Yogalandia

Imagine my chagrin when I realize that It’s Happening.

I am the cynical old lady in the room. I am the one rolling my eyes and inwardly sighing when the twenty something yoga teacher starts going on about something that is offered in all good intention, but is clearly a situation that they just need to shut they damn mouth and move along to actual delivery of the promise.

Like, I need you to stop talking because you are a child going through a child’s problem and that is all well and good, but your laundry needs to stay in your proverbial house. You cleaning it in my public yoga class and trying to turn it into something that we all need to clean is just….not right, hon. It’s just not right.

And truly, I get it. I see what is happening here and bully for you for managing to grow through this issue that you are laying down at my feet. Snaps. Seriously. But this conversation you are having here is for your friends, and, I am not one of them. I have known you for all of ten seconds and in one hour I will be gone having hopefully experienced the transaction I had engaged you for. Namely, one whole hour of yin yoga instruction with some crystal bowls.

I didn’t sign up to be your intimate. I didn’t ask to be your patient. I held no hopes of making besties with the ten other people in the room. Hell, I was absolutely and completely content to slide on in there and leave without anybody ever knowing my name. I don’t particularly care about anybody else’s name, their gender pronouns, their concept of family or how they hope to show up in this one hour of time. I came to dissolve, not to connect.

Maybe that makes me an asshole. Maybe it does actually make me cynical. Or maybe it just makes me a weary old yoga teacher trained in the old ways. But here’s the thing. All of that aside, the thing that strikes me most is that I don’t appreciate being lumped into an assumption. Any assumption. Because I am unique and while my problems may be common, they are also unique. You, kind instructor, are not a therapist and your needs are not my needs and by assuming that your experiences are templates for my healing you are doing me a massive disservice.

Now, I get it. I’m pretty sure I did this exact same thing when I was twenty something and still fresh-eyed about the powers of the practice. The Facebook Overlord routinely throws such cringe-worthy snippets up in my face. But I did them through my writing—much as I am doing now. My classes, by and large, have mostly begun with the phrase “Okay, lets get started. Come to seated.”

All anyone has ever agreed to when they come to a routine yoga class is the practice of yoga. This, in my humble opinion, consists of the eight limbs and/ or the six pillars of the practice. Asana, pranayama, mudra, mantra, bandha, and meditation. That’s it. That. Is. It. The assumption that I wish to sit in a circle, disclose private information, or dig into any issue of any kind is erroneous at best and dangerous at worst. It may seem innocuous to you, and you may really, really, really need this type of connection but a public yoga class is not about you, dear instructor.

It is about your students. And in the 10 seconds you have to meet drop-ins you cannot gather the information you need to attempt that shit. That’s what workshops are for. Or trainings. Or circles. But you popping a one hour weekly practice on the schedule where anybody and everybody can come and go as they please does not structure a place or give you the time to develop the relationship needed to get into the depths. Open weekly classes are the kiddie pool of yoga.

If you’re lucky those weeklies develop. Most of them don’t.

And, gods, yes, I hear how cynical that sounds—which is how I got here in the first place. Is this just age? Am I about to start lamenting that crop tops have made a return and that bikini bottoms have a high waist and the butt cheeks cut out and whyyyyy would you do that? Are we all supposed to be “trauma informed” now and create safe spaces where everybody has to be exposed to everyone else in the class so that we are all, what, seen as safe? When the fuck did this happen and where was I when the memo went out?

Like. If as an instructor you just shut the fuck up, let everybody be in their space, offer instruction based only in the principles, make no personal judgments, and don’t behave like a skeevy twit, you have pretty much created a safe space. Its actually not that fucking hard.

So maybe as we go forward, figuring out how to actually make the practice safe for everyone, we can let go of this ego piece. Real seva, real service, only comes when you get yourself out of the way and let your students discover what they need how they need when they need without you dropping a dirty hamper in the middle of the room and forcing someone to sort through things that may not be theirs.

If you really want to do that, go back to school and get your LMHC degree. Yoga isn’t therapy, so please stop treating it like it is.

And maybe let me practice in peace while you’re at it.