A Conversation with Michael Coleman: On yoga, wellness and language

A Conversation with Michael Coleman: On yoga, wellness and language

By Liza Osoteo, graduate intern

In my last blog, I talked about wellness and who we looked to for role

models of wellness in the modern world. I look to yoga teachers as leaders

of wellness. Yoga has definitely gone mainstream over the years. It has

trickled into my neighborhood supermarket where yoga tapes and DVDs are

sold as a “lifestyle product” (next to the organic food section). It has

even informed fashion. Forget the loose clothing, you can now put on “yoga

pants” and if you want to tote around your yoga mat like an accessory,

there are yoga mat hand bags. Despite lending itself nicely to savvy

merchandising, which I’m certainly not immune to, yoga still maintains an

authentic wisdom that speaks to me. For me, what sets yoga apart from

“going to the gym” is the meditative aspect, the awareness of breath that

forces me to be more conscious and grounded as I practice.

Michael Coleman also sought yoga as a way to ground himself. He did not

initially set out to become a yoga instructor. He was introduced to yoga

during a challenging part of his life when he was struggling to finish his

dissertation. Now, Michael Coleman, PhD in Scandinavian Literature, is an

instructional designer, teacher and part-time yoga instructor. Teaching

yoga taught him how to integrate his practice into his informed way of

being. I recently had a conversation with Michael Coleman on wellness,

yoga and how practicing these concepts are very much like learning a

language.

What prompted you to start your yoga practice?

In the past I’d been very much “within my body.” I danced in high school

and when I first came to Berkeley as an undergraduate I had contemplated

getting into some dance classes but it never really happened. I kind of

moved away from that and would do things like biking and hiking, but I

didn’t really do anything that involved any integrated movement that had a

pattern that I found grounding. When I was in graduate school for many,

many years, about halfway through the process, I felt very ungrounded

again and I wasn’t sure what was going on. I felt I needed something to

re-ground me.

I was having a conversation with someone in a café who was taking yoga

himself. And I was describing this feeling that I felt like I needed to do

something, but I wasn’t quite sure what. And he said, “Michael, I do yoga,

and you have the perfect yoga body. It would be something that I think you

could really enjoy getting into.” So, based on his recommendation, I said

“Okay, let’s try this out.” I signed up for some yoga classes at my local

gym and I was hooked after a short period of time.

It was kind of strange, because during that period of time it almost

became a balm or salve that I really turned to— not to the point of

addiction, but it was almost like, I had to make sure I had my yoga fix.

Three times a week at the least and it just felt very awkward if I didn’t

do it.

Would your body miss it?

It was more like my brain would miss it rather than my body. Graduate

school started making me crazy. This became the anchor. It was a little

bit weird; I think it almost became an obsession of sorts, not quite. And

then what happened, a friend Liz had came out for a visit and we were

talking about yoga. She said, “While you’re really getting into this,

maybe you can teach yoga.” And I said, “Wow, maybe.”

Your friends have a way of getting you into trouble.

Yeah. She said, “Hey, I have a really dear yoga teacher who is starting up

a teacher training program, maybe it would be something you can do.” I

said “Oh, okay that sounds cool.” I was a little skeptical. Then I went to

meet this woman and she seemed to have a really nice vibe. And I said,

“Okay, I guess this will be another aspect of it.”

It was interesting because it was during that time that the “obsessive

quality” about the yoga practice had left and it became more of an

integrated practice where I would know, “It’s probably not a good idea to

practice yoga for 2-3 weeks because something might be going on with my

wrist.” I learned how to step back from yoga as well as work within it. I

think it became a healthy, integrated relationship with the yoga practice.

That really was the course that opened up the yoga practice. Rather than

being a just physical asana it became the meditation and awareness that

allowed me to have a very healthy relationship with yoga. Even though I

might not practice the physical yoga on a regular basis, it still informs

how I make my way out to the world. And I love the physical practice when

I do get back into it.

There’s also the mental practice…it sounds like you do that everyday now.

Yeah, there are aspects when I would I do more meditation practice. As I

said, I’ve become a bit lazy about it when work demands come into play.

And I don’t necessarily feel overtly guilty about not practicing or

meditating. There’s a little bit of “I should be practicing…” but as I

said, it is within me as I move forward. Just being able to relax for a

moment or take a deep breath when getting frustrated or something like

that. That’s within me now.

How long did that take?

I think it was really during the teacher training program that I was in

for a year and a half. It was here in Berkeley with Julie Rappaport. It

was an amazing program. It was a great core group of people and it was

very experiential on how we approached it. We would have these great

discussions about what the yoga practice was.

What kind of yoga do you practice?

The particular type of yoga that I was trained in is called Vini-Yoga.

It’s kind of strange when people haven’t heard of it. They say, “Yo,

Vinnie!” It’s the type of yoga that makes a lot of accommodations for

people and where they are and their physical characteristics and general

health. With some yoga practices like Ashtanga, some people are very

specific about foot positioning. For example, it would be harder for

someone who’s larger in size to hold their feet in a particular position.

They might need to have a wider stance. And so the training that I

received was very much about moving in the vein of yoga, but being

accommodating.  There’re meditative aspects to it too, like chanting. It

is within me now which is very interesting.

And as I said, I’m not as diligent as I could be in terms of the doing the

physical practice. For instance, when I’m riding my bike on a 3 hour,

20-mile mountain bike through the Santa Cruz mountains, I start the

practice. It’s funny because I even call the mountain biking part of “the

practice,” which it is. When I was starting out and doing this very long

ascent, that’s about 6 miles, a very moderately gradual ascent, I was

trying to be conscientious of the fact that I needed to conserve my energy

to be able to do the 3 hours. What I would try to do is move into this

mode of trying to focus inward as I was peddling. It was nice to enjoy the

beautiful scenery which is one of the great aspects of being out there,

but I focused a lot of energy inward to flush out a lot of the unnecessary

movements or dissipate the extra movement and to just think about what my

entire body was doing as it was moving forward. I would ask myself “Am I

being efficient with the posture, am I wasting or giving energy to places

where it doesn’t need to be?” It was a very conscientious method of

actually propelling myself up this mountain. It had this wonderful aspect

of hollowing out what was going on and just reassessing. It’s difficult to

describe, but it allowed me to work within and just check-in with the

body. If I had not studied yoga as much as I had and not had gone through

the teacher-training that made yoga an integral aspect, I don’t think that

would have happened. It may have, and I heard that athletes actually do

that. They kind of reach this zone state or and they just become “one”

with the movement that they’re doing. I think the yoga practice allowed me

from an intellectual standpoint to do that.

Did you ever get to the point where you just said, “I just want to get off

my bike and enjoy the scenery?”

Definitely. After an hour and a half into the climb I felt, “I’m just

tired.” With mountain biking I don’t have a lot of stamina at the present

moment and I’d work up more to that. Usually an hour, hour and a half of

rigorous cycling is where my body says, “okay”—and it’s not just tooling

around in the flatlands. At that point of time there was another process

of giving and relinquishing. At the very beginning I was trying to be

conscientious about where I was and what I was doing. Was I conserving

energy? And at another point, it was, “Okay--frick it. Whatever—I’m riding

along. I’m tired. I’m not focusing as much, but I’m not getting super

frustrated about it.” So that’s where the practice had moved to. It’s not

going and whining or complaining about it. It evolves, and that’s one of

the cool things about the yoga practice.  You don’t always have to be the

“meditative mind.” You can even be pissed off and you can be frustrated,

but I think that it “informs” where you are.

What is your philosophy on wellness?

What is my philosophy of wellness? I think wellness is a lot like learning

a language. Having learned two languages myself, it’s a process that takes

time and commitment. When you learn a language, you have to learn the

vocabulary. But just learning the vocabulary is not enough. You have to

practice it and use it daily to become any good at it. And the more you

make it part of your life, the more it becomes integrated and a part of

you.

Similarly, wellness is a language that you do have to learn and you have

to have a moderate amount of commitment to it. It’s not just learning the

basic vocabulary of wellness like getting enough sleep, eating correctly,

exercising regularly, trying to maintain balance in your life, that’s kind

of the vocabulary. I think we all know this to a larger or lesser extent.

And we have our moments of the 3 Krispy Kreme donuts in a row that we then

swear off for the rest of our lives. So, we have that vocabulary, but then

there’s the commitment to actually putting it into practice. That’s where

the true practice of wellness comes into play: coming back to it (after

the 3 Krispy Kremes) and being somewhat disciplined. I know that’s a very

loaded term but being disciplined, to come back to it, is how you make

wellness part of your everyday life. And that takes time. There’ll be

moments where you’ll be better able to do it and less able to do it.

That’s my philosophy of wellness. It’s a language that you commit to and

practice on a regular basis.

Who is your wellness hero?

Perhaps the heroes of wellness that I have are the people who inspire me

to go the next level--to learn more vocabulary, learn more skills and take

myself a little bit further in terms of my practice. So those people are

my heroes.

How is teaching yoga different than practicing it?

Wow. One of the big things that my yoga guru said was, “When you’re

teaching yoga, it’s not your own practice.” There’s a different aspect of

it but you’re doing more of a service. When I practice myself I notice

that I don’t afford myself as much encouragement and positive feedback as

I do when I’m in the classroom. For me that becomes paramount: giving them

an example of how to move forward while also encouraging them in their

practice. I don’t do that for any particular strategy. It’s something I

simply enjoy. I often find myself giving a great deal of encouragement in

the classroom and maybe it’d be more appropriate to give it more for

myself. Also teaching is….I’m closing my eyes to think about when I’m in

front of the classroom… I think when I teach I want to make sure that I

give them something. And maybe the reason why I’m slowing down while I’m

thinking about this is that it’s making me think about my own practice and

what I give myself. I think I’m even more conscientious about where I am

and what I’m doing when I’m teaching, than for my own practice. Maybe more

of that can inform my own practice. Maybe I can be more of my own teacher

as well. I’m not quite answering your question.

I think you are. There is a difference. Because it seems like as a

teacher, you give a lot of wonderful feedback to your students which you

don’t give to yourself.

Yeah, which I’m beginning to realize through this discussion. Maybe that’s

the next part of my practice for me, to re-integrate a lot of the insights

that I’ve garnered through teaching and working with other people. You’ve

inspired me with this question about how this is different. You know what

I’m trying to say? That it shouldn’t be different.

So you’re realizing that it is [different]?

It is, yeah. Right now I do perceive a bit of a difference but maybe what

I’m ultimately trying to say is that there shouldn’t be a great deal of

difference between teaching and practicing…just that the practice may

involve more bodies. So thank you for letting me think about that.

What advice do you have for someone interested in starting a yoga practice?

There’s so many different ways to approach it. You can do it with a friend

or through videos. The one thing I would suggest is that I have a

suspicion that if I were someone new going to a yoga class (that was not

one of mine), and there was some yoga teacher barking “put your feet here,

you’re not doing it right”--I would flip out.

I would reassure that person that yoga is a lot of different things and

you can not only get something out of it but you can also contribute a lot

to it as well. When you bring yourself to the yoga classroom, you’ve

already done a lot. Find a community that you like, where you feel you can

contribute a lot and get a lot of. That may require sampling a lot of

different things. When I go to yoga, I consider myself pretty open-minded

in terms of yoga practice, and I go to classes where I say, “I’m not

coming back here.” Which is fine, but hopefully that’s also informed by

the fact that “This is not a good fit for me, maybe it’s time to move to a

different place.” Yoga could mean a lot of different things to a lot of

different people. Teachers practice in different ways. Just figure out

where you can fit in. You may find that you’re not into asana practice and

the whole physical practice, but you may be very much into the devotional

practice of chanting or meditation or service yoga. And now we get into

these interesting discussions of “what is yoga?” My suggestion is: make it

your own, find a place where you can contribute and a community that you

can enjoy.

Any advice for anyone interested teaching yoga?

I talk to people about their own yoga teacher training and I think I’ve

had a unique and wonderful experience in that it was very integrated and

broad in its reach and moved beyond just the physical practice of yoga.

There are people who are much more dedicated to it than I am. I skim the

surface and dive underneath from time to time. I’m not a professional yoga

teacher. But there are people who make it their living and are very much

dedicated to meditating on a daily basis and really integrating it. I’m

sure they get a very rich reward from their dedication from the depth of

their practice. For those interested in teaching, maybe this can go back

to teaching vs. your own practice: ideally, your teaching will also

reflect your own practice.