If this life was meant to be perfect, it would be. If we were meant to be perfect, we would be.
I went to a yoga class at a San Antonio yoga studio, and it was refreshing. Why? A non-white teacher who taught in an imperfect way. It was like, *gasp*, she allowed herself to be human. Her words weren’t perfect. Her cues weren’t flawless. I felt like I could breathe.
Adjusting to the Twin Cities (Minnesota) area yoga scene hasn’t been easy. The teachers and the studio atmosphere crawl with the sensation of perfection. Sure, there’s a handwritten note in the bathroom or by the coat rack, encouraging us to “keep going”, but it doesn’t feel like it was written because someone needed to hear it. It seems like it was written because that’s something a perfect yoga studio has.
Teaching yoga and all its’ facets (except for checking people in on the *technology*) makes me happy. I love greeting people, making people feel comfortable, creating a comfortable environment, moving with people, etc. I love planning the classes, trying new movements out, weaving them into a sequence with timeless postures. Before my trip to San Antonio, I felt distance from the joy that teaching yoga had always brought me. I assumed it was exhaustion.
After taking Rafaela’s class in San Antonio, it clicked that the reason I felt less than enthused about teaching yoga was because I had tried to fit into the culture of perfection in the White-owned, White-led yoga studios. (I think it is possible for White yoga practitioners to run a yoga studio that does not have that undercurrent of perfectionism, but I think it is a rare find.) Instead of waving proudly the flag of my own style – patterned after the example of several non-white yoga teachers (electronically and through books for the most part- that reflects who I am and the values I most highly prioritize, I had bowed the knee to the White ideal of perfectionism. A perfect pose. A perfect class. Perfect cues. A perfect body. The perfect opening and closing words. The perfect number of attendees. The perfect monetary profit.
The perfect way to suck the joy out of teaching yoga.
Rafaela, who stumbled over her words several times, who made us feel comfortable even though we arrived late, who adjusted how she taught throughout the class without making a single self-deprecating comment, who is just a person, not a monolith, not an idea, not representative of any one group, helped me see how to regain my joy in yoga teaching.
By being myself.
By being authentic, regardless of how many sensitive midwesterners who came expecting a certain cookie-cutter class experience, left mine unsatisfied. Regardless of the monetary profit left.
I’m grateful for how one woman, teaching a poorly-attended gentle yoga flow in San Antonio on an overcast Sunday morning, deeply inspired me. Her example gave me permission – again – to be what my middle school students call “cringey”; to laugh at my own jokes even when no one else laughs (or even chuckles!), to read the poems that I find inspirational, and to stop trying to read people’s minds, curate the perfect experience, and impress all of Godforsaken White America.
Guess what? From this inspired space, the day I returned from San Antonio, I taught a 7:00pm class. Familiar faces were there, a couple even cracked a smile at my jokes. Afterwards, a quirky retiree told me her stomach was upset during class, so she mostly watched me instead of practicing.
“You’re so fun to watch,” she said. “You are so joyful in each pose.”
Not perfect. I’ll never be perfect in each pose, but hell yes, won’t I be joyful.
If this life was meant to be perfect, it would be. If I was meant to be perfect, I would be.
heartbeatnomad 