Put It Away
Wrong. In more ways than one. Cause it’s not about age. Its about ethics.
Regardless of what you’re teaching, for a student-teacher relationship to work, there is an inherent and necessary power dynamic. Transmitter of knowledge and receiver of knowledge. Implicit and necessary. If there isn’t, you’re not teaching.
And, obviously, if you’re not teaching yoga, you’re not a yoga teacher. You’re something else.
I wear many hats in my shala: bootcamp general, therapist, standup comic. The army doesn’t think it’s a good idea to sleep with a commanding officer, and few folks would cosign shnogging your shrink. Heck, having worked in a comedy club for many years, I can tell you whole heartedly it is rarely a good idea to nail a comic (I kid!).
It doesn’t take an ethics professor to see that the underlying issues of power dynamics aren’t age specific. And, as the adage goes, power corrupts (if you’re not vigilant). My students are off limits, though they are gorgeous, intelligent, and often quite in synch with my beliefs.
Why the line in the sand?
Because the aim of yoga is to allow the spirit to find it’s true nature as observer of the world– and its a teacher of yoga’s responsibility to guide the student towards that mark. The process itself is ugly, uncomfortable, and as wildly arduous as it is necessary.
Lust over trust? You can’t teach yoga that way.
As students (and every teacher is foremost a student), we work so hard to get tranquil thought; thought that isn’t corrupted by bullshit, tainted by the phenomenal world. According to the yoga sutras, uncorrupted thought comes through impartiality to virtue, vice, pleasure, and pain. Tranquil thought is free of sensuous passion… and I can’t help but ask, how many flings fill that critera?
I’ve got no fingers up.
A yoga teacher has to treat every student as a spiritual aspirant. Teaching methods not congruent? Fine. But to literally f*ck up and deteriorate an aspirant’s spiritual path by breeding insolvency? This doesn’t just make someone a bad teacher– it makes them something far worse.
To engage in a sexual relationship and not edit the student-teacher dynamic is an act of violence and dishonesty. But, listen, I know, it happens.
Lets be radical to the brink of hyperbole for a moment. If sleeping with someone who isn’t old enough to consent is called statutory rape, what do we call it when we sleep with someone who isn’t far enough along on their path to know better?
Spiritual rape?
Think that title is ugly? Remember the stakes.
Swami Sivananda says to “Bear insult, and bear injury” is the highest spiritual practice. Go ask a rape victim how easy that is. Teachers are human, and they make mistakes– but no amount of 200-hr trainings or branded yoga mats will make it any less wrong or the stakes any less high.
Related posts:
- Tapas: Ending Radio Silence
- Strong Personality, Being Who You Are
- Painfully Honest
- 3 Ways Yoga Makes Better Runners
Why F*cking Your Yoga Students is Wrong http://t.co/ZdVfXoe7 #off_the_mat #yoga #ahimsa #yogadork
[...] today where #4 spoke to this. My friend Michael Hall posted a very clear statement today entitled Why Fcking your Students is Wrong. Let’s leave the JF Anusara scandal for a second and think about [...]
My thoughts: http://www.mikegraglia.com/2012/02/09/yogarelationships/
Great post by @MichaelJoelHall Why F*cking Your Yoga Students is Wrong http://t.co/87fwhHr4
Good post, Mike (they all seem to be!).
Here’s where, I think, you nailed it ethically (no pun intended:
“If I violated that [student-teacher] relationship to exploit them sexually that would clearly be wrong. If, however, two grown adults meet in a classroom and they experience a connection and want to explore that outside the studio, then I don’t see that as wrong.”
True story, brother. You’re real life bottom is so very apt:
“If I had seen my fiance and said “Wow, that woman might just be the one.” But then said “shame I met her in my class, guess I can’t talk to her.” That would have been a huge mistake. “
Sing it, brother!
[...] Here’s the article. [...]
If only life was that black and white. My hubby was my teacher…not yoga…but I was with a spiritual group….lets leave it at that. We have been married for almost 12 years now. We were dating and doing stuff that people who date do, way before we tied the knot. I am so happy he didn’t read this post before hand.
I am not saying that teachers should sleep with their students. I am saying it is not black and white. I know people who have beautiful relationships with people who started out as their yoga teachers. I am against sleeping willy nilly with your students. But if someone has a true connection,they are not looking for a booty call & they really feel strongly about someone who happens to be their student, I cannot agree with you that they should let that person pass by without a shot. However, I do feel they should seriously weight the decision and how it could effect the teacher dynamic with that student as well as the other students in the Shala. There are ways to handle it that are tasteful and may end up in a happy 12 year marriage.
I know that John Friend was not looking for a life partner and that is what this post pertains too. I am saying that their are no absolutes in life and everything is not Black and White.
I could have sex with my yoga teacher and still be cool tomorrow because I don’t have a starstruck personality. I recognize that what I do in my bedroom is not necessarily connected with what I do on my mat. Yet, I do understand that most people don’t have the ability to separate that in their minds. Again life is not black and white.
Thanks for the input, Shanna. Having worked for years around celebrities, I’m not a man who is easily starstruck, either–
I think I know what you mean, though… “Rockstar Yoga Teachers” and all that.. I’m always happy to hear about abiding love, so good on ya for your relationship, but I can’t help but think that its the exception and not the rule. Maybe?