May 20, 2013
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| Swami Kriyananda |
Swami
Kriyananda, the founder of Ananda and of Ananda Yoga, was a wellspring of
wisdom and inspiration for teachers of any subject. His teaching style balanced
deep insights with common sense, and inspiration with practicality—all
delivered with delightful humor. I am endlessly grateful to him—and he in turn
always gave credit to his guru, Paramhansa Yogananda. He even said, “Ananda
Yoga is Master’s Yoganandaji’s system, not mine.”
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| Paramhansa Yogananda |
Here
I’ll share a few of his many insights into teaching Hatha Yoga (all quotations
are his words). Most of these points, in fact, pertain to teaching any aspect
of Yoga.
Good
teaching begins with discipline
Sure,
we want to teach in an intuitive flow, but in order to align ourselves with
that flow, we need to study, to understand all aspects of our subject, and then
thoroughly prepare our class so we can present skillfully. As Swamiji put it:
If
you want to teach something well, you need to know ten times as much about it
as you have time to say. That backing will give power to what you do say. If one person has that
backing and another doesn’t, they could say exactly the same words, but one
will have power and the other will not. You’re giving students much more than
information; you’re giving them vibration.
