good tea

This morning I taught MD. It went OK. I have seen lots of improvement in him over the weeks, but there are still a lot of things about his practice that frustrate me. I actually interrupted one of his comments today to tell him to focus. I felt really, really bad, because interrupting MD just does not happen in his normal life, and I was worried he’d get mad, or something, but obviously my subtle attempts to tell him to SHUT UP AND FOCUS ON THE YOGA have not worked, so I tried something unsubtle.

After, as we were taking all my gear out to the car, he asked me if I would consider continuing to teach him every week if he paid me for lessons. BF later said he expected that would happen, but I guess I’m naive because it never once occurred to me. I had no idea what to say. I definitely don’t want to, because a) I’m not enjoying teaching him and, more importantly, b) I don’t want money to pass between me and family members for yoga. I have no problem giving out a free lesson here and there to family, but getting paid for them, or doing them every week with no end in sight…neither of those situations are right for me.

Later in the day I went to see my friend and teacher J, at her home. She asked me if I felt I was growing as a teacher by instructing him. I had to admit that I was; teaching a student who presents as many different kinds of challenges as MD does – psychological, physical, imaginative – has certainly made my one-on-one abilities grow in leaps and bounds. And BF, MD himself, and MM have all told me that I’m making a big difference to him – his comfort in his body has greatly improved, and the pain in his back and shoulders has eased significantly. But I am so, so unhappy doing it.

J said I had to do what was best for me, anyhow. And she said that she would volunteer to teach him. I said I’d bring it up to him, but I’m just not sure it’s a good idea. I don’t want her to get roped into teaching him every week, either. She may end up enjoying him, which would be great, but I still keep seeing all these different ways it could tangle up and be weird.

What I think he should do is find a group class (or two) that will work for him, and adjust to that. I think it will help him to focus on his yoga, and will remove the personal attention aspect that I frankly think he’s grown too accustomed to, too dependent on. But I think the personal attention is really what he wants, and I don’t know if he’ll accept the idea of a class.

I don’t know. It’s hard to work this stuff out.

My visit with J was actually kind of wonderful. We had girlfriend chat, and also good teacher chat, and good tea. It was so nice to spend time with another woman. I miss that a lot, and hardly remember how much I miss it until I get to do it again. Friendships with women have always been difficult for me, but there’s just nothing like girlfriend chat.

I came home and promptly passed out on the couch. It has snowed all day here (turned into quite a storm despite mild predictions), and it was dry snow, which packed down quickly and became slippery and dangerous to drive on. Since today I hopped from the yoga studio, to MD’s house, to the community college, to J’s house, to home, I think I was just plumb wore out from all that muscle tension while driving. After a half hour I forced myself to wake up, we plowed through to the grocery store, and thence back home to watch Batman & Robin. Gawd, what a ridiculously terrible movie. The production design was spectacular – a dizzying Gotham, city built upon city,  with bizarre gigantic Schumacher naked-dude statues, bright mid-nineties colors, and absurd nippled costumes – but the script was one of the worst I’ve ever experienced in a major release, and everyone but Clooney was just awful. (I pointed out to BF that he was actually bothering to act, where no one else really was.) He was miscast, as well; far too warm an actor for Batman. Poison Ivy must’ve been fun to play, but her part was so badly written that I just closed my ears and thought of The Bride. Just…yikes. Awful-dawful.

Tomorrow morning, despite the fact that I’m heading to northern Virginia for a workshop, I comparatively get to sleep in. Until 6:30. Whee!