THE YOGA ENVIRONMENT

by Dy Jordan

I wait at the door of the aerobics room with a stack of yoga mats. This upscale health club has agreed to give yoga a try, since several members have asked for it. The class is to begin at 6 pm. Behind the door, loud pump-it-up music is blaring and an aerobics teacher is counting out sit ups for the Abs class. One more she yells, and one more, and one more... At a little after six the door to the aerobics room finally pops open and the aerobics class comes out, everyone red and mopping sweat. Finally, I can go in to set up the room. I brought incense, but decide not to light it. Candles - out of the question. The music? Well, after figuring out the sound system and turning the volume from 10 to 2, I finally get some soothing music on and I take a few deep breaths.

This was billed in "Introduction to Yoga" in the health club's news letter. The class includes several young and fit women, still sweating from the aerobics class, a number of older women, some of whom can't sit on the floor, the owner of the health club, who "wants to see what all the fuss over yoga is about" and about 20 others who straggle in - some in business suits, some in shorts, some in leotards. In all there are 30 people for the 20 yoga mats I have lugged in and placed on the floor. The room is freezing. The thermostat reads 55 degrees Fahrenheit - cave temperature. I'm told not to raise the temperature because after this there is a step aerobics class and "they like it cold." I'm allowed to turn off the overhead fans, which involves standing on a chair under each fan to reach the switch. The older ladies are shivering. The younger ones are sweating. It's already nearly 6:20. I talk a little about yoga, but I want them to get an experience of it. Just as I begin leading the students through some gentle meditative warm-up movements, the weight class begins upstairs. The rest of the class is punctuated by the sound of heavy weights dropping on the floor directly above us. At exactly 7 pm, just as we get settled into a little deep breathing, the anxious step aerobics folks push open the door and begin setting up the steps.

A progressive grammar school on Cape Cod wants to try a program of yoga in its school system. I'm supposed to give a demonstration in the school gym to some interested students - grades K through 6 - while their parents watch. I lug in the 20 mats, wondering if anyone will show. Eighty kids show up along with a sea of parents, caretakers, and teachers. I gather the kids in a circle around me. As they press forward toward me, I take some deep breaths, overcome by their puppy energy and smell. To back them up, I get them to hold hands and form a huge circle, which takes up most of the gym. Now I have to shout to make them hear me. I guide them into quietness, finally, and then into a tree pose. Then we go through a sun salute. When we finish the sun salute, I say, "That was great. Would you like to do that again?" Amazingly, they shout in unison a huge resounding NO!!!

A medical center wants to try out yoga in its cardiac rehab unit. Several doctors sit in on the class with their heart patients. Just as we begin meditative breathing, a doctor's beeper goes off. Then, several phones ring. There are several announcements over the intercom. The room is freezing and lit by bright florescent lights. It smells and feels like the hospital which it is.

A wellness center wants to offer yoga. This time I require a six-week commitment, ask for a quiet room, and limit the class to 15 students. The space they give me is barely bigger than a broom closet, because it actually is a storage room which they have emptied for the class. The fifteen students are packed like sardines around the wall, with me in the center, and there is no air vent. Just as we begin, a staff member opens the door and says we can't leave the handbags and shoes in the hall. So they all go in the center of the circle with me. As we begin deep breathing, we are overcome by the smell of feet and shoes.

Over a 30-year period, I've taught "Introduction to Yoga" with babies crying, with a soap opera on in the next room, with sirens howling, with dogs barking, with boom boxes blaring, with people walking through the class on the way to the restrooms, with folks in tight blue jeans and cowboy boots, with tread mills behind me, with folks talking on cell phones, in churches under pews, with folks eating dessert at Rotary club meetings, etc., etc., etc. It makes me want to cry, when I think back on the energy I expended in these environments trying to get just one moment of stillness where the miracle of mind/body yoke - where yoga - might actually be introduced. In some cases the magic happened. In most cases, I left feeling like a failed show biz act or a mildly entertaining item on the luncheon agenda.

No more. I just won't do it any more. Intuitively, I've always known that the environment in which yoga takes place makes a difference. I now believe that environment makes the essential difference. When I finally got my own studio, I created my own environment. I shut off the phone, adjusted the temperature, opened a window, lit some incense, put on some music, took a deep breath and relaxed while birds sang outside. Then I realized for the first time how much of my teaching energy had been expended in 'holding the space' while teaching in unsuitable environments. I also saw my students soften and relax into deeper yogic states. There is something primal within the human animal that longs for and yields to a safe environment. When the yoga does happen and the state of deep relaxation and heightened body awareness is achieved, there is also something within us that longs for the senses to be pleased. In a safe and pleasing environment, the deep sigh happens.

Of course, I know that not all yoga teachers want the responsibility of owning and running a studio. And not all health clubs and hospital settings are distracting, cold, and brightly lit. But many are. As hospitals and health clubs vie for the yoga dollar, it will be up to the yoga teachers to insist on an environment that is conducive to a deep sigh yoga experience and to refuse to teach in places where environmental comfort needs are not respected. We need to encourage and support those teachers who create small yoga studios with safe environments. If we don't - if we let yoga classes happen between kick boxing and spin classes or in hospital corridors and broom closets - then real yoga, the yoga that imprints with a deep sigh upon the mind and body, won't happen. Though many people will have 'tried yoga,' few will have experienced yoga.

Back