habit of our
identifying mind, we see no possibility of changing. It’s as if we have signed onto the habit we have created and see it as some deep permeating truth of the universe. If this is the case for you, consider how is this actually serving you? We usually cause ourselves pain in this way, or give up on their being an exit plan, because we are actually in some way “profiting” from our respected delusion. What is it not allowing us to see? What would happen if I didn’t have to complain to myself or others for this “condition”? How would I use the time? What would happen to my teaching? Would I have to trust in something deeper than this rather unreliable “I”? etc etc.
PRAISE AND BLAME - The roller coaster of praise and blame is a good game to avoid in teaching as much as possible. To observe how the mind thrills to praise and runs from blame is both humbling and helpful. It is so delightful when someone says something complementary about your teaching but if this is what you rely on to stoke you up all the time, then the deeper trust in your own practice will not evolve at the same rate. You will also be subject to waves of self-abuse when a negative comment comes by. Joseph Goldstein received 2 notes one day after teaching on a silent retreat both commenting on the same moment in the retreat, when he entered and made a simple bow to the altar before sitting. One note said, “ that was the most moving moment in the retreat – to see my teacher bowing humbly before the altar” - the other said” I was deeply disturbed by seeing you bow to the altar. In this day and age why are you promoting an attachment to idols?” Kamala Masters and Steve Armstrong have 2 little baskets for the post-dhamma talk comments – one says Praise and one says Blame! We all need critique and we all need reassurance that we are helping people in some way. However relying on positive feedback and pushing away the negative is falling into a trap that will increase the pre-class nerves.
One of the things that I advise new teachers to watch out for is the acolyte student who passionately and profusely tells you how marvelous you are, wants to help you in all sorts of ways...and seems totally entranced with your teaching. You may want to cultivate this kind of student but they are usually the ones who will heap on the praise in excessive ways and then something will occur and the blame will come tumbling down. The relationship between student and teacher needs to be one of mutual respect and as stated above include the respect for the mysterious dimension of practice.
MY STUDENTS ARE SO MUCH MORE INTELLIGENT THAN ME! Recently a very skilful and talented teacher was telling me that she was having the heebie jeebies prior to her first teacher training. Having met some of her students, she was aware of their academic prowess, their status in the community, the impressive jobs they held and it was undermining her own teaching confidence. Working in some cities or environments, most of our students are more intelligent than us in different ways. And having intelligence - academic, cultural or professional – in the class room is to be desired. The level of enquiry and discussion is heightened. However we have to remember that yoga is about a different sort of intelligence – a body understanding that many of the academically inclined yearn for. They are coming to class because of what you offer in this regard and because of who you are not your trail of academic qualifications. Unless you are in some kind of university faculty or medical establishment. Although I love having medical personnel and academics in my classes, they are sometimes very far removed from their bodies and need help seeing the world from a less linear or complex perspective. They are not coming to me for intellectual diversion but to learn how to breathe, feel and be in their bodies.
A FINAL NOTE ........JUST ONE OF MANY TEACHERS............
One small suggestion that was passed onto me by one of my early teachers was to acknowledge the lineage as you step into the room to teach. This has been profoundly helpful and eases the egos grasp on reality. Some teachers have a formal ritual or chant to their teachers or the sages of the past. I find it enough to sit quietly and consider all my teachers and then the teachers behind those teachers, and the teachers beyond and behind
them. Sometimes, when I am in a super wobble, I have them all sit around me before we start. I may even send a little message of gratitude to each of them for the gems that they have passed onto me and that where passed onto them. In this way you become more a conduit, part of the liquid flow of this river of many centuries of yoga.
If this article is in anyway useful, do let me know. And if you have stories that might be helpful to others in a re-write of this piece, it would be fabulous to hear from you!
