The dance of corporate yoga

Corporate yoga. It's a contradiction in terms. I actually heard a standup comic use the phrase once as the punchline to a sardonic rant about the absurdities of the modern world—and the crowd roared with approval. Like "plastic glass" and "pretty ugly," the phrase "corporate yoga" sounds like an oxymoron.

Let's face it: Even among the keepers of the faith—yoga teachers—the conventional wisdom on this form of outreach can be fairly skeptical. As one yoga teacher put it, "Great money, but they're just too concerned about smearing their mascara."

There's some truth in that comment. In many cases, there is great money to be made in corporate yoga, and often corporate yoga students do have concerns that teachers might never encounter in yoga studios or private sessions. Whether we find ourselves attracted by personal gain or repelled by such students' concerns and environment, the potential for corporate yoga to be misunderstood when viewed through the veils of maya is great.

Great teachings show us the way beyond maya. They counsel us to guard against value judgments and to view contradictions as an opportunity for yoga to take place. Mohandas Gandhi held that spiritual law expresses itself "only through the ordinary activities of life." In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna wants to escape the struggles of the material world through a life of contemplation, but rather than encouraging his flight, Lord Krishna shows him that he must use yoga to stay in the world. These are great reminders for us to walk into corporate environments with a sense of performing a very important service for our students and the world.

As yoga teachers, we can turn to the self-inquiry principle of adhi-kara, manifestation of authority, to guide our entry into corporate environments. Meditation teacher Sally Kempton poses three questions we must ask ourselves before entering any teaching situation:

1. Do I have authority to teach this?
Do you have the technical knowledge to skillfully address the potential needs of a diverse corporate student population? In corporate environments, as in many other outreach situations, you may be teaching students with a variety of physical limitations—without a single prop to help modify the postures. You may not even be able to provide hands-on assists, due to legal concerns inherent in a corporate environment. To further complicate matters, it's not uncommon for corporate yoga students to remain silent regarding their limitations, even when asked, out of reluctance to call attention to themselves in such a competitive atmosphere.

2. What is appropriate in this circumstance and for these students?
Teaching yoga is a dance between the knowledge of the teacher and the readiness of the student. In the corporate yoga client/teacher relationship, this dance is governed by client need and desired outcome. Most corporations create yoga programs to ease employees' physical and mental stress in hopes of enhancing productivity and morale. In determining what's appropriate for the class, you'll need to take this motivation into account. Bearing in mind the corporate emphasis on the physical and mental aspects of the practice, it's safe to say that your yoga students may not be receptive to overt spirituality, may feel alienated by Sanskrit or technical anatomical language, and may be irritated if their need for physical release is not accommodated.

3. Will sharing my knowledge in this context be emotionally satisfying to me?
Choosing our teaching environments wisely is less a function of the wallet as it is a function of the heart. If acknowledging the constraints of the corporate environment and students fuels your conviction that corporate yoga is exactly what is needed in our world, you will approach it with respect, creativity, and long-term commitment. This approach will foster a sense of emotional satisfaction that is the source of any authentic and sustainable teaching practice. If these constraints in any way dim your love for teaching yoga, then you will not experience the challenge as an invitation to creativity or an experience in relationship building, and the world will best be served by your teaching in places where you do feel passionately engaged.

Going into corporations to teach yoga requires cultivation of contextual understanding, sustainable compassion as vigilance against snap judgments, and an authentic concern and respect for the needs of the students. Earnest self-inquiry into the three questions above is your best preparation for entering a corporate yoga environment.

If outreach is the final frontier of yoga, remember that we are the ones doing the reaching out, and in this way, we grow. Dancing in the midst of these contradictions is our yoga.

Tevis Gale will present the workshop Yoga Incorporated: Taking Yoga Into Corporate Environments at KYTA Conference 2007, August 24-27. She is a multi-certified yoga instructor and the founder of Balance Integration, serving companies including Yahoo, Google, Disney, and Viacom. Tevis is also a member of the advanced management faculty at New York University, where she teaches yoga-based Business Creativity and Mastery. Visit her online at www.balanceintegration.com.