THANKFUL FRIDAY
Cindy Maddera
I officially resigned my teaching position at the Y. They called me last week to ask if I had plans of returning any time soon. This call came after the fourth email ( in as many weeks ) from the Y where I teach confirming another positive COVID case. So I told them that I don’t know when I would feel comfortable coming back. The person I spoke to was very understanding and told me that I was always welcome to come back. I am officially no longer teaching yoga and I have mixed feelings about this.
I once introduced myself to a yoga teacher here and when asked where I was teaching, I said “I teach at the Y.” He grimaced and said something about how the pay is terrible and yoga was better in a studio setting. While I don’t disagree that yoga is better in a studio setting, I did disagree with his general philosophy that yoga should only be taught in a studio setting. I have always seen myself of less than a yoga teacher and more of a yoga ambassador. The first yoga class I ever took was in a gym. I could barely afford the gym membership. I could most definitely not afford a gym membership and a membership to a yoga studio. I may have hated that first yoga class, but it put me on my yoga path. When I completed my yoga teacher training, I knew that I would end up teaching more classes in a gym setting than a studio. I wanted to bring quality, safe for your body, yoga to people who could not afford the gym and the studio. I also wanted to change some preconceived notions that some people have about yoga.
Good Lord, if I had a dollar for every time someone said to me “I can’t do yoga. I’m not flexible.”, I’d be rich.
Yet despite how I feel about making yoga more accessible to the masses, I am a little relieved with my resignation. My class at the Y had become a bit of a challenge. The space provided for the class was an open space and often someone would wander in from the gym area and set themselves up on one of the stationary bikes that lined the wall. I was always raising my voice to compete with the clanks and clinks and other noises of the gym. Wednesday evenings at 6:30 was just not a great time slot for a yoga class and my class size rarely exceeded more than three people. Driving the fifteen minutes to teach this class where I had to yell at the few students that attended once a week was become less fulfilling and more of a chore. I hate to say it, but if it hadn’t been for this pandemic, I would still be yelling at my three students and interrupting class to ask some random Joe to leave because this was a yoga class and not a spin class. I would still be holding onto this thing that no longer serves me.
I don’t know what this means for me as a yoga teacher. I know I have mentioned some sort of video series, but the reality of that ever coming to fruition is highly improbable. One of the things I love most about teaching is the connection I make with my students and I just don’t think I would be fulfilled by teaching to a recording camera. Not to mention all the cringing I would have to do during editing because of my voice or my how my body looked. I’ve over come a lot of self esteem issues, but watching myself on screen with out feeling completely humiliated is going to take more work. I guess my gratitude today comes in recognizing that sometimes the things you love are not necessarily serving you well. It doesn’t mean you have to stop loving it. It just means you find a new way to love it. For right now though, I’m content to settle into what is left of this year and maybe start finding a new way to do something I love.