Adrian and I have become obsessed with Moksha Yoga in Vancouver.  It’s a kinder, gentler Bikram, and is, quite frankly, NECESSARY during November when it rains almost every single day and there’s only 8.5 hours of daylight (by contrast, Leslie in Kigali is getting 12.25 hours daily and my LA friends a solid — and SUNNY — 10).  Thus, loving the warmth and the beautiful studio and the wonderful staff, Adrian and I have both gotten monthly passes and schedule our errand-filled lives around getting to class.

Usually when I take classes these days, one of two things happens.  Most often the teacher gets one good look at me in Downward Dog and, with my heels and even head on the ground, pretty much figures I’m flexible and aligned enough and then just leaves me alone for the class.  It’s kind of heavenly to be anonymous and invisible in the back row.  Conversely, the other breed of teacher will spend a good portion of the class trying to figure out something they can adjust, something they can correct or fix,  and ultimately it’s always “strengthening” my back leg — something that holds little interest for me — in one of the standing poses.   In fact, as I predicted to Adrian before taking class, it’s happened in both of the other yoga studios we’ve visited here, from classes I pretty much liked.  I firm up the back leg a bit and everyone’s happy.

Anyway, yesterday in our Moksha class, a brand new, super-sweet and enthusiastic teacher gave me an adjustment in Eagle, a pose I honestly feel is a complete waste of my time.

My arms do the wrap just fine, and my balance is steady, however I cannot get that foot wrapped behind the thigh.  Although I can get it wrapped relatively easily when doing it lying down on the floor, I honestly don’t think I ever will while standing.

I think that the leg wrap eludes me because I have strong, muscular thighs, not because I need a greater degree of flexibility in the hips.  It’s really a matter of muscle mass and geometry and I should probably enroll an architect or engineering friend in proving that it’s impossible for me.  Yes, I find it mildly irritating that an “easy” pose eludes me, but I’ve got a full lotus, a solid hanuman (the full split that can torture the hamstrings), and on a good day, the craziest hip openers like Vamadevasana  — see the dude below — are my friends, so ultimately I’m fine with it.

Since I feel like I’m getting my balance work on in everything else — Ardha Chandrasana to Warrior III to Shiva Nataraj — and my “real” hip openers in pigeon and ankle to knee — although I don’t technically sit there and stare at the seconds hand on my watch, I am mostly biding my time until we’re done with Eagle.

Yesterday, the well-meaning teacher want to give me an adjustment in the pose and I felt myself inwardly dismissing it with a silent, “No thanks.  I’m just not that into this pose.  It’s not worth my time or yours.”  Fortunately, the rest of my resentful monologue was silent:

“Although I can’t get this silly wrap, mostly I’m pretty much ready for my Yoga Journal Cover Shoot in tons of other poses, so why in a room where there are so many people who actually NEED adjustments, are we fussing with this?”

And then I remembered something that one of my great teachers Dana Flynn used to say at the Lotus — something that I more or less repeated whenever I felt someone was being difficult in a class or going rogue — “Why don’t you give yourself permission TO BE THE STUDENT?”

Look, I pride myself on always being extremely well-behaved when I take someone’s class.  I never improvise or take things further, even if I’m dying to make the shape more intense or travel to what strikes me as the obvious physical conclusion.   Outwardly, I perfectly conform and yet inwardly, I realize somehow I’ve developed a bit of an occasional attitude that goes something like “I love being in this class and I will completely follow your directions, but really, there’s not much you can teach me.”  Note:  there’s only a hint of this in my psyche — mostly I’m like a raccoon or some other feral scavenger, eager to swipe any useful piece of information I can use — but it definitely surfaces in those Garudasana moments.

I began to think about how this might affect my piano playing — this self-given permission to be the student — and remembered how on Thanksgiving a few days ago when we had a few folks over, somehow my blog came up and mid-dinner someone asked me to play.  It would have been weird to start busting out a tune just after carving so I easily avoided it, but honestly I just felt unready to perform.  Later when the party had wound down and all the wine had been consumed, around midnight I did play through a movement for the stragglers.  It was, not surprisingly, the worst playing of my life but given that my listeners had had as much wine to drink as I had — actually I had probably had more since I nursed a glass or two while basting the bird — I figured everything evened out.

In different ways, I’m exploring this idea of giving oneself permission to be the student — or in the latter example — to play badly.  With so many of my yoga poses looking “perfect”– parallel to my knowledge of the “perfect” recordings of Brendel and Barenboim — it’s easy to dismiss the annoying, “can’t quite get there” pose as trivial and shrug off any advice or adjustments.  Or in the case of music, simply avoid playing for anyone else for years.

Being quite good at many things can make one dismissive (or arrogant) about what’s less than stellar (like Eagle).  A similar snobby perfectionism can also cause one to never step up to the plate unless conditions are perfect.

In the end, although I’d absolutely vote that Eagle get taken out of the Moksha series, I’d like to think that as I progress, it might take only a glass or two of wine to reinforce my self-permission to be the student — someone who is by definition, less than perfect, and ideally, completely open and eager to learn.