Pressures of Partnering

Consider both the benefits and the possible drawbacks of asking your students to pair up during yoga class.

By Kelly McGonigal

Three little words can have the power to create both excitement and dread in the hearts of your students. They come the moment you smile and announce, "Find a partner!"

I was oblivious to some students' horror at hearing these words until I asked a group of students how yoga teachers unintentionally create stress in the classroom. To my surprise, they told me that partnering was a number-one cause of stress. They complained about getting hurt, losing the flow of the practice, and not wanting to touch or be touched by a stranger. "When the teacher says to partner up, I just cringe," one teacher-in-training shared. "Working with a stranger makes me very uncomfortable, and more self-critical. It brings up the inner judge that I try to put away in my yoga practice."

In my own yoga practice, I've found that partnering can be a profoundly moving experience. I've tried to bring that into my classroom with partner exercises such as hands-on breath awareness and assisted forward bends. But at the same time, even I feel a twinge of resistance when I'm in a workshop and the teacher says, "Partner up." Maybe it's a post-traumatic stress reaction from the workshop where an overly enthusiastic partner yanked me to standing from Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow Pose). Whatever the reason, as a teacher, I feel a conflict between my partner-yoga idealism and the wide range of actual student experience.

How do you know when to ask your students to partner and when to let them go it alone? Following a few simple guidelines might help your students to maximize the rewards and minimize the risks of partner yoga.

Keep Students in the Student Role

Many partner exercises ask students to assist each other in poses. Many senior teachers agree that it's not a good idea to turn yoga students into yoga teachers.

"It's hard enough to keep trained yoga teachers from hurting students," says Leslie Kaminoff, author of Yoga Anatomy and founder of the Breathing Project yoga studio in New York City. Having untrained students assist other students increases the risk of injury.

Asking students to support each other in inversions in the middle of the room is perhaps the biggest safety offender, says Nick Beem, a Kripalu yoga teacher in Evanston, Illinois. "It's so easy to mess this up and leave your partner vulnerable," he says. "You could spend time really teaching the assist, but I don't think my students come to class to learn assisting. And it's a skill that can't be quickly taught."

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