We took the mirrors down in the first summer and never put them back. Students stopped checking the shape and started feeling it.
What the mirror does
A mirror turns a pose into a picture. You line up the picture, hold it, and go home with a nice image and very little information about your own body. Without the mirror you have to ask where your weight is, whether your back knee is bent, what your breath is doing. The answers are slower and more useful.
What we do instead
We teach with words and with hands. The teacher walks the room and adjusts, quietly, and describes what a shape should feel like rather than what it should look like. Students learn to trust the feeling, which is the thing that comes with them onto a mat at home.
Some people miss the mirrors in the first weeks. Almost nobody misses them after a month, and several have told us it was the reason they stayed.
