Does Size Really Matter?

The age old question, "does size really matter?"  I don't even take a breath before I say "yea duh!".  In this society, size matters in almost every aspect of our lives.  From the minute we are born our stats are announced.  We are this long and weigh this many pounds and it doesn't get any better as we move through life.  Weight and height always matter but then comes more.  For women, the size of our jeans, our boobs, our thighs, and our wardrobes are used to assess what kind of person we are.  Its not any easier  for men: the size of their wallets, their house, their car, and yes, of course, their gennys, all become a measure of their manhood. Even the size of our animal companions seems to dictate what kind of person we are.  Big man with little dog vs big man with big dog...'enough said?  And the man with the little sports car or the woman with the big mommyvan? You get what I'm saying. 
But how does this basically rhetorical question relate to yoga?  Unfortunately, in every way imaginable.  Now as I side note, please understand this is just my opinion and does not reflect the thoughts or opinions of those who are more highly evolved. 
So back to yoga and size...in particular the size of our ego and the size of a class.
The ego, a person's sense of self-importance.  This is a tough one, for students and teachers.  If we can do a pose and remember a flow and get up into that handstand, big huge points for the ego.  Hold a pose for longer than everyone else, SCORE!  Get through a class without taking child's pose or a sip of water, egos are flying high.  But really, come on, its just yoga and moreover, yoga is meant, designed specifically to let go of our egos.  Maybe you don't measure your success as a student based on these things but lots of people do.  I am totally guilty of doing this and for a really long time that was part of what drove my practice. Now only every once in a while do I find myself creeping down that path but as soon as I recognize it, hello child's pose. The more our egos depend on how "good" we believe our practice is or how much "better" it is than someone else's, that's the moment we cease practicing yoga.  I'm not saying in any way that we shouldn't take ourselves to new edges, but rather that the yoga room is a place to practice strength, compassion, and love; not to build our egos.
Ego comes into play for students but also in a huge way for teachers in regards to the size of the classes we teach.  Oooooooooh, this is gonna be tricky and sticky but the truth may set us free. When I first started teaching yoga, I used to wonder if anyone would show up.  I don't mean anyone specific, I mean any actual human being.  If there were 10 students, I could breathe a sigh of relief and come home dancing, I was a success, lahh dee dahhh dee dahh.  My boyfriend at the time would remind me ever so gently, "babe, take it down a notch and don't get too excited. What happens when you don't get that many next time?  Try not to get too effected by the numbers and just teach."  Yea, yea...blah blah blah. But of course as it turns out he was right.  I'd come home pathetic, weeping that nobody liked me and I was a terrible teacher and I was gonna get fired 'cause only 5 students showed up for a class.  It was an emotional roller coaster for me (and I suppose for him too).  It got to the point that I'd start having panic attacks before class, now praying not only that students would show up but that I wouldn't also drop dead in the middle of teaching a class from heart palpitations.  In between teaching, I would visit doctors' offices, trying to figure out what was wrong with me, always being told that physically I was fine but might want to do something about my stress level.  What the fuck!!!  I was teaching yoga and becoming a stress case, how much more ridiculous could this get?!  Oh, there was more ridiculousness to come.  As I continued to pour all my energy into being the best teacher I could be, my classes began to grow.  I was able to focus on teaching and the students that were present rather than worrying about myself and who wasn't there.  I started teaching more and the average class sizes kept growing...that was until the now infamous break-up.  My boyfriend dumped me and I was a mess.  He was a student at the studio and my focus was now on my misery and letting him know the depths of it.  Every song played was meant to send him a message, every flow designed for him, and the only thing that I noticed was if he was there or not. I failed to realize I was actually subjecting all the students to these things I had meant for just him.  But the students, in fact, did notice and numbers starting trickling back down. People left classes crying, not because they were healing themselves or feeling something deeply but because I was puking up my miserable depression onto them.  By the time I got myself back together, the class sizes had shrunk to about half of what they had been.  I thought I had no ego left, just a strong desire to make teaching yoga and helping others my life mission.  Classes grew, my connections to the students deepened, and I was more present than I'd ever been.  Over the next year, I started teaching classes that would fill the room, sixty, seventy, even eighty people showing up to do yoga.  And here's the more ridiculousness I was referring to; I started having panic attacks right in the middle of teaching a class because there were now so many people there and it freaked me out!  As I'd carefully maneuver my way through the students, I'd begin to feel the pressure building. I knew they were waiting for me to say the right thing, expecting me to be something they needed and I would start to panic.  Wondering if I'd faint, collapse, or just die; oh shit I couldn't breathe. I'd sit down in the corner with the stereo and stay there for the rest of class calling out the next pose, one after another while I silently wondered how long it would take EMS to come and save me. And now that I'd had one, they started coming more frequently.  If I knew it was going to be a crowded class, I'd look for a way out, wanting to teach but so afraid.  Oh the fucking numbers.  Too big, too small...never quite right.  I took 2 weeks off and started behavior cognitive therapy and got some medication to take "as needed".  I returned to work and practiced teaching with fear and eventually the panic attacks subsided.  Its been years now and I don't worry, per say, about how many students are gonna show up to a class I teach. But whether I like it or not (which I don't, I do NOT like it at all), I realize that size still matters.  I get asked all the time:
"Hey, how many people were in your class? Hey, did you have a big class? Hey, did you hear how many students were in so 'n so's class?"
Hey, know what? NO!!! and I don't want to know, don't care, don't want to hear and feel very insecure every time its brought up so please stop discussing the size of a frickn' yoga class, its not helping anyone.  And for as much as I want to believe and embrace the idea that I have no ego, obviously I haven't gotten there... yet.
There is so much I do love about teaching both a huge energetic class and a small intimate class and there are lessons I gather from both. Big classes affirm that I'm doing something right, they make me feel successful in my work and help me practice keeping a delicate balance between controlling the room and still invoking the real freedom for the students to take their practice into their own hands and feet.  Small classes remind me of the amazing connections I have with students, of how every single person there matters, and that even though there is so much space to move and flow, there is no place for an ego in the yoga room, not for student or teacher.