Regarding Teachers

Not sure if I am really qualified yet, having only been practicing for two and a half months, but I have become very opinionated about Bikram's teachers.

I like strict, honest, down-to-earth teachers. I had a great teacher about a week ago called Mack. He was tough and critical of typical student antics (depending on water and towel, not giving 100 %, sitting postures out, losing focus, etc.) and some people seem to be wary of him, but I thought he was really good. He whipped me into shape and I ended up giving way more effort than I had intended, as I had him on my second class of the day last Saturday, and I was pretty damn tired. He certainly didn't try to make best friends with anyone. He didn't say "try to do this" as teachers often tend to do, he said "do this". I liked that. Despite his gruff way about teaching, it was obvious that he understood our struggles very well and had everybody's best interest in mind. He anticipated student tendencies and explained exactly why we should avoid certain things, and he told us where he fell down as a beginner. I learned a lot that class.

I really dislike flakiness and passive-aggressiveness, generally and especially in class. Teachers need to find the balance between discipline and understanding. Sometimes a teacher will try so hard to come across as nice and understanding (as opposed to "too hard on the class"), and often that does a real disservice to everyone. Students need discipline! They shouldn't flutter around and be all "just try your best, whatever that may be" (although of course that is true, but it's open to interpretation) and then act all surprised when students are sucking back the water, sitting out postures and wiping sweat like crazy. Conversely, they shouldn't order people to get up if they're really feeling sick and lying down, or get strict all of a sudden, out of frustration, as I have also seen.

The teachers aren't there to be your best friend, they are there to take you from the beginning to the end of class so that you get as much benefit as possible. It's a hard job and it takes a lot of effort on their part - this is very obvious. But Bikram's teachers make a huge commitment to get where they are in terms of their own practice and the time and cost of the teacher training, so this isn't a half-assed sort of deal. Therefore, they should explore every avenue for self-improvement - the teacher makes a big difference in class. Maybe it's not like that with other yoga or for more advanced students, but most of the people in class are fairly green, and they need a solid instructor.

One last thought: some of the young women don't seem to have developed the confidence in themselves as people to direct the class completely efficiently. I guess these things come with time. It's just that it seems as though young women comprise a big percentage of teachers and teacher hopefuls, so they need to be good.