FROM SIMON SAYS TO SELF-SOVEREIGNTY
Empowering People Through Interoception with Donna Farhi
Most historic Yoga lineages and methods have relied on models for teaching that are hard wired to ensure the student’s dependence upon the teacher as the ultimate (and sometimes only) point of reference. This pedagogic model has persisted within contemporary Yoga styles with new yoga hybrids simply filtered through the same archaic lens. Encapsulated in the phrase “Simon Says”, teachers are trained to deliver authoritative instruction with students striving to obediently replicate a posture or practice. This makes for students who become passive recipients of information rather than active participants engaged in shared inquiry and adaptive learning. This externally referenced model for teaching can gradually erode people’s ability to access and trust their own perception, kinesthesia and interoception. Donna will explore the conscious steps teachers can make to create a context for students to become adept at investigating, deducting, adapting and evolving their yoga practice. We will learn about the conditions that foster people’s ability to perceive, process and integrate the signals from within their bodies. Not only can this approach yield exceptional results for students; crossing the bridge from Simon Says to Self-Sovereignty teaching can make teaching a satisfying lifelong career.
