Teaching Yoga in Tokyo

Blog 5: Teaching Yoga in Tokyo

I would like to share my experience teaching yoga in Tokyo recently, as much has happened, and I am transformed. First, the Japanese language experience: I found myself teaching everyday for 45 minutes for five to ten of the most motivated students of our Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Center, a spiritual community. The language was a challenge from the beginning, as I had no background in Japanese and no source of yoga instructions other than Chat GPT.

It became a battle between the higher and lower minds. My lower mind was screaming: “Why are you putting yourself through this stressful and embarrassing situation? Just say the instructions in English, and someone will have to translate. The director has no reason to expect that I can learn Japanese to teach the classes!”

But somehow I wanted to learn, and this situation presented an opportunity to practice speaking Japanese. I thought, “This could be great if I can pull it off, but how?” I noticed that, unlike Vietnamese, Japanese for me is relatively easy to pronounce because English has most of the sounds used in Japanese. So when I spoke, right from the beginning, people usually understood. 

I found that I could win the battle by arranging my notes of the instructions and practicing them. Still, I was challenged as each new instruction became easier, many more instructions came to mind, so I was still constantly “stretching” to the limits of my skill level and beyond in every session! There were times of not knowing the next instruction and making the students wait. There were times of trying to recall a new instruction and getting distracted as the students did not wait! Sometimes I had to close my eyes to avoid getting distracted from my mental searching and processing! (I actually got good at closing my eyes at the appropriate time.) 

What made this situation tolerable was the encouragement from these motivated students. They are able to do the most important thing as a yoga student: look past the person leading the practice, look past the person who is in charge of passing along the teachings of the master. The real teacher is the Guru, Swami Sivananda, the enlightened one who inspired us all to take up this cause of yoga teaching for world peace and harmony.

The value of the person leading the class is that she / he is giving the students a connection with the master. These people had this unusual understanding and supported me as their connection with Swami Sivanandaji. After every session, they thanked me and told me that my Japanese was better every day and to keep going. Going deeper into the experience, I realized that this stretching was only the beginning.

I was also dealing with the personalities of yoga staff members and yoga teachers in the center. The most important practices in yoga are not done on a mat but rather in the Satsang (a gathering to meditate, chant, and study teachings of masters), and then applying the yoga teachings in daily life. Of course, leading a Satsang can be wonderful if one understands what is involved. First, there is a silent meditation (Raja Yoga or concentration) of 20 minutes, then chanting simple Sanskrit verses (Bhakti Yoga or devotion) for 20 minutes, and finally reading yoga philosophy and explaining it (Jnana Yoga or self-inquiry) for 20 minutes.

We had a course in Bhakti yoga, and I certainly did not want to just teach the students chanting. I wanted to go deeper into the reason for the Bhakti practices. This is the yoga of channeling our emotions into a positive force of devotion or selfless love. But how to explain it? 

Many people actually enjoy the chanting and other “devotional” activities. During these times, we are challenged to “generate positive emotions.” In the course, I asked students to do the chanting as a daily practice if possible, but always with the intention of becoming “emotionally stable and positive.”

Here was a clear example of the idea that the “teacher learns more than the students.” I found that living and working in the spiritual community, not knowing the language, and working with people whom I did not know well, was my opportunity to practice generating positive emotions. So during the chanting and, more importantly, in daily life, I tried to remember to practice.

From this experience, I found that the people around us can provide a miracle, but we need to value them. In this case, it was the miracle of dedicated people who are volunteering full-time to present and share the yoga teachings. To this aim, I tried to value the people around me without having expectations. This enabled me to see the miracle and appreciate this amazing opportunity to align with these wonderful people and thereby grow and serve humanity.