Kinesthetics

Long, long day. I taught six hours, then had parent-teacher conferences pretty much straight from the moment students left my classroom to 20 minutes before I needed to be at the local fitness center to teach a yoga class. I changed clothes at the center and made it just as the Zumba-ites were walking out all sweaty and happy. This is a growing class and I see the regulars now, a few who are catching the yoga bug, I can tell. One woman in particular surprises me beyond belief.

She's been to several of my classes now, a beautiful woman probably in her 50's. After Monday night I was pretty certain she wouldn't be back. I joke about being a kinesthetic dyslexic teacher when I confuse left and right, but if ever there were a true case of the malady, this woman is it. I'm not sure where the difficulty comes in--auditory? Does something get lost in the translation between my verbal cues and her body? Visual? She can watch me or other students and still get tangled up in her own legs moving from downward facing dog to Vira I. Monday she toppled over from a low lunge and my heart sank. I felt responsible. I spent a lot of time with her manually making adjustments or breaking transitions down into baby steps. She got into a pigeon at last and noted how this stretched her outer hip. I was surprised to see her again tonight, and again, she tumbled. When we moved into pigeon she had forgotten the alignment and was again sinking over into her hip, looking confused about where to put her front foot or how to align the back leg. What an amazing woman. I've talked about beginner mind and trying to cultivate that sense of original wonder, and here is a living embodiment of it. I hope to see her again, though it causes me discomfort as an instructor.  I'm baffled in much the same way as when I'm teaching a struggling 2nd grade reader and have no idea how he sees the world and the printed text in front of his eyes. But I hope, too, I can learn how to make both the reading and the yoga accessible to these folks. Is there something I can say or do to assist? I don't know. But if this woman continues to show up on the mat it may just restore some faith in the human race for me.