SAT NAM: BEING TRUTH
JOURNEY OF A DISABLED YOGINI
(Sacred Pathways, April/May 2003) By Marsha T. Metzger 

It happens in almost every class. We shift from Bhujangasana to Gharbasana, and there is a new student in the class, someone who doesn’t know about me yet. As I sit back on my right heel, my left leg extended straight out in front of me, there she is, sitting on her right heel, left leg out like a stick. Or we come into Trikonasana on the left side, and another new student, struggling in the back of the room, twists her head to see what’s going on, (due to the fact that I have a very soft voice) and the left foot is flexed beautifully, toes pointing up to the ceiling, just as I, her yoga teacher, am doing. Should I mention something, or continue with the flow? Do I get serious or make a joke about it? Usually, I casually mention that I have an artificial leg, that my left foot does not move and it is okay to lower the left foot to the ground. It is okay to sit on the left heel in Gharbasana.
I joke about this, and there are hushed giggles as the students come back to their experience. However, deep down inside me, there is a twinge of unsettledness in my heart, a feeling of being completely exposed and vulnerable, a fear that they will “catch on” to the fact that I am not a “real” yoga teacher because I am “disabled”. Then I breathe, and smile inwardly and move on. I dance this dance with every class. Occasionally, someone enters the class who has studied for years, who can enter in to the postures with ease and grace, perhaps, more flexibly and with greater agility than myself. I feel the fear of being “caught” as someone who can’t even demonstrate a posture that this person can execute with such finesse. Of being inadequate as a teacher for her. Of being visible and a fake…
There is one strength, though, that I KNOW I Have, which is vulnerability. My weaknesses and scars are not hidden, and they keep me real. I am weak, so I am strong, because I have nothing to hide. Indeed, I can’t. I have chosen this profession for a reason. At least NOW.
I came to yoga through dance. I had begun to reacquaint myself with my body, almost twenty years after losing my left leg to a rare and deadly form of bone cancer. I had done so much intellectual and mental, emotional and spiritual soul-searching for years, since I had faced death so many times at a young age. I felt I had a rare wisdom and I was bursting with the desire to somehow share ME in a setting that would use my teaching skills, my passion, my creativity, my will, my humor, and my sensitivity. It was in my early thirties that I felt I was stuck, terribly stuck and needed to find a way to let go. At the time that I began to dance, I was pursuing a doctorate in French Literature. The world I was entering every day was so far removed from what my heart was gently nudging me to do, only my mind was so clogged with information that I wasn’t listening. Finally, I broke down and broke free by enrolling in an African Dance class. I was terrified. I had to dance barefoot, which I had never done before. The teacher was so strong, so grounded, so reassuring, that I dance around, with, above, behind, and in my fear, but seldom out of it. I worried about keeping my balance, slipping on the Y floor, looking awkward and conspicuous. The drums, though, enticed me, pulling me in to the freedom I felt by moving this body more than I had in years. I was hooked. African Dance led to Haitian Dance and Afro-Cuban Dance, fluid, sensual dances, often low and to the ground, which meant getting closer to the earth and closer to this body which I had tried to ignore for so long, as if being fully in this body would break my heart. Dance led to a yoga class on a whim. Again, there was that fear of being barefoot, of falling, of losing my balance and hurting myself. But I had sensed that my soul needed this beautiful connection to my body. I kept coming back for more. I abandoned my doctorate and moved to a beautiful town north of Boston. I continued to dance – African, Cuban, Haitian, Afro-Brazilian. Then slowly something began to happen. I started to tune in to my body’s wants and needs, and seemingly began to manifest my desires out of thin air.
My first hint that I was truly listening came when I decided to become a clown. No sooner did I speak it out to the Universe, when a brochure arrived in the mail – Clown Workshop. I joined a clown troupe that visited area Children’s Hospitals, dancing me right back in to the very places where I began my journey with cancer at the age of five. I felt the need to dance even more. People kept coming up to me to ask if I was a dancer, something I hadn’t allowed myself to consider, but always felt I already was. A catalog arrived in the mail for a DansKinetics training, then a Creative Movement Brochure simply came to my door. I was barefoot, dancing and opening up. I was coming home. As I finished my DansKinetics training I felt a pull to get my yoga certification. I had taken a few classes here and there, but always felt that I couldn’t possibly do that. After all, I had an artificial leg. How could I hold the postures? How could I possibly do yoga? Yet, I did just that, but there was that old feeling, the first day of training. “I am going to be exposed. I am going to feel afraid. I am going to feel too vulnerable about my physical challenges. People will stare, or tell me what an inspiration I am (which will make me cry), or act nervously around me, or I will throw up from anxiety.” It has ebbed and flowed through my training and on in to my teaching. What has struck me so is that this is the human condition, regardless of physical challenges. We ache to be known, to be true to ourselves, but we are so afraid to be vulnerable and real. It seems so terrifying. As an amputee with a yoga practice, I don’t have a choice. I have to do my yoga with the modification of a prosthetic limb. I have to enter the room as a scarred individual. It then becomes my dance to embrace my scars as part of my beauty, to recognize the inherent grace in each step I take, to truly celebrate exactly who I am right now in this moment with all my weaknesses. And isn’t that what I want to impart to my students?
What I have found, again and again, that rather than students feeling sorry for me, or judging me, or even questioning my abilities as a yoga teacher, my students are empowered to love themselves, to respect their bodies and minds, to challenge their limitations, to explore the vulnerable areas, to show up and be with themselves. What has happened has been a miracle of grace for all of us. My students have accepted me as their teacher, have allowed themselves to open to grace, to have faith and courage, to take a step into the unkown, their bodies their guides, their hearts willing and receptive. Even as I dance, my mind dances at times, unsure of my place in the yoga class, shaky and uncertain, but my students become strong and bright and beautiful as I do. Sat nam. The truth IS my identity. My students are my mirror. Vulnerability is very strong, courageous, powerful and mighty, TRUTH. Sat nam. Sat nam. 

SAT NAM: BEING TRUTH, JOURNEY OF A DISABLED YOGINI©Marsha T. Metzger2003