Why Online Yoga Trainings Might Actually Work…

“When you are far away, the work is to feel the distance.” ~David Whyte

There is so much resistance and confusion about the future of Yoga in the world today. So many Yogis are bound to the modern model of studios, community classes, and group Teacher Trainings. When you sit with Yoga practitioners these days, there is an overwhelming number who lament the loss of their practice due to quarantine and social distancing (for more about my thoughts on that, read HERE), and many students that I know feel incredibly discouraged at the thought of doing their YTT online.

Is it possible that we are getting it all wrong? Is it possible the way we think “we are supposed to practice yoga,” isn’t actually how we should be practicing? Perhaps we've forgotten the centuries of practice that preceded the way we study and train in the modern era. I want to offer an alternative view about moving into this new paradigm of Yoga and Yoga trainings, rather than going back to the way things were or fixing the problem, what if we re-envision it completely?

The first thing I want to invite you to consider is this: the possibility that the way we practice yoga now might have been a grand experiment that didn't work.

What if the way that we've been doing yoga in the last three decades isn't working? Would we be able to recognize it? What if this massive change to our global experience has finally given us a moment to reevaluate?

I want to challenge you. Can we let go of what we think we know that Yoga is supposed to be, and allow ourselves to be utterly lost, utterly confused, to have zero understanding? Can we let go of the idea that we can master anything and start to excavate what Yoga could be from within us? Then based on what we discover, can we then go back to our mats, go back to our cushions, at home, alone, and determine what Yoga is for each of us? Once we do that, we can start to make the movements toward sharing what yoga really is to each of us individually. This is what an online training can do, and maybe a whole new format can provide the freedom to explore and discover.

If from the crisis of loss and change, a whole new vision of Yoga Training can emerge, we may find ourselves in uncharted territory with only our experience to hold us. Our tenuous tether to external validation, rules, and standards may be broken, but we may finally be set free to define truth from within. What we will be left with might be an altogether different way to perceive and experience Yoga as a practice and as a tool, alongside a completely new way of learning to share it with others. Maybe we are the agents of change, right here, right now.

At Vira Bhava Yoga, we have been working for two years to move in that direction. We have been reformatting our programming, re-evaluating our contribution, re-framing our work. Almost two years ago, we began the process of moving our Advanced Studies Training to an online format. Though the virus blindsided us, just like everyone else, there wasn’t a frantic scramble to move our programming online; in fact, we had released the complete online training the DAY BEFORE the US locked down. Not only were we ready for online trainings, we believe in them.

Learning Yoga is NOT learning a set of rules to follow or scripts to repeat. Learning Yoga is not a system of safety, perfection or mastery. Learning Yoga is actually the opposite of all of these ideas. It’s learning how to be vulnerable, exposed, uncertain and even wrong. It’s learning how to hold the uncomfortable tension of not knowing in order to find the trust that we need to be resilient and inspiring. Learning Yoga is not based on accolades or perfection, but in the messy uncertainty of discovery and exploration.

Can we be brave enough to dismantle the ideas of what we thought yoga was and really start to move into what it is? Is this an opportunity to start to understand how Yoga is manifesting as each of us individually? If so, can we learn how to make Yoga what we're doing in the world? What happens if we find out that yoga does not have anything to do with correct sequencing? What if safe posturing with correct counterposes, or prep posing doesn’t really matter? What happens to the structures of yoga that we've built if we take all of the things we thought were its foundation, and we rip it apart? In my personal experience, that's where yoga starts. When you start allowing yourself to explore the unknown spaces, the liminal spaces, the uncomfortable spaces, even if it doesn't look anything like you’ve been told it’s supposed to look.

By moving our programming online, students have the opportunity to explore and discover their own Yoga, to move into accountability and responsibility with the pursuit of practice. There is space to take the offerings of knowledge and work without the safety net of right and wrong to truly discover how Yoga is expressing itself through each person individually. There are no rules to memorize and try to perfect. There is no way to fail. The context of our Yoga turns inward again, or maybe for the first time, and we come home to the depth and possibility of a true Yoga practice. In the process, our unique and powerful voices emerge, and we are inspired to share our discoveries with others.

When we live with the need to idealize the plan and require external success to validate our plan, our Yoga is just another piece of the plan. Our Yoga becomes our security. In truth, Yoga is a path of insecurity, uncertainty and unknowns, asking us to develop the courage (Vira) to NOT know, and to learn by experiencing. It feels insecure, unsafe to trust our own experience without someone else telling us if we are doing it right. And this fear of doing it wrong, of messing up, of being unsupervised with nothing to perfect is contrary to everything we’ve been taught. Yet, this huge risk is the experience of Yoga. Yoga isn't the certainty that if we jump off the edge, there's a net at the bottom. Yoga is the free fall.

In an online format, we have the opportunity to receive the information, assimilate it with our bodies and minds, and then integrate it with the help of a diverse group of Yogis unrestricted by place or time. Working with others online creates a community of support that has space to welcome a broader understanding of what your Yoga is, and how you can share it across mediums and in ways that are totally unique to you and your experience. The distance may feel uncomfortable, but it’s ripe with potential and the capacity to grow something more. We may find we want to share something in a completely new way, or express an entirely new set of instructions for a routine asana. We won’t be able to touch with our hands, that’s true, but we will be able to polish our words to inspire and support in new ways. We may truly integrate our Yoga as ourselves, rather than teach it as something external to remedy the symptoms of being human.

How are you seeking your Yoga and how do you want what you discover to translate in the future? Yoga teaches us to surf the chaos, and if we're lucky, it teaches us how to feel that chaos is holy. What if even your mess, your brokenness, even the fear and the insecurity that's taking over right now- what if that was holy? What if being unmoored is also Yoga? How would it change the way we come together in a yogic practice? When you feel resistant to adapting your Yoga to the times, I dare you to ask questions about whether or not what we're doing has ever worked. Or if we've just been doing what we thought we should be doing. More importantly, has what we thought we should be doing ever really been what we were supposed to be doing?

Has Yoga in the way we’ve come to understand it ever really been accessible? I don't know that yoga studios and yoga teacher trainings are making yoga any more accessible than it ever has been. In fact, the old model might be doing just the opposite, making it less accessible to the many that could benefit. How do we want to show up as Yogi's, as yoga teachers, as studio owners in this changing paradigm? There are innumerable possibilities between zero and one. You guys know decimal points, right? They go on forever. Think of all the possibilities that exist to evolve the modern model of teacher training. Challenge yourself to resist the need for definitive answers because we seek security. Hold space for what can exist beyond what we have known. When we start to recognize that maybe we've had it wrong all along, then we set ourselves free to try something different.

I don't know how we're going to evolve this practice, but what I do know is that this practice has existed way before yoga studios, way before yoga classes, way before styles of yoga Asana, way before yoga blocks and yoga straps and little sticky rubber yoga mats. Yoga has existed, persisted, adapted, and changed to meet the needs of the culture for millennia. So if we are to evolve our Yoga, the way that we dream it into being must change. The way that we dream, plan, and imagine is an act of radically leaving everything just as it is, and coming home to yourself on a daily basis. And, listening to whatever effervesces from inside of you, rather than trying to align with some sort of system or structure that you have been told is what you're supposed to do. Can we listen in enough to allow our dreams to come from within us rather than be something to strive for, reach for, or try to attain outside of us? Can our Yoga trainings evolve to support that?

I dare you to explore, to own and connect with yoga in new ways. Be surprised by what you find. I dare you to be wrong. I dare you to be afraid without trying to make yourself feel better. I dare you to be unsettled, like you want to crawl out of your skin and to sit in it. I dare you to become willing to sit in the agitation as your Yoga. I dare you not to make it better, not to try to go back to the way things used to be. Here we are. What if Yoga is the practice of being right here? The reason we're called Vira Bhava Yoga (the essence of a warrior, of courage, of a hero) is why I'm daring you and not inviting you. I dare you to not require this to end and “go back to normal.” Instead, experiment with the possibility that ending of the old is the beginning of what will happen next. If the world is changing, can you be a part of the change? Can you find agency and the ability to be where we are right now and continue to grow, to find ways to dream, to ask the hard questions, to show up bravely and courageously, to not make it different than it is right now?

Yoga is needed now more than ever. So we're going to be showing up for y'all. We want to support you in receiving the education that allows you to be show up for your students. We're talking with each other and we're listening. We're engaging in meaningful conversations, not just about what to do, but about how we're going to do it. We are adapting and evolving in new ways with new eyes and we are excited about it. So are our students, mentors and teachers. Our online trainings are an evolution of this path of connection as conversation for all voices contribute to this evolutionary process. We are reuniting what we call Yoga, and we are sharing what we learn in the process. We are revising, re-visioning and integrating these opportunities that we call Yoga in new ways. We're not demanding that things be good or go back to where they once were. We are changing as the times change, and we invite you to join us.

Learn more about our Online Learning opportunities HERE.