Ain’t Nothing “Virtual” About It
I had a conversation recently with a student who is struggling with online yoga classes. She has had a difficult time maintaining her practice over these many months of the pandemic. Yoga is for her a social activity. The studio is where she sees friends, meets new people, and catches up on the latest gossip. It is also where she finds calm, gets inspired, and tries new things. I hear her when she says she doesn’t want a “virtual” experience, she needs something real.
I looked up the word “virtual” in the dictionary before starting this piece. And by that I mean I took a hard-cover book off my shelf and opened to the “V” section. I didn’t want to just look it up online; I wanted the meaning of the word in print, on paper, in front of me. The copyright year on my Random House Webster’s College Dictionary is 2001, and I know that the word’s meaning has morphed in the past twenty (!) years, becoming more intimately tied to computers and the online world in general. But here, in print, my dictionary tells me that “virtual” is an adjective used to describe “the apparent convergence, but not actually, as in the image formed by a mirror (as opposed to real).” The emphasis there is courtesy of Random House, not me, but I find it interesting that they felt the need to emphasize that “virtual” is not “real.”
As tempted as I am to go trotting down the path of the Buddhist concept of mirror mind, and how nothing is really “real” (maybe I’ll do that at some point), for my current purposes I’ll just stay focused on this idea that virtual is not real. Which is why the phrase “virtual yoga” grates on me so much. It makes me think of people sunk deep into the cushions of an armchair, wearing giant goggles tethered (via Bluetooth of course) to a computer, perhaps with their mouths hanging slightly open, but otherwise utterly inert.
“Yoga” means to yoke, or union: the joining of thoughts and action which builds a continuity of awareness. Yoga cannot be “virtual.” Your living room might become your virtual studio and the other squares on the Zoom screen might become your virtual sangha (although even this is debatable, I think)…but the yoga itself? It either is or is not happening. It can’t be “pretend” happening; it can’t be “virtually” happening.
So. Back to my student who is having difficulty with online classes. I absolutely struggled with this myself in the early months of the pandemic. In fact, I can remember in April laughing ruefully at myself because not four months earlier my brother had asked if I had recorded any yoga classes online that he could take. I distinctly recall thinking at the time, “Why would I ever do something like that?” My teaching and my practice both completely revolved around being in the same physical space as others.
I can also remember when the proverbial battleship that is my mind started to finally turn, to come around to the idea that…regardless of whether or not I like it: this is how it is now. And what an incredible opportunity to practice with my old foe: aversion to change. I had just completed an incredible Prajna Yoga course on the Art of Healing. I’d learned so much, had expanded my practice in wonderful ways that would benefit both myself and others, and the whole thing had happened online. But there was nothing “virtual” about it.
For folks who are struggling with the current necessity of online yoga, I would suggest moving away from the impulse to compare one to the other, that one is somehow less than the other, that one is somehow not “real” as opposed to the other. The yoga abides; it simply “is” – regardless of where or under what conditions the practice occurs.
As far as the social aspect that studios provide, I offer this suggestion. Buddy up with a friend. Agree to meet each other in that Zoom classroom and practice together. After class, hook up via a private FaceTime and share a cup of tea. Make a ritual out of it, and enjoy each other’s company. Two other students I know recently told me that they have an agreement to practice yoga together every day of the week, in some fashion or another. One of them is on Cape Cod; the other is in Florida. Such a wonderful arrangement would never have happened if it weren’t for the pandemic!
This is not to say that I don’t miss in-person interactions with teachers and students; I desperately do. I miss walking from my home to the studio to teach and take classes. I miss being able to provide a light touch along with a verbal cue and see a body change in response. I miss receiving that as a student. I miss hugging. I miss all of it. But I’m okay with this being how it is now. And eventually it will be different. And that will be good, too.