I used to assume that the reason that famous yoga teachers were famous was because they were better at yoga than others. True, I didn't give this a lot of thought. But it seemed to make sense. After all, every field has its exceptional geniuses: there's lot of rock musicians out there, but a John Lennon doesn't come along too often. So when I thought about famous yoga teachers, I fit them into this paradigm, e.g.: B.K.S. Iyengar is to yoga as the Beatles were to rock.
Certainly, in the case of Mr. Iyengar (and some others), I still think this is true. But my view of even such illustrious teachers has become much more nuanced. Over the past few years, I've learned alot about contemporary yoga, both its modern roots and what's going on now. And without naming names, revealing confidences, or re-hanging dirty laundry, let's just say that I now assume that even our most iconic teachers must have some very human faults, imbalances, and blindspots.
In the past 15 years, yoga has become a multi-billion dollar "industry” and the number of "famous" teachers has grown proportionately. You no longer have to be a genius who has profoundly influenced the development of modern yoga in order to achieve fame. Today, with so many yoga classes, studios, students, retreats, and products on the market, it's a whole different ball game.
Given the enormous influence that yoga teachers can have on their students, I think that this makes it an opportune time to reflect on the qualities that can vault a yoga teacher to prominence today.
What Does It Take?
What does it take for a yoga teacher to become a famous today? (In the U.S., that is - I don't know about India or other countries.) Off the top of my head, I'd suggest the following:
1) Kick-Ass Asana. Teachers who can do amazing things with their bodies “wow” students. It's impressive, exciting, and can be inspiring. Also, because so many Americans assume that yoga is asana, pure and simple, being able to do advanced poses is taken to mean being “good at yoga” as a whole.
2) Good Looks. Our society places a huge premium on physical attractiveness. Particularly for women, fitting into mainstream standards of what's considered "beautiful" generates attention and admiration. While men have a bit more leeway, it certainly doesn’t hurt them to be good looking, either.
3) Charisma. While harder to identify than beauty or asana chops, I think that charisma is actually much more important. Max Weber classically defined charisma as "a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities…not accessible to the ordinary person." Powerful in any field, charisma is a particularly good fit with yoga, where students are primed to search for a guru, teacher, or leader who can guide them toward the transformation that more powerful forms of the practice can provide.
4) Business Savvy. As the yoga “industry,” like American society in general, has become more competitive, business savvy has become increasingly important. Yoga teachers need to make a living, too. But with zillions of recent TT grads, not to mention Pilates, Zumba, spinning, and other popular fitness options competing for the potential yoga student’s time and money, how does the individual teacher stand out from the crowd? It’s not easy. Having a good head for business helps.
Is That It?
Am I suggesting that all famous yoga teachers are simply charismatic, attractive gymnasts with good business sense? No. I myself have studied with several famous yoga teachers who I thought were famous for good reasons – e.g., they had a depth of knowledge about yoga and ability to communicate it to students that was simply exceptional.
I do think, however, that in today’s environment, these are the sorts of qualities that will help someone become “successful” in the sense of being able to attract big numbers of students to their classes, teach nationally or even internationally on the yoga circuit, sell DVDs or other tie-ins, etc. I think this is true for two reasons: 1) the qualities of exceptional athleticism, good looks, charisma, and business savvy dovetail with what American culture values more generally, and 2) I’ve experienced it myself.
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| http://grasshoppergrrl.wordpress.com/2010/04/08/farewell-hot-yoga/ |
About 18 months ago, I stopped attending the yoga class I’d been going to for years and spent a few months experimenting with new classes. What I saw made a big impression on me. I remember going to one class with maybe 80 students packed in mat-to-mat. The teacher bounced in like a radiant cheerleader – pretty, confident, eye-catching, smiling, bestowing good vibes on the crowd. She led us through a nice workout that left me feeling like I’d had some exercise, but not done any yoga. Aside from a brief New Age-y reading at the beginning and end of class, there wasn’t anything that distinguished it from a “normal” exercise class – no work with the breath, no attention to mental focus, no meditative dimensions, etc.
Soon after that, I went to a class led by a woman who’d been teaching in the Chicago area for well over a decade. Her hair was streaked with grey and she had a quiet manner. She was not charismatic. I knew that she’d travelled to India and New York multiple times for intensive study with renowned yoga teachers. Her class had six people in it, including me. It also had incredible focus, energy, and depth.
But as I left the studio, I thought: Wow. She’s been teaching in this city for as long as I can remember and she only has six students in her class? And it was a great class! I found this surprising, and disheartening.
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| Earth Yoga (Photo: Popsugar) |
Ethical Ambiguity
If it’s true that asana chops, good looks, charisma, and business savvy are the key factors that produce success in the yoga world today, that doesn’t mean that having these attributes makes you suspect. I definitely believe that someone can have some or all of these qualities in spades and be an incredible yoga teacher.
The problem is rather that while these qualities are in fact ethically ambiguous, our culture holds them up as an indicator of what’s valuable, aspirational, and admirable. We assume that someone who can float from Crow to Handstand in the middle of the room is “better” at yoga than the rest of us who can’t imagine accomplishing such a feat.
In fact, however, the ability to perform such a pose is ethically neutral. The person who achieves it may have the personal qualities of a saint, an a-hole, or anything in between.
Similarly, we tend to see physical attractiveness as worthy of admiration in ways that it doesn’t merit at all. Particularly in the yoga world, which has a strong aesthetic sense, we tend to feel that a teacher’s beauty imbues her with other qualities that she may or may not really have: equanimity, compassion, understanding, etc.
Charisma poses the trickiest issues because it is the most invisible yet the most powerful attribute contributing to fame. While charisma can be harnessed to truly effective teaching, it can also be used to manipulate, dominate, and disempower. All of the cult leaders who have eventually fallen from the weight of the years and years of abuse inflicted on their students were powerfully charismatic. Charismatic leaders can twist meanings so effectively that their followers become completely out of touch with reality. This can be extremely dangerous.
Similarly, business savvy is an ethically neutral talent. It’s possible to be in business and be visionary, responsible, and positive. It’s equally possible to be reactionary, manipulative, and negative. You can succeed financially either way. Sure, it’s probably harder to stay on the high road. But it’s certainly not impossible.
Bottom Line
The bottom line for me is that I no longer assume that yoga teachers who are more successful are somehow “better” at yoga than those who aren’t. I don’t hold their fame against them. But I don’t consider it a guarantee of anything that I value, either.
Conversely, I don’t assume that because a teacher has only a small number of students in her classes that she’s lacking something important. (In fact, the one class that I make an effort to go to regularly is quite small.) A teacher may have small classes because she is new, inexperienced, and not capable of leading stellar classes. But it may just as well be because she is seasoned, knowledgeable, and committed to teaching classes that are true to her practice and don’t cater to mass market tastes.
The recent implosion of Anusara makes this an excellent time to reflect on the ambiguity of the relationship between market success and ethical substance. Until the scandal broke, Anusara was the most popular, fastest growing yoga method in the world. Now, as the curtain has been pulled back a bit, we see that what was going on behind the façade of Bliss, Alignment, and Grace wasn’t very pretty at all. Rather than dumping endlessly on John Friend, we need to think into the dynamics of what made Anusara so popular, and question our common assumption that “successful” necessarily means “better.” It doesn’t.
Good. I refuse to teach. The last class I led was in 1992 when I was in my twenties. Few people are actually aware of how fraught yoga teaching is. One particular yoga teacher I have developed a particular fondness for, Gautama Buddha had an absolute nightmare trying to teach people after his enlightenment. Here is his account (Ariyapariyesana Sutta by Thanissaro Bhikkhu): I set out to wander by stages to Varanasi. Upaka the Ajivaka saw me on the road between Gaya,and he asked me about my practice: 'All-vanquishing, all-knowing am I, with regard to all things, unadhering. All-abandoning, released in the ending of craving: having fully known on my own, to whom should I point as my teacher? I have no teacher, and one like me can't be found. In the world with its devas, I have no counterpart. For I am an arahant in the world; I, the unexcelled teacher. I, alone, am rightly self-awakened. Cooled am I, unbound. To set rolling the wheel of Dhamma I go to the city of Kasi. In a world become blind, I beat the drum of the Deathless.'
ReplyUpaka replied: "'From your claims, my friend, you must be an infinite conqueror.'
I said: 'Conquerors are those like me who have reached fermentations' end. I've conquered evil qualities, and so, Upaka, I'm a conqueror.'
When this was said, Upaka said, 'May it be so, my friend,' and — shaking his head, taking a side-road — he left.
Not a very auspicious start eh? Also - this is a bit of fun too:-
http://matwitts.com/blog/dear-rockstar-yogi-you-might-be-an-ass/