I’ve always enjoyed group Yoga classes. Ever since Doctor Goodman, our family physician, suggested Yoga for a compressed disc, I’ve taken hundreds of classes from dozens of teachers. It seemed to work. My back got better. I became stronger, more flexible, and met some interesting people in the classes I attended for over 15 years.

Things changed when I went to study at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM) a world-class center for healing and Yoga education in Chennai, South India. What I experienced at this renowned institution, founded 25 years ago by T.K.V. Desikachar to spread his father's teachings, challenged everything I knew about my beloved Yoga.

Each morning the front porch of the KYM was filled with people, sitting, reading newspapers, waiting for their names to be called. It reminded me of my doctor’s office, except that Dr. Goodman didn’t have a four-foot statue of Patanjali balanced on a cobra’s head. (He did have an aquarium.)

The other difference was that these people were there, not for a blood test or a tetanus booster, but to study Yoga. I watched as, one-by-one, they were called in to meet privately with their respective teachers. Some students seemed healthy, others, clearly ill. Whatever their condition, each was learning Yoga as it has been taught for centuries, one-on-one and highly individualized.

SAME AS IT NEVER WAS
Rarely in Yoga’s long history have adults been taught in groups. Traditionally, Yoga began with a student admitting (first to themselves) that they needed help. Following a process of searching, choosing and committing to a teacher, (this process could be long or short, depending on the student’s luck and ardor), student and teacher would meet regularly. Some students, like Krishnamacharya, actually lived with their teacher. Over time, the student would reveal their limitations, strengths, needs and goals. The teacher would study the student’s body, breath, behavior, and beliefs, and create a daily practice. Taught in this manner for thousands of years, Yoga was private, personal, and prescriptive.

TAKE A NUMBER
To illustrate the wisdom in this traditional model, picture yourself in Dr. Goodman’s waiting room. (Goodbye cobra, hello aquarium.) Twenty other patients are also there, waiting... patiently, Suddenly, Doctor G appears, announces, “Everybody, in my office. There, he declares, “30 mgs. of penicillin, three times daily, for everyone.” Though there’s nothing wrong with penicillin, it’s the right drug for some things, not everything, for someone, not everyone, and sometimes, not always. Any sane person, submitted to this type of treatment would look for another doctor and possibly a malpractice lawyer.

As Yoga is primarily about the mind, imagine a psychotherapist’s office filled with twenty five people. Without knowing whether they’re suffering from depression, anxiety, addiction, psychosis, or bad dreams, unclear as to the nature or cause of their discomfort, the therapist treats each person in the room the same way, offering everyone the same insights and direction. This isn't group therapy, where the therapist uses each person’s experience and input to help the others. Rather, they just happen to be in the same room at the same time receiving identical treatment.

Though these examples may seem extreme, dangerous, and absurd, is it really any different studying Yoga in a group of 20, 30 (in Los Angeles, 120) people? And yet, studios filled with people performing identical postures and sequences has become the norm in Yoga today. If there is any breath work or meditation, it’s also of the one-size-fits-all variety.

THE HEART OF THE MATTER
The missing element in these scenarios and in contemporary Yoga is relationship. Ironic, considering one meaning of the word ‘Yoga’ is, ‘to link together', or 'join in relationship’, and that Yoga’s foundation text, the Yoga Sutras, defines Yoga as ‘linking with one object (one teacher, one specific practice) for a sustained period’. For thousands of years, the student’s relationships with a teacher and with a personal practice were the essential components, the heart of Yoga. Sadly, today, group classes offer neither.

Studying privately, individuals can discuss specific issues with their teacher, which in itself often leads to increased insight and clarity. With the Yoga Sutras as a reference and the teacher offering compassionate guidance, feedback and support, the student can explore Yoga’s healing models, the chakras, the eight limbs or five mayas (relationships, lifestyle, body, breath, mind, values, and emotions etc.) as they relate to their own lives.

One product of this sacred, yet very ordinary student/teacher relationship is a custom-tailored personal practice. Designed to address the student's own needs and goals, the practice might include carefully chosen, skillfully adapted postures and sequences, precise breath work, relevant sounds, meditation, visualization, lifestyle modification, personally meaningful rituals, affirmations, or prayer. Or anything else that works.

Dedicated practice promotes a myriad of positive results, including, more energy, greater confidence, better health, abundant joy, improved relationship skills, or anything the student clearly desires. The teacher observes and modifies the practice regularly to reflect the student’s progress and evolving aims, as well as the changing conditions, seasons and stages of life.

This is Yoga in full flower: A truly holistic, relationship-based system of self-care and self-empowerment, at once profoundly transformational and deeply respectful of the individual.

BUT I'M SO LONELY
The fact is, group classes can be fun. In addition, they provide the communal experience, so often absent from modern urban living. Practicing around others can quench the thirst for like-minded people (satsanga) like a cool drink of water. Unfortunately, to enjoy the company, one must sacrifice top quality Yoga instruction, which has always been, for adults, one-on-one and exquisitely individualized.

True, group classes feel good and can yield some benefits. But they only go so far—and can cause damage. In 2006, over 3,700 Yoga-related injuries were reported in America. (Far more were unreported. Just ask around.) In fact, Yoga classes were second only to automobile accidents as a cause of back and neck injuries, according to chiropractor’s reports.

Without the teacher’s informed guidance and undivided attention (not available in group classes) unconscious, self-destructive habits such as rushing, holding the breath, competitiveness and perfectionism, (the very patterns, or samskaras, which bring us to Yoga) often go unnoticed, corrupting the practice.

If Yoga were a sport in which the goal was to score points, injuries would be common and expected, a by-product of the game. Yoga, however, is a healing art, a self-care system. So Yoga-related injuries are tragic and, I feel, totally unacceptable. Particularly when they are easily preventable through proper instruction.

TRUE FOR YOU
Ultimately, studying and practicing individually with the right teacher reduces negative samskaras and creates positive change with far greater depth, precision, speed, safety, and comfort than is remotely possible in a group class.

This may be a radical, even disturbing notion to those who don’t have a teacher (or have many) and have become accustomed (or addicted) to regular group classes. But as with everything else in Yoga, the truth can and should be verified through personal experience.

Start by simply adding some private instruction to your group class regimen. Choose a teacher who is knowledgeable, likable, trustworthy and affordable. If money is an issue, find someone who cares more about helping than money. Ideally your teacher will have a strong link with a teacher who has a strong link with a teacher who has a strong link . . . This is called lineage. It is through this unbroken chain of living relationships, rather than by fixed style, that Yogis have always been identified. (But that’s another article.) Ask your teacher for a personal practice. Meet frequently, practice devotedly. Put the relationship, the heart, back into your Yoga. Give it some time, and see what happens.

In the 12 years I’ve been studying and teaching privately, I have seen that when the right teacher and student find each other, it's magic. Then, everything gets easier and anything is possible.

And Dr. G; thanks, you’ve given me more than you know.

For more information on private instruction, check out www.longexhale.com, or call 323 661-1500

Robert J. Birnberg Bio
Yoga has been an important part of Robert's life for over twenty-five years. After practicing Yoga to heal a severe back injury in 1979, Robert began studying with the best teachers in America. Ten years later, he founded Community Yoga and Wellness Center in Los Angeles, California.

In 1990 he was exposed to the teachings of T. Krishnamacharya, the great South Indian Yogi, and his son and student, T.K.V. Desikachar. Over the next several years, Robert studied at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, (KYM) an institution in South India regarded internationally for Yoga Education and Therapy. There Robert met Kausthub Desikachar, T.K.V.'s son, who became Robert’s teacher.

In July 2006, following four years of intensive study with Kausthub and an internship at the KYM, Robert became one of 40 people certified globally by TKV Desikachar to train teachers. Robert teaches private, therapeutic Yoga and trains teachers in the U.S. and internationally. His teachings embrace the many aspects of Yoga philosophy and practice, including postures, breath work, meditation, chanting, and relationship and lifestyle counseling.

Robert specializes in Yoga for addiction and compulsive disorders. He has taught at Promises Treatment Center in Malibu and has designed Yoga, Meditation and Spirituality programs for Clearview Treatment Centers in Southern, California, where he currently teaches and facilitates groups.

Robert has lectured at Harvard Medical school and is currently on the faculty of the Teacher Training Program at Providence Institute in Tucson Arizona, and the Yoga Therapist Program at Loyola Marymount University. He writes for various Yoga periodicals, and is currently working on a book, Yoga, Habit and Addiction, which will be published sometime in 2008.

longexhale@mac.com
www.longexhale.com
(323) 661-1500