Student/teacher relationship : Pamela Tyson

atha…

The seeds were sown as long ago as 1982 when I went to my first yoga class during an extremely unhappy time in my life. I was lost and filled only with hopelessness and despair. Then someone suggested I should “try” yoga, as it had done her a lot of good, and she was now “devoted” to it. I didn’t know what to expect because I had never been keen on physical exercise and had always felt uncomfortable in my body. I thought then, that yoga was specifically about the body and exercise because that was how it was perceived: on the edge of being a bit weird and outside the usual forms of “keep fit”.

My experience at the first class changed all that. Although I fell over while doing trikonãsana (parsva) for the first time ever, I got up and gamely kept trying. At the end of the session I felt enlivened in a way I had neither expected nor ever before experienced. So I continued to attend all classes in that short six week course and when it finished, by good luck I found a class near my home and continued there. There, I met someone who introduced me to a special way of working in yoga: the teaching tradition of Krishnamacharya and Desikachar. Things were changing, and I began to recover.

…yogãnusãsanam (Y.S. I.1)

In 1983 I met Paul Harvey, a student of Desikachar who was then offering the first teacher training course in this special approach to yoga. It began in 1985 and I was lucky enough to be accepted. The following four years proved to be a profoundly challenging time in my personal journey and I was confronted with much that I did not understand, not only about yoga but also, most importantly, about myself; my first experience of the power of parinãma.

It became very clear that yoga is much more than physical exercise and bodywork. The mind, emotions, the very stuff of which we are made is its essence, and there are no hiding places for the observant and committed student.

In 1995 I began to study with Frans Moors, another of Desikachar’s students, who lives and works in Belgium. Again, my journey had brought me to another “crisis” point and I knew my direction had to change (more parinãma) and I needed a different teacher. And again, after my initial meeting with Frans, I knew that this was the right move for me. I began to study the yoga sutra anew and each time I went to Liege another level of appreciation and understanding of this text was opened up to me, adding to the foundation that had already been laid during my years of study and training with Paul. After ten years, I am progressing through chapter IV; I have understood that this study is a lifetime commitment, that yoga is no “quick fix”.

sraddhaviryasmrtisamãdhiprajnãpurvaka itaresãm (Y.S. I.20)…

The real nature of the student/teacher relationship is profoundly special; its foundation is sraddha, which must be present in both student and teacher: one of mutual trust, respect and commitment. The student must be serious and “hungry” to enquire and have the tenacity to keep going when the going gets tough; the teacher must have patience, understanding, kindness and compassion to support the student through the peaks and troughs encountered along the way.

This relationship is also an expression of dharma: that which holds something in place and lifts it up to where it should be when there is a fall. For me, it is the support and inspiration both for my personal and teaching practice.

As a student I am very well aware of all this; it is my experience. As a teacher, I have learned over the years that fragility is present in everyone and it is by no means an easy task to meet the needs of each student, to guide them towards a different understanding and appreciation of themselves through practice, study and example. I am also conscious of my faltering and hesitations in both these roles. It is sraddha that keeps me going and this sense of sraddha comes from the relationship with my teacher. Desikachar has said: ”yoga is relationship” The unique student / teacher relationship is surely a profound expression of yoga.

nimittamaprayojakam… (Y.S. IV.3)

After some time, I began to feel more secure and confident both in myself and in my work. I wanted to offer my students something of what I had received during my years of study, training, growth, experience. I conceived the idea to offer a training course to work with a small group of students over an extended period, which reflected a traditional way of teaching; the foundation for the course would be the student/teacher relationship. I prepared an outline of my thoughts and discussed them with Frans who gave his support and encouraged me to go ahead; I would not have done so if he had hesitated or told me to wait. I knew I wanted to give this course a name which would reflect my intentions and later, during a practice a name presented itself: anusaãsanam came into being.

I have now offered three series of two year cycles; the current one will conclude in Spring 2007; a good time for a small number of new teachers to set up classes and who knows where it will take them? Now, I am working with three students from the first training group who are developing their teaching work with individuals. Throughout these years the support and encouragement of my teacher has been the inspiration and dharma for the work.

I don’t know yet when or whether I will offer another cycle of training but I do know it is time for me to take a pause to reflect on the direction my journey should now take.

I have been a mother for 44 years, a grandmother for 2 years, a student and teacher of yoga for 20+ years. My little family lives on the other side of the world in Australia; perhaps this is where my dharma now lies; something else – not exactly a crisis – on the agenda to discuss with my teacher at our next meeting. Together with my own reflections, sharing with friends and family, I am confident that my teacher’s observations will help me decide what I should do and where I should be at this point in my journey.

An essential part of the student/teacher relationship is to guide the student towards autonomy; it is clearly beyond the usual context of teacher, because it involves more than just teaching yoga. It becomes one of mentor as well as teacher in the complex and challenging process of a student’s journey.

The gift of this unique relationship is that it honours the link with the source of the teaching; each time I am with my teacher I am linked to the source; every time I practice, meditate, chant, I am linked to the source and every time I am with my students we are all linked to the source of this teaching.

Pamela Tyson
October 2006