Fast & Furious Yoga 2020
Isn’t this enterprise of learning something of how things have come to be as they are worth the time it might take to learn it? When did learning become cruel and unusual punishment? …when did the value and merit of the hours of your life come down to a matter or how easy they will make it for you as you go along? ~Stephen Jenkinson, Come of Age
**Trigger Warning**
This might offend many Yogis out there. Please stop reading now and go ahead and unfollow me if you are sensitive about your YTT.
“Don’t you have a training that I can do in a month?” It’s the most frequently asked question at Vira Bhava Yoga. And the answer is NO. We are a YOGA training, not just a teacher training. We are helping our students learn how to be practitioners of the philosophies and practices of YOGA. We are offering guidance about how to share the physical postures of Yoga safely and providing some glimpses into the true scope of what Yoga is all about, but we absolutely do not teach anyone how to perform sequences for groups of people with curated playlists and creative choreography. Why? Because we are teaching Yoga, not performance art.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of a 30 day immersion in yoga. Eat, drink, sleep, Yoga for a whole month sounds fantastic. I even lead people in retreats for 2 weeks or more to do just that. But as a training? No way. To distill such vast philosophy and practice down to sound bites, to provide scripts to follow and perfect, to take away the opportunity to learn about yourself through assimilating the information outside of the classroom and integrating the practice of Yoga in, no AS your life. No way. Not in a million years, not for all of the money in the world.
Even though the most popular trainings right now are the quick ones, I don’t buy it. I witnessed a huge surge in fast and cheap trainings emerge as Yoga Alliance loosened their restrictions during the Pandemic. It seems like everyone wants their Yoga served fast and cheap, and resulting in some certification that proves they are legitimate, and no one, not students, teachers, studio owners and least of all Yoga Alliance, seems to give a care about the actual teachings of Yoga.
For those that offer or have completed a month long YTT, I have some questions. Why do so many Yogis want a quick Yoga training? And why do so many studios offer it? Who truly believes that they can get adequate awareness of Yoga in a month, and who actually believes that the understanding needed to teach or share yoga can be disseminated in 21-30 days? When did Yoga become the “thing” that we fit in when and where it is convenient instead of a lifetime practice? At what point did the actual practice of Yoga stop being the point of training?
Even Patanjali, the prime sited source for most modern Western Yoga Teachers said explicitly that Yoga should be practiced for a long time, without break, and with reverence (Sutra 1:14). When did a long time become a month? Why have we decided to throw this teaching out with the bathwater in favor of a quick and efficient completion of a YTT? Do the actual Yoga teachings themselves not count as guidance if they go against our need for speed and a certification? Please know, these questions are all rhetorical. I know the answer, Yoga is a commodity in a commodity culture. Time is wasted, not taken. The point is to finish, to accomplish, to achieve, NOT to learn.
Sure, maybe I’m old school. I practiced yoga for six years before I ever thought about teaching (and was thrown into teaching by my teacher rather than pursued it as an alternate career). I took nine months of study to receive my 200 hour Certification, and studied consistently for almost 7 years to get my 500 hours. I still study with teachers, sometimes for a week, sometimes more, sometimes less. Learned and experienced teachers, teachers I would consider my elders, who have decades on my twenty plus years of practice. Why? Because I practice Yoga, that’s why. I teach it too, and I don’t take that responsibility lightly. I take accountability for the gravitas of my choice by practicing myself. EVERY DAY. For almost 27 years now, with very little time off (never exceeding a month or two), I have found my way to my mat or my cushion, and often both. I don’t believe that Yoga can be learned intellectually and performed physically, I believe that Yoga is the quiet whisper of your heart that can only be found through experience.
I do not apologize if this offends. Now you know our training isn’t right for you. But, if you are truly wanting to dive deeply into Yoga and all that it offers, and you are prepared to take the time and meet yourself in the process of sometimes hard, sometimes joyful, but always patient unfolding, join us. Scholarships are available.