Xiamen, China : Where I got everything I'd dreamt of only to realize I didn't really want it…(2018)

Just as I was beginning to dabble my toes in the world of circus in France, taking my first acrobatics and hand balancing classes, and having conversations with circus artists that helped move the needle within me, I left for China. I was feeling an overwhelming pull towards the circus life but wasn't able to slow down enough to listen to my intuition. That's how my traveling was for the first few years. Just going and going and going. Only introspecting when I absolutely had to. Only thinking about the future when I absolutely had to. You could say I was "lost in the flow," so to speak. One thing led to another, and I was all of a sudden starting a life in China.

It was a beautiful moment to reunite with Mr. B, whom I had met in India many months before. He was also the person to thank for getting me this sweet gig of teaching Yoga in China. I think there were plenty of other individuals who would've been a better fit for the job, but I don't think any of them were crazy enough to say "yes" like me. Plus I had zero obligations and responsibilities to anyone. This allowed me, and still does, to make irrational decisions in pursuit of adventure. A wee bit of craziness can go a long way, for better or for worse! Mr. B and I shared a big hug when I first arrived at the studio; I was coming directly from the airport. Right away, I felt very out of place. I had the smell of traveling on me, was discombobulated, and was culturally shocked to the max. Then I arrived at the studio and was introduced to all of my colleagues and some students whom I'd be teaching. They were giving me much more respect than I deserved, even giving me mini bows and calling me names that translated more or less into "Yoga Master". This couldn't have been further from the truth.  After all, I was just a Yoga practitioner who was following his passions, nothing more. These people were treating me as if I was some sort of Guru, which I was absolutely not. This air of authority and spirituality that people were pushing onto me would persist throughout my time in China and was a thing that would eventually push me away from the Yoga world. Many teachers are just normal people who did a Yoga training course or two. Then all of a sudden they start to carry this air of being a more spiritual being. I saw this with so many people that I practiced with...and maybe there was a point where I myself was guilty of this, but I quickly saw the absurdity in it. Personally, I found this spiritual snobbery very uncomfortable. Most of the real Gurus don't carry the label of "Guru". They aren't seeking acknowledgment. They are just being, and by just being they are doing the most powerful thing. Furthermore, I'd later on learn that the company I was working for was further feeding this disillusion by falsely marketing my classes. They were saying that I'd been doing Yoga since I was a child and made up many things about my life so that they could better sell me as a teacher. I wouldn't discover this until I translated some of their posters about me a few months into the gig. Of course this was a major turn off for me. Too many times I've seen the essence of Yoga tainted by business. Anyways, I digressed. Moving on.

I'm not going to lie. My life in China was kush! The company I was working for paid for my apartment, gave me a monthly salary, and was open to giving me pretty much anything that I asked for. What did I have to do in return? I just had to teach a meager 3 classes per week. Every now and then I'd co-teach an intense Ashtanga teacher training with Mr. B. Easy! I was living out my dreams that I had been working towards for the past 5 years. I had been set on using the practice of Ashtanga Yoga and my side hustle of Massage therapy to live life on my terms, and it was happening! Although not everything is always what one would imagine it to be. My time in China unveiled a lot to me about myself. After the first weeks passed and the novelty of being in a new place diminished (it always does), the first feeling that surfaced was that of extreme loneliness. I was lonely as fuck. Of course, I had Mr. B, and Mr. B had me, but we could only "be" so much for each other. For the whole of my 9 months in China, Mr. B (and eventually another friend that would come to replace Mr. B) was the only person that I could share things with. Of course, I was friendly with my colleagues, but we weren't able to communicate in the same language so going deep with the people around me was almost impossible. I don't mean this in any sort of negative way; I know that to them I was a funky strange alien. I accepted that, but it began to weigh on me. Up until that point, I had (and sometimes still do) a lone wolf mentality. I believed that we don't need others and that we MUST only depend on ourselves. There is a lot of empowerment in this way of thinking, but taking it too far seemed to do me no good. China showed me that there is value in sharing, giving, and connecting to the world around us. I see it not as something that I have to do to fit into this world around me, rather it's something I get the privilege to do. It's like Chris McCandless wrote in his diary after spending about 100 days in the Alaskan wilderness completely alone (before he died). He wrote, "Happiness is meant to be shared." When I find myself falling back into my loner-esque lone wolf mentality, when I find myself behaving selfishly, I always remind myself of this quote. "Happiness is meant to be shared." The fact that we have people around us whom we can share life with is a beautiful gift. And it's not guaranteed. Sometimes we don't realize this until we are isolated. The feeling of "loneliness" is a great teacher. An uncomfortable one, but a wise one nonetheless.

Ok. Now after all that emotional jibber-jabber, I'd like to share a funny cultural miscommunication that happened between myself and my students. As any good Yoga teacher would do when they are teaching in a foreign place, I tried my best to learn the local language - Chinese. I had no expectations of ever being able to master the language, but I had hopes to at least learn some useful phrases, especially ones that I could use during my classes. Two useful words that are essential when teaching a Yoga class are the words "Inhale" and "exhale." With these words, and a few others, it doesn't matter if you know the language or not, you can teach a solid class. Anyways, as is common when giving adjustments in Ashtanga yoga, the teacher cues when the student should exhale into a posture. When the student is at the peak of their exhalation, the teacher then pushes and pulls the student to help them reach their full potential in any given asana. These juicy adjustments are what many people love about the Ashtanga practice. However, me being the ignorant person that I was (and still am!), I was completely mispronouncing the word "exhale." Instead of saying "exhale," I was saying "cry". It took two weeks before anyone had the courage to tell me this. Two weeks! Can you imagine being a nervous student who was going to their first yoga class? Then you have me (this strange long haired hippy foreigner) telling you to cry as he twists and turns you into these insanely difficult asanas. No wonder my class numbers were so low when I started there. Upon realizing my mistake, I apologized to all of my students (with the help of a translator). In the end, we were all able to laugh about it. This mistake actually humanized me in the eyes of all the students, which worked in my favor. The company then provided me with a translator for the rest of my time there. Problem solved!

More on my time in China coming soon! Until then,

Corey