by Nina

The Ballet Class by Edgar Degas

Recently I learned that my long-time yoga teacher, Donald
Moyer, is retiring from teaching. (Baxter and I will be writing something about
him in the near future.) I’m very sad that this teacher, who has influenced me
more than any other I’ve ever had, will no longer be guiding me through a
two-hour practice every Friday (and saying those magic words when he notices me
internalizing his instructions, “Thank you, Nina.”). But I also know that he’s made the
right decision for himself, and I’m focusing now on cultivating gratitude for
all the years I had with him rather than dwelling on what I’ve lost.

But now I need to find a new teacher, and that’s an
interesting dilemma for someone of my age and level of experience. You might be
wondering why someone like me, who has over 25 years of yoga practice behind me
and is a trained teacher with has a really solid home practice, would even still
want to go to a public class on a weekly basis. But there are three very
valuable benefits I get from going to a good class that I can’t image ever
outgrowing or wanting to give up.

New Ideas

Even though I have years of decades of experience taking
classes from a wide range of teachers and a nice library of yoga books, I tend
to get stuck in a rut in my home practice and perhaps even in my thinking about
topics such as alignment and sequencing. So it’s good for my practice and my
thinking about yoga to be exposed on a regular basis to someone else’s point of
view on yoga, especially someone who is thoughtful and creative, and is experimenting
with new ideas themselves. Also, it just makes things more fun for me; I really
get a kick out of learning new-to-me yoga pose (recently, some very old yoga
poses) or a new version of a familiar one. That helps keep me enthusiastic
about a practice that is so woven into my daily life I can take it for granted
sometimes. And I’m sure it makes me a better blogger as well.

A Good Pair of Eyes

Although we practice yoga without mirrors by using our
proprioception (our sense of where our body is in space), I’ve definitely
noticed that if unchecked for long periods of time, many of us can develop physical
habits that make our poses feel comfortable and aligned but are maybe not
actually good for us. And I’m betting that left to my own devices, I’d be doing
the same thing, too. So for me, there is really nothing like having the trained eyes of
a good teacher on me, who can assess my alignment from the outside and offer verbal
cues or physical adjustments to bring me into a healthier alignment. Ah, that
feels much better.

Yoga Community

In my post Eight Ways to Join the Yoga Community,
I talked about the importance for healthy aging of being a part of a community
and how being part of the yoga community can help fulfill that need. I also
think it’s important for my mental and emotional health as I spend a lot of
time alone at home, both writing and practicing yoga. For me, going to class
regularly provides me with a sense of belonging and continuity. Aw, reading
that old post about joining the yoga community made me homesick for my old
class, because here’s what I wrote:

“I always arrive early to my Friday morning yoga class, not
because I want my usual spot in front of the window—okay, fine, I do want that
spot—but because I want the extra fifteen minutes to chat with my yoga friends.
And I think I’m not the only one who feels that way because by the time the
clock strikes 9:30, the teacher often has a hard time getting our attention
because so many of us are busy catching up with each other.”

Yes, sometimes Donald would even ring a bell to get our
attention! Before Donald officially retired, he was on a sabbatical, and I thought he
would eventually return to teaching. During those months, I just didn’t go to
class at all. Eventually I found that I was really missing not just him but everyone
else at the studio, and I decided that even if I couldn’t find the perfect new
teacher, I wanted to go back to the Berkeley Yoga Room. So I told my
husband I was going to go to beginners classes there with him, as a way of
forcing him to do yoga again, which he had gradually dropped (you’d think he’d
practice at home with me, but that’s another story), and he recently surprised
me by agreeing to my plan. He surprised me even more lately by saying one
reason he liked going regularly to classes at the studio now was that he valued
just spending that time with some good people.



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