Assisting Seane Corn

It is truly an honour and a privilege to support, learn, grow and maintain a friendship with teacher, leader and community activist, Seane Corn. Her career spans decades –she has taught for nearly 25 years internationally doing teaching workshops, trainings, master classes and large scale yoga festivals.

Over the years, I have assisted her in Jamaica, California, Vancouver and Whistler. It is amazing to see a yoga class from the perspective of support. She moves and weaves through the room to support those who are struggling, offering suggestions for safety, ease and alignment. To witness the entirety of a room without being responsible for holding the full space is a deep honour, as is participating in asana classes for the more intellectual parts of my teaching and the energy of the room.

I find supporting a teacher and leader is an amazing opportunity to express my devotion to that person: making sure they have tea, taking them for good healthy food in quiet places between classes, working the space so they can leave in a timely way post-class, and offering a sounding board for the room. The experience is beneficial for me, both as a devoted teacher and student, and also as a one-woman show in my own right.   

I look up to Seane as a woman that has set an example of what it means to live your yoga off your mat. She is continuously committed to her path of yoga culture. People think that these ‘yoga-lebrities’ are not real people, who have often have two sides. The focus, effort and intention it takes to hold, guide and alchemize energy in these rooms all over the world is really a super-human power, in my eyes. I know personally from teaching groups that it is equal parts fuelling and exhausting. To see my mentor as a human-being, experiencing the same feelings as I have for business, intensity and burn-out is humanizing and inspiring.

I loved watching my teacher grow and shift in this industry of culture change.  It is refreshing and enlightening to talk about the shifts that we have both seen in our communities over the years. It is thought provoking and fire blazing, and takes me back to when I first met her about six years ago and recognized a kindred spirit on the mat. Her commitment to spirit is unwavering, and her edge is unmatched. I knew I had a teacher and friend for the long term in this powerful (yet petite) woman, who can pray publicly like no other I have ever met. She is a thoughtful friend with an amazing memory and the mouth of a fucking trucker.  That blend of sugar and spice, her call to action in the world, and her ability to make a whole room break down in sobs make her a woman who will continue to fuel and inspire me for the long haul.

In this crazy world of yoga, it is an honour to have Seane as a friend and mentor. Someone who can listen, mirror and reflect the struggles of balancing personal and private lives, of teaching and leadership. To have someone to riff off of the challenges of the culture at large and the ways we support and participate in it.

Assisting her during the last vinyasa teacher training in Vancouver was a great way for me to show love and devotion to my friend, my teacher, and my community. It was great to support the energy in the room while silently dancing across the mats to balance that energy. Learning to read Seane’s signs and signals has heightened my intuition of shared space in a teaching room. It is so humbling and inspiring to know that the same questions about space, the same frustrations and fatigues, and the same overwhelming joy of service runs through the veins of all teachers, both old and new. The challenges and celebrations we face daily are mirrored by our choice of teachers and communities.  Assisting one another on this path of this life is the key to sustainable and authentic offerings. It has been a deep honour to continue to learn and grow with my mentor and friend, Seane. Many bows!