My least favorite yoga teaching
My least favorite yoga teaching
Feminism and traditional yoga don't mix. My contribution to the Daisy Chain Flower Crown collaboration.
Last month on International Women’s Day a flurry of posts landed in my inbox about a daisy chain flower crown. This beautiful collaborative effort celebrating women was spearheaded by
and and I was introduced to their work through ’s post. Though I’m (very) late to the party, one of the offered prompts has been percolating in my head for a long time and I want to share my own experience and relationship with feminine energy today.The yoga teaching I love to hate
Two different teachers from two completely different yoga lineages have shared the same teaching with me. I tend to think that if you hear the same teaching twice, it’s a sign to pay attention. The first time I heard it I understood the premise but it wasn’t particularly applicable in my life at the moment. I didn’t think of myself as a “householder” because I wasn’t tending to a home in the way the word “homemaker” is used today. I was busy building my career as a full-time yoga teacher and spent very little time “at home”. This was a clear misunderstanding of what “householder” means in the context of spiritual practice and also a red flag (that I ignored/didn’t even recognize) regarding my judgments around motherhood and being a stay-at-home mom.
The second time I heard the teaching years later, it resonated but I still resisted. I didn’t want this teaching to be true. It felt like defeat. In yoga, you spend months learning how to do the poses, familiarizing yourself with the Sanskrit names, and dipping your toe into the philosophy that undergirds this entire spiritual system of practice. If you get really into it, you start meditating, learn about Ayurveda, and integrate the Yamas and Niyamas. Somewhere along the way, a well-meaning (probably male) teacher might warn you that the Yoga Sutra doesn’t really apply to modern life because the entire system of Classical Yoga was designed for renunciates and most of us aren’t ready to give up our clothes and go meditate in a cave for the rest of our lives. So they point you to the Bhagavad Gita instead. “Learn how to practice yoga like a householder,” they say.
Supported by additional wisdom meant just for you in your modern life, you continue to practice your poses and meditate but you also think about how you can apply your yoga to your everyday life. Now you’re “advanced.” This is when you come across teachings like the one I heard twice.
“Make the mundanity of everyday life part of your practice,” they say. I heard it presented specifically, both times like this:
“Make washing the dishes your yoga practice.”
My long history with male yoga teachers
The prompt that stuck with me in Lauren Barber’s invitation to participate in the Daisy Chain Flower Crown collaboration was this one:
Tell us about the most transformative female relationship in your life so far?
It stuck out to me because my immediate, panicky response was that I have no transformative female relationships in my life. In the context of my own journey, I thought about all the yoga teachers who have taught and mentored me. I’ve spent over a decade learning about yoga and the teachers who have influenced me most have all been male.
This reminded me of
’s recent series about women owning their own knowledge, specifically the post Who Gets to be an Expert exploring how women often downplay their own expertise whereas men actively seek to create expertise even if they don’t have the credentials to back it up. Women often support this system by unconsciously projecting credibility onto men instead of women. My personal experience in the yoga world bears this out.My 200-hour yoga teacher training was co-led by a male and female teacher but the male took the lead, had a higher profile in the community, and was deemed more “knowledgeable” because of his unique teaching style, love for philosophy, and his apprenticeship with an even more famous and globally renowned (male) teacher. The woman lead was the manager of the studio but I remember next to nothing about what she specifically offered.
After my 200-hour, I sought out training in the iRest Yoga Nidra method and made sure to study with the founder, Dr. Richard Miller. I don’t remember there being a female teacher present in that training, though there were many female assistants. Next, I dipped my toe in Ayurveda with Deepak Chopra. Of the core faculty in the Perfect Health program, there was one female teacher compared to three male teachers. Next, I pursued my 300-hour advanced teacher training certification with a local studio in Northern Virginia. Again, this training was co-led by male and female yoga teachers. The male was the dominant force while the female, who also happened to own and manage the studio, took a backseat. I projected a lot of authority onto the male teacher and appreciated his knowledge of philosophy and polished teaching style. While the female teacher had just as much knowledge and uniqueness, I unconsciously dismissed her in favor of the charisma of the male lead.
The only yoga trainings I have done with female lead teachers have been my Yoga Tune Up trainings. Though I’ve never trained personally with the founder and creator, Jill Miller, I’ve greatly enjoyed the teachings of Sarah Court, Laurel Beversdorf, and Elizabeth Wipff. Of all the trainings I’ve taken, these ones transformed my actual teaching more than any others. But I don’t view these teachers as the most transformational teachers I’ve every studied with. In hindsight, I realize I have favorably rated trainings that gave me concrete information and I haven’t always appreciated the value of being sent on my way to integrate it. The male teachers in my life have all propped up their reputations by creating environments and relationships that keep them in control as the gatekeepers of information rather than supporting the student’s growth. Only the female teachers in my life have given me the space and freedom to help me find my own voice. This is a particularly frustrating realization because I steadfastly adhere to a teaching style that empowers students to integrate the teachings in their own unique way and I always lament the students who just want to be told what to do. 🤦🏻♀️
Being a full-time yoga teacher and a mother to young children is almost impossible
After teaching yoga full-time for about four years, I started to look ahead and see if I could plot out my next career move in the yoga industry. I had been married for a couple years and was thinking about starting a family. I had trouble finding role models in the yoga industry who were both full-time teachers and mothers. Almost all of the “celebrity” yoga teachers were childless or male. I understood enough about business to realize that the economics of owning a yoga studio are not great, and it was painfully clear that I couldn’t keep running all over town teaching 25 classes a week, 7 days a week, and have children too. I felt stuck, uninspired, and at a loss for how to move forward. I interviewed over 50 full-time yoga teachers to see if I could suss out a pattern for career advancement and published my results in the Full-Time Yoga Teacher Report in 2018.
What I learned didn’t exactly inspire me. Mothers quit teaching or keep burning the candles at both ends and try to survive long enough to not burn out. It seemed that no matter what path I chose, motherhood was going to upend my career. “What happened to ‘you can have it all?’” I bemoaned. “Why can’t I figure this out?” I wondered. “What is wrong with me?” I thought. I had no female teachers to guide me. I wasn’t looking for them. I didn’t know I needed them. Frankly, I didn’t know them. My village was dominated by men, and I’d crafted that intentionally, though subconsciously, in the hopes that my association with well-regarded male teachers would confer some authority to me. I wanted power (read: control) but what I needed was supportive community. Only now (literally, as I’m writing this), do I recognize that by doing so I gave away all my true power.
A very short history of women in yoga
Historically, yoga knowledge has been held in the hands of men, even though many ancient cultures were matriarchal in nature. Uma Dinsmore Tuli has written a very comprehensive history of women in the development of yoga in her book Yoni Shakti. She’s dedicated an entire chapter to exploring the role women played in creating, practicing, and spreading the teachings of yoga in the early years up until today. Of the many ancient yoga texts, very few mention women at all, let alone discuss how practices may need to be altered for women who menstruate, are pregnant, or who are transitioning into menopause. It is not lost on Tuli that the majority of yoga practitioners today are women despite the fact that the majority of the ancient teachers, texts, and traditions are controlled by men. To this day, many of the highest positions of power in yoga are still held by male teachers even though there has been so much scandal and reckoning in most of the lineages all over the world. Of all the major traditions and lineages, Tantra and Bhakti yoga have the most female representation throughout history. However, those lineages aren’t being practiced in the CorePower Yoga’s of the West. What is practiced in most yoga studios and gyms across the US and the West today is inspired by Hatha yoga, which has almost no female representation in its history. It’s no wonder that all of my teachers have been men. As I entered into my journey of motherhood, I felt completely severed from my yoga practice, perhaps because Hatha yoga practices weren’t designed for postpartum women and mothers of young children.
My relationship with the dishes (and women)
I haven’t always loved to cook. It’s been an acquired skill and while I wouldn’t say it’s my life passion, I do enjoy cooking healthy meals to feed my family well. I do not like cleaning up afterwards. Unfortunately, the job description of mothers to young children requires an absurd amount of time washing dishes. It’s in these moments at the sink that I’m reminded about this teaching to make dishwashing part of my yoga practice. If I no longer have the ability to wake up at 3am to meditate and practice asana for three hours before the sun rises and then meditate again for 30 minutes before dinner and then again before bed, maybe I have no choice but to make washing dishes my yoga practice. (For the record, I was never that committed). When I no longer have time to go to the studio for hour-long classes and my body can’t handle the heat, maybe my practice is to find contentment in the mundanity of motherhood.
It is precisely at this moment when my womanly rage rises up and I remember that I’ve been listening to the wisdom of men my whole life. It’s in their best interests for me to do my domestic duties and find peace and solace in the dirty suds. While I do need to find contentment with my current place in life, I don’t need to make doing the dishes my yoga practice.1 Instead, I can ask my husband to help so that I can take time for myself to meditate for five minutes instead.
Will I reach enlightenment meditating for five minutes a day? No. But as I tell most of my students, the vast majority of Western practitioners aren’t practicing yoga to become enlightened. They’re just trying to save their sanity and feel better in body and mind. Mothers, more than anyone, need a lifeline back to their sanity. Yoga offers a fantastic one, but not as it has traditionally been presented to us by men. And mothers won’t reach enlightenment washing the dishes either.*
I was initiated into this sacred society of women cleaning up as a young girl. It was the women who were responsible for washing the dishes after the big meals at Thanksgiving and Christmas—a loose ritual created for the sake of efficiency. We made it as fun as we could, whipping around dish towels and singing about Sheba. I have no idea where this came from but the irony is not lost on me now. Somewhere along the way I rejected my membership in this circle of women because I didn’t want to be relegated to doing the dishes in the cramped kitchen away from the “action.” I wanted to be part of the magic (read: “Santa” putting the presents under the tree and then taking a nap, the fun stuff, freedom). What was lost on me then was that female companionship was more important than the dishes themselves. It’s taken me 30 years to recover this elemental understanding of the world and of my place in it.
These days I am intentionally cultivating relationships with female teachers and with female friends. I’m slowly rebuilding my village to include people who can actually support me on my journey. That’s not to say that men haven’t offered great knowledge, teachings, and advice—I wouldn’t be the teacher I am without them. But only other mothers can help me right now in this stage of my life. Only mothers understand what it is to feel such a loss of identity while juggling so much responsibility and feeling immense love and joy all at the same time. Men can’t help me with lactation, menstruation, and menopause transition.
To answer the original Daisy Chain Flower Crown prompt, the most transformational female relationships in my life have been with my mother and my 2.5 year old daughter. But these are not necessarily feel-good transformational stories. They are the realistic, going-through-the-fire journeys that bring about transformation on the other side. And I’m still in the fire.
I’ll keep ruminating on all of this while I do the dishes (or while I’m meditating and someone else is taking care of it for me). 😉
Let’s chat in the comments:
You can also just hit reply and send me an email with your thoughts.
What is your least favorite yoga teaching?
Have you had mostly male or female yoga teachers on your journey?
Do you like doing the dishes?
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To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with this teaching about washing the dishes. The intent behind it comes from tantric philosophy, which encourages finding bliss and joy in every moment of your life, including when you’re doing something as mundane as washing the dishes. I’m fine with this approach, it just grates me the wrong way when it’s presented, mostly condescendingly or with pity, by male teachers who have nothing better to offer women other than this convenient fall-back. It reinforces gender stereotypes and creates an unnecessary hierarchy that knocks women down into a second-class existence. If you want to find joy in washing the dishes, by all means please do. It will make your life a lot more fun. But do it because you want to and it feels right, not because someone told you it was the only option you have left in your life to practice yoga.
Wow!!! Oh my goodness! Thank you so much for writing this fantastic, thorough, and brave postI I love, that as a younger woman than I, you are sharing this from your own observation and experience through the years.
I too have been thinking about this for a long time and was just starting to write more about it. Having been in this historical flow since 1984 I can attest that all you say was and – in my experience - is still true in the yoga world today.
My opinions may seem a little bit harsh to begin, but as a senior teacher in this western yoga I feel it is my responsibility to speak up. I believe – as I think you do too Ashley — that we women need to continue to take stock in who we are and who we have been in this process. Truthfully, I think we have been somewhat duped into thinking we have equal power in this decidedly sexist and hierarchical system was even worse in the 1980s and 90s, but this problem has not gone away!
Assuming that in one generation the underlying values we were taught have fundamentally changed maybe just wishful thinking. I'm proposing that we still carry deep scars from all we have learned and absorbed through our living in a hierarchical system that doesn't acknowledge - as fully equal - women's powerful and yes, spiritual gifts.
My observation is that we have both internal and external work to do. We, the women students, teachers, and leaders still need to dig deeper. There is more to observe, accept, and revise living deep inside as insidious remnants of sexism and self bias. No one is immune. We carry our cultures male dominance in our very cells still. But we can unearth it!
I feel many of us — the leaders, studio owners, new and long time practitioners — have unconsciously taken the old sexist, hierarchical model and tried to join INTO it to become the winners! Our self bias has unconsciously stimulated us to try to join their game (and hopefully win, which never happens) rather than set the new rules for our own.
In joining the fight to the top with the more masculine hierarchical paradigm we are try to find our strengths in the wrong place!! We need to continue to change the paradigm. End the hierarchy. Get rid of the "podium" model all together and teach our gifts...being very clear that we are DIFFERENT, they are delivered through different means and approaches to all aspect of yoga. and that our gifts are powerful. This is a time of "embodiment" and we are the leaders. It's time to offer a more inclusive and mutually respectful paradigm of teacher and student. We can do this together and I am so happy to share the path forward with so many of you that are arising now.
Thank you so much Ashley for this post and for all the wonderful work you do!
With love,
Patty
I really needed this today! In about halfway through my second attempt at a 200-hour teacher training. My first one, which I dropped out of, was led by a man (and he was the sole reason I dropped out — his arrogance and contempt for us was so obvious that he was replaced shortly after I left). The one I'm in now, 9 years later and also in Northern Virginia is led by two women, both mothers, and I'm absolutely thriving in the environment they've cultivated there. Funnily enough, my old male YTT instructor also told us about dishes being his meditation. I never stop hearing about the damn dishes when it comes to yoga 😅
My least favorite, though, might be something I just read on the Yoga Sutras, number 47. The commentary reads,
"Once a life partner is taken by somebody, the wife becomes a goddess to the husband and he a god to her. If one partner dies, the other lives in the memory of that person—as a renunciate, never to marry again. Although the husband may be a drunkard, a devil, the wife will say, “He is my Lord. God gave him to me. Whatever he is, I will accept it.”
That last part shocked me, although I know enough about yoga philosophy by now that it shouldn't have. But still, ick.