It was my friend’s first ever yoga class. I’d been encouraging her for a while and, even though she was still apprehensive, she’d finally said yes.
We went together on Made’s pushbike, as hers had a flat tyre and the pedal on mine had fallen off the day before (this is Indonesia!). On our way, with me trying hard not to wobble too much on the back as she navigated the puddles and potholes on our island roads, she says she heard that there would be a different instructor today. I was not expecting this; I thought it would be the usual one. I’d heard of this other yogi, and my gut said… ‘Oh. No.’
But we’d come this far, it was the first time she’d said yes to yoga, and I didn’t want to u-turn. Mistake number one.
I like nurturing yoga instructors. Ones that smile warmly and speak with a voice like warm honey and lemon; soft and sweet, yet refreshing. Someone who encourages gentle twists whilst seated. Someone who at the end of the class slowly settles you into shivasana (when you lie down for that moment of sublime relaxation and listen to crickets chirping, or water trickling in the fountain, or waves gently rolling onto a nearby beach). The yogi who walks silently behind you and gently massages your temples with essential oils. Preferably rose and geranium. Mmmmmmm. My kind of yogi.
This instructor, instead, greets us with a face as warm as cold toast. My friend tells him it’s her first class. Her first, ever. And I tell him I haven’t done any for months (shame on me). Together with another expat friend of ours, we are the only ones in the ‘class’. Our instructor sits tall and straight on his mat, the butter not melting on his face, and he starts to tell us about the importance of the breath. How important it is that our movements, all our movements, be in rhythm with our breath. The essence of yoga. And of life. ‘Great,’ I think. ‘I so need this.’ He explains how we should breathe in through our nose, expanding our lungs, and then fill our bellies with air. Breathe into our pelvic floor.
My discipline for controlling my breathing still sucks at times and I appreciate this reminder before I restart my yoga practice. So despite not knowing how to get air into my belly, I figure I can roll with this.
Mistake number 2. Because, as we continue to focus on the rhythm of our breathing, he speaks again.
“Breathe all the air in, and then just before you breathe the air out, know that the two breaths are making love in that moment,” he says. “The in breath is making love to the out breath.”
‘What the…?!’
I spent a little bit of time in Ubud, perhaps the second biggest yoga centre in the world, and I’ve had a few different types of yogis on the mat in front of me, but I’ve not heard this line before.
I work hard at stifling my skeptical giggles, and try not to look across to my friend.
We stand then and yogi asks us to jump around, all floppy like, while stabbing each part of our body with our finger tips, imagining they are sharp points, in order to “‘draw out all the carbon dioxide from our skin”. Hmmm. By now I see the look of disdain on my friend’s face, as she jigs just the tiniest amount, watching him through her squinted eyelids.
I try to go with the flow, telling myself he’s the expert after all, and I feel the energy and heat flow faster through my body and into my fingertips. I can abandon myself to the moment and sheer new-age-silliness up to a point. But I’m not sure my friend will… The butter is still layered thick on our yogi’s face, even as he’s bouncing around like a total goose in front of her.
Next we lie down flat on our bellies. Spread-eagled.
“How many limbs do we have?” he asks us.
There’s a bit of cuteness deep inside me that manages to escape.
“Well, us women have four,” I say, “but I guess men have five?”
I sneak a look his way. Nope, not a giggle, not even a twinkle in his distant eyes. I can’t even remember how he answered his own question, I was trying so hard to stifle my girlish giggles.
After guiding us through a few Sun Salutations he asks us to squat and get into position to do the Crow Pose.
I kid you not – the Crow Pose!
For those who don’t know, see googled pic below. Googled, ’cause there was no way any of us was going to be able to do it for a selfie. As he demonstrates I look over at my friend. Her jaw is on the ground. I assure her, in a voice loud enough for him to hear (I think) that it’s ok if she doesn’t want to try that pose. It requires a bit of strength, and more than a bit of courage. I’m pretty sure it’s not a beginner’s pose.
Now my friend speaks up, and tells him she has a shoulder injury and can’t even think of doing that. And still he starts to come over to her to try help her into the position! I can’t believe it, but he’s the expert and I don’t say anything more. Mistake number… I’ve lost count. I’d said a bit and he didn’t respond… didn’t pick up my cues. Instead I tried, unsuccessfully, to do a Crow Pose.
My friend however, steps back as he approaches her and simply waves him away.
So, realising that none of us were happy with that pose, our yogi gets us to do Warrior 3 lunges and twists. Again, this is too much (it requires balance and strength that takes time to develop, in my opinion) and my friend is by now almost sitting out. I ask her, in a voice too meek, if she knows the Child’s Pose? I look over to our yogi… perhaps he’ll get the hint? But nope, he doesn’t seem to have a clue how to handle her reluctance and fear – not to mention her growing disdain – and he can’t connect with her, can’t show her how to do it. The Child’s Pose is the one to go to if you are tired, emotional, or just need a break. It is the most gentle and safe pose I know. And our yogi can’t even show her or help her to get it.
The hour is finally up. At the end, as he sits there in a lotus position while we gather up our mats, it seems like he’s somewhere else. Perhaps he’s going through a tough day, I think. Give him the benefit of the doubt? But my attempts at feeling empathy are short lived.
My friend speaks up. First she asks him how old he is.
“25,” he says. The butter is still firmly there. What is his problem?
She tells him she’s more than twice his age. He doesn’t miss a beat.
“My mother is 56,” he says, “and does yoga almost every day of her life.”
Wow. Way to go. Total lack of tact and sensitivity.
I find my tongue again, finally. I ask him when did his mother start yoga.
“35 years ago,” he says.
Fairdimkum. By then I realise he just doesn’t get us.
Maybe it’s time he receives a gentle ‘lecture’? But, I’m sad to say, it doesn’t come from me. My friend speaks my mind and points out that he should have asked at the beginning of the class if any of us have injuries. She is quite direct, and honestly points out how he let us down. She says he should have tailored the class to take injuries into consideration, not to mention our lack of experience. I’d have thought that’d be Yoga Teacher Training Class 101.
I was so disappointed for her. Yoga is a practice that at the very least should be supportive. It can be for everyone: young or old; fit, fat or frail; brave or anxious. Yoga is a leveller. It accepts and nurtures all. In the midst of a crazy world, it settles us. In a world where we sometimes struggle to open our eyelids, let alone our minds, yoga expands us. In a world where we carry aches and pains, insecurities about body image and personal physical limitations, yoga softens and embraces. It settles and centres. I had wanted my friend to enjoy the peace yoga gives, and to enjoy the way it can stretch and strengthen our bodies and minds and, most importantly, help us to learn to breathe easier no matter what is going on in our lives. But this ‘class’ had failed on every level.
I’m certainly no yoga expert, I only started a couple of years ago, but in that time I’ve come across gung-ho young teachers who take classes that are more like zumba than yoga, and I’ve been to classes led by yogis who speak in new-age-mumbo-jumbo-speak and who don’t connect with the earth beneath them let alone the class in front of them. But on this day I was dumbfounded that a practice as beautiful and sacred as yoga could be ‘taught’ by a man who was, on this day anyway, so full of his own ego.
I couldn’t shake my disappointment. I feared my friend would never again come to a class, and thus never get the opportunity to experience the beauty of good yoga.
We got on our bikes and, rather than just go our seperate ways home, the three of us had a drink at a little bar by the beach. It was a very windy day and the sound of the waves crashing and the wind blowing all around us recharged me. As we downed our beers and rum, we had a good old bitch session about the class.
I stewed on my disappointment with this would-be yogi that night. But, as time went by, I realised the reason I was so disappointed was because I was also disappointed with myself. I have enough age and wisdom to know that what he was asking us to do wasn’t just a style that didn’t appeal to us, it was in fact dangerous and irresponsible. Like a typical human sheep, I followed him. I don’t like the word should, and try to avoid using it, but in this case it shouldn’t have mattered that he was our teacher, I should have spoken up more confidently for the sake of my friend’s health and safety, and for the love of yoga. Crow Pose? What if she’d tried it and had fallen head first and injured her neck! At the very least I should have asked him to take a gentler approach.
What is it that sometimes makes us follow blindly, even when our heart, our head, or our gut, is flying a red flag?
It reminds me of the millions of people who blindly follow scary leaders like Hitler. Who turn a blind eye to the kid bullying the vulnerable in their classroom, or the jerk hassling colleagues in their workplace. Who live for years with abusive partners. Who go about relatively comfortable in their busy days while people in neighbouring houses, villages, countries are being persecuted. It reminds me how flawed human nature is, and how people are often too distracted, overwhelmed, scared, or just lacking in the personal confidence needed to speak out and to try to do something to help another in need. Or to stop someone who is doing the wrong thing.
For me this experience was another of my most commonly occurring lessons. Although I know I have come a long, looong way, lessons like this one remind me to listen to my inner voice, to embrace my ever developing wisdom, and to continue working on my self-confidence.
Thankfully there is another resident instructor there now. She doesn’t have quite the warm honey and lemon voice of my Bali yogis, but she does guide with wisdom, and she connects. Hopefully my friend will come around to giving yoga another chance soon.
Update: the shala owner very kindly gave us a good price for a card of ten classes, and since I wrote this story I’ve done yoga there with three different instructors. Each of them have been fantastic! The space there is very beautiful; a lovely bamboo shala set in peaceful nature. I feel so lucky it’s on this island 🙂
Another update: I’ve since done more classes with this yogi and enjoyed them very much 😋
