Weekly Letter: Yoga Props & Ego
When I first started teaching yoga, other teachers warned me there are students who don’t like to use yoga props. To those students, props show a weakness or an inability. I was baffled, as I was being trained the props give the person MORE access not less. And yet, when I started teaching, I did quickly begin to notice students who resisted using blocks or blankets when they should.
As an eager new teacher, I would make attempts to change this perception by gently offering props during class. Sometimes I would even make sure to do a posture that required a prop to warm the student to their function.
Inevitably, there were some students who still fought the props-treating them as a type of crutch.
What it is about the physical object that offended them so? I’m sure these students have tools they use every day for comfort of efficiency. They probably have a cell phone, a car and air conditioning in their home. Maybe they have Alexa and Wi-Fi. All the things that can help make daily life easier.
In my home I have a vintage Kik-step stool in my pantry and a Cosco stool in my kitchen to reach things because my body is only 5’2” and the shelving is higher than my frame. Is it silly to use them? Does it make me less of a practitioner?
What if I busted the student’s bubble by telling them the postures themselves are props to access the body and mind? As are the breathing techniques. Even closing the eyes at the beginning of a practice is a tool to eliminate distraction. All of these tools allow the body and mind to come together more efficiently and remove as much of the Ahamkara (ego mind) as possible so they can come into a deeper state of experience. When the emphasis is placed on the ‘look’ of a posture over its function, there is no way for the student to go deeper until they get over that hump of understanding. They have backed themselves into their own Ego and will fight tool and nail for it, because the Ego is desperate not to be changed or dissolved and it’s the Ego clinging to what is safe.
Holding onto the Ego prevents the student from transformation and the Ego wants to keep them in this holding pattern like a prison.
But yoga is asking them to break open and be free from the cage of the Ego mind
‘And this can happen by using a piece of foam?’ you ask.
Yes. See the irony?
~Carmen
