Stay woke, Peppermint Patty!

My yoga teachers over the years seem to always pay attention to me. Maybe they have the gift of making all their students feel special, but I really do think I get seen in class along with other woke yogis.

I am having fun using that slang term, but it works in this context in many ways. I was talking to Khris after training today about yoga and training and form and listening. He mentioned namaste and energy and he said my yoga teachers feel that.

He said they feel my energy and that I'm  listening. As soon as they see and feel that I'm there to participate and receive, they give back. When they see that someone isn't listening or really wanting to get it, they give back the same energy.

That really hit me. He said yoga teachers in particular, in addition to trainers, give really detailed and specific audio cues to talk students through form and movement in order to get them to pay attention to really subtle things that make big differences in the poses and helping with safety and results.

The teachers can tell who is serious about their practice by who makes the effort to listen to those cues and attempt to make those adjustments. Those are the people who get their energy.

This was very interesting to me. I've seen so many students in yoga classes who, no matter how many times a teacher will say hips forward, will still turn. Or who will compromise their form so they can touch their toes and look cooler or feel like they are keeping up with the others, even when the teacher says just touch your shins if you're back can't stay straight. And I wonder why the teachers don't help them more. But it makes sense now. The teachers see they aren't listening.

This made me think of my own teaching. So many teachers focused so much on the students who didn't care at the expense of the students who really paid attention. I wasn't one of those.

So many teachers used to brag about not letting students sleep in class. I let them sleep. I wasn't going to spend my energy on kids who weren't ready to learn.

I would of course talk to them after class and let them know I was there to support them and help them when they were ready, but I wasn't going to hold up the lessons to keep giving energy to them when I had kids who were into the activity. I rewarded the kids who were into it.

That's what my yoga teachers and my trainer do. They give back more energy to the ones who give the energy to them.

So Peppermint Patty, you have a lot of support waiting for you when you wake up and are ready to listen and give your beautiful energy to the people around you! Stay woke!