One of the very first yoga videos I ever purchased was Back Care Yoga by Rodney Yee, and ever since then, my back and I have been big fans of Rodney Yee’s teaching. You can imagine how excited I was when I got the opportunity to study with Rodney at a teacher training workshop hosted by Yoga on High.
For the first hour or so of the workshop, I was a bit yoga-star struck as I listened to Rodney. I have to admit that it was both a bit surreal and cool to watch Rodney and his ponytail walk right by my yoga mat giving out instructions. But I wasn’t there to stargaze, and I quickly got my head back to the mat to really soak up a lot of fresh learning. I have so much that I want to write about the experience*. But, one thing in particular that Rodney said really hit home with me, and I have to share it with you.
Rodney told a story about how he was talking to a yoga teacher that described their classes as gentle yoga. Rodney asked the teacher why they needed to use the adjective “gentle” to describe their yoga. Shouldn’t all yoga be gentle? Amen, Rodney!
That statement really struck a chord with me because I love to teach gentle (oops, now I’m using the adjective) yoga classes, but sometimes I wonder if I should be teaching more vigorous flows.
I’m sure that many people have gone to a class and been turned off by an aggressive pace or a class geared towards building up to poses like crow or headstands (the poses I affectionately call ego poses). One of the things I learned in my yoga teacher training is that only five percent of the U.S. population can do mainstream yoga. So, if I want to introduce yoga to students in a positive way, I need to break down the poses, demystify yoga, and teach it in a gentle way.
Yoga is so much more than being able to reach your toes in a forward fold or getting vertical in a headstand. In fact, anything you do can be yoga if it is done with mindfulness and breath. I always tell my students that it doesn’t matter where they are in a pose because as long as they are breathing, they are doing the yoga.
What I loved so much about Rodney’s statement is that he was conveying that teachers should never apologize for a class being gentle; yoga should be gentle, and this was just the affirmation I needed to hear.
*Stay tuned for more about my experience with Rodney and how I, of course, made a complete yoga dork out of myself.
That is really cool…about how all yoga should be gentle. I do appreciate that you really demystified yoga for me. It gave me the confidence to test out a Shiva Rea DVD, and actually got through it. I can’t wait to hear more about your experience!
I love Rodney Yee (although I’m not 100% convinced I’d classify him as gently ;)).
But yes, gentle is the only way, we push ourselves enough. My classes might not be as popular as the hot yoga studio, or the hardcore astanga-ites but I know I fill a much needed gap. Hurrah for gentle 🙂
Love it! It was such a great experience to study with Rodney. I’m glad I could share it with you. Can’t wait to hear more!
I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback to hear important poses like crow and headstand casually dismissed as ‘ego poses’. I’ve been reading your blog long enough to know you have a big heart, so I knew right away that you didn’t mean any offence, but I feel compelled to defend these fun, strength-building postures. I teach them to all my students, the Hatha I’s as well as the Hatha III’s. One student in particular claps her hands with joy when I announce that we’ll be working on crow and she’s not a young, lithe yogini, she just turned 90! She loves crow because it’s fun (if you asked her, that’s what she would say). Like all the postures I teach, I offer variations that accomodate the needs of each student. For a pose like crow, some students will be doing a high squat, others a low squat, still others might be lifting one foot from the floor at a time (or doing the full expression of the posture). The all have this in common: they’re building confidence, strength and experiencing joy in their practice. I agree with Rodney that ‘gentle yoga’ is a misnomer – all classes should offer a variety of modifications and variations to allow each student to benefit from every posture. Cheers! 🙂 -Kai
Thoughtful post! Thanks for sharing 🙂
First of all, I’m terribly jealous that you were that close to Rodney Yee. I have the Back Care DVD also, and I love his verbal cues.
Secondly, it’s so good to hear someone with a platform like yours discuss this issue. I held a class for a friend’s book club last spring. A couple of the women (all of us were over 50) had been to more mainstream yoga classes, and really felt as though they just toughed it out. At the end of my class, one of them suggested I call my class “Type B Yoga”. I think that’s a great idea.
Type B Yoga – I like that! 🙂
Great post — and I couldn’t agree more that all yoga should be classified as gentle, calming and ultimately an introspective experience. Do you have any similar video recommendations in the same vein as Rodney Yee? I’d love to check it out and see more content like this. I have reposted this piece on my own blog, which features yoga and holistic living in Mexico. Please take a look! http://www.holisticmexico.org. Thanks! I’m also on Twitter @HolisticMexico.
Literally, if I am a minute under 65 years of age, I will continue to find the class terms, “Gentle Yoga”, “Boomer Yoga” and even sometimes “Restorative Yoga” demeaning. Don’t these children teaching us yoga have some respect for their elders? The more leisured among us have now taken on the term, “Jubilados” – referring to both genders … actually, it should extend to those of us still working if any of us spend so much as a nanosecond in a mentoring role …
Then again, it has never been my ambition to learn the Cirque du Soleil stuff, and I did get introduced to yin yoga when I was 16 years old.
The big fail was when young people thought they would make money and turn yoga into a post-9/11 answer to aerobics. But yoga can’t accomplish the same things as aerobics in the cardiovascular and weight management realms.
If you are young, restless, easily bored and have a very high threshold of relaxation, maybe what passes for “yoga” today could relax you. But I kind of doubt it. Stockholm Syndrome victims and shills (as well as suckers) are born every minute …