Voting With Your Feet: Avoiding Abusive Teachers

by Baxter

Another View of Clear Water by Nina Zolotow

After Nina posted yesterday about abusive yoga teachers (see When to Fire Your Yoga Teacher), we received a follow-up message from another reader who had a similar experience of being humiliated when she attended the workshop of a visiting teacher to her community. In her case, she voted with her feet and did not attend a follow-up visit by the same teacher this year, but instead chose to study with a local teacher, and loved her experience. 

In discussing the humiliating teacher’s behavior with her regular teacher, the student was told, “That’s how they do it in India.” Well, this may indeed be true, but does it make this kind of behavior acceptable? In my own experience of studying with many teachers over the past 19 years at workshops and conferences and retreats, I have come across my fair share of angry, condescending, overtly or subtly demeaning behavior by teachers from at least two different traditions. In fact, I  studied with a well-regarded teacher a few times before a more subtle way of demeaning students on a fairly regular basis made me decide to give up the class despite some "good" asana instructions I was learning.  I could not justify continuing to support that kind of treatment of me or my fellow students.

 I also heard stories about a teacher I came to respect about how he had been a bear to study with when he was younger and how he had mellowed out as he aged. I felt blessed to have missed his “abusive” period since I learned so much and witnessed compassionate behavior from him regularly. I did carry a background concern about whether the other side might re-surface at some point; fortunately, I never had to encounter that situation from this particular teacher.

I do feel that teachers who study in a “lineage” that permits or even subtly approves of this bullying, degrading treatment of students tend to be more likely to participate in such behavior and maybe are even drawn to it. I don’t want to get into some deep exploration of trauma and its long-term effects, as it is a complex topic and I am not an expert in it. But, as Nina pointed out yesterday, you can vote with your feet, and I myself have done so more than once over the years. And that old observation that a happy customer tells one person about their experience, but a dissatisfied one will tell ten certainly has played out for me. I am asked all the time for referrals to other teachers or recommendations for teachers to study with at conferences. If a student happens to ask about a teacher I have had a bad experience with, I will recommend someone else instead.  I do not always go into the why of it, but do on occasion share my specific experience if I know that my personal experience was also confirmed by other yoga friends of mine. The good news is that we have more and more choices all around the country—and even internationally—when it comes to yoga instructors. So, don’t settle for anything less than a good instructor who is also respectful and kind.