OM NO!

                                                       

 I may live in sunny Florida but I still buy the NY Post to keep my finger on the pulse of what is going on up north. I laughed when I saw the latest headline ‘OM NO! Meet NYC’s Nastiest Yoga Guru.’ The article is all about this Bikram yoga teacher who yells and bullies his clients to go deeper into postures. Like the soup Nazi from Seinfeld some are calling him the Yoga Nazi. No Zen for you! He maintains that he knows he is not for everyone but he is for A-types and athletes who want to be pushed and worked hard. He doesn’t apologize for his tough exterior and says, “I’m not in the business of being nice.” I think it is terrific. 

Everyone is different and everyone has their own style and preferences of how and why they like the things they do. Who is anyone to say, ‘Your not doing it right’. There is a blog out there called ‘yeah dave’. Dave writes about yoga for foodies. He leads his class and then afterwards everyone sticks around for wine and a great meal. What a great idea! You can have 10 yoga studios in one area and 100 people could have 100 opinions on why they love their studio the most and they would all be right.

I myself got into yoga when I was looking for a way to de-stress and relax my young children. I quickly found out it was something I truly loved and I stuck with it. When my youngest went to Kindergarten I started working towards my certification. I never really knew what I was going to do with it but it was cool to have.

I was intimidated to teach at first. I felt like I couldn’t really ‘teach’ because I didn’t wear the traditional yoga costume. When I think yoga costume, two things come to mind. One is the 70’s yoga lady from early morning television with the plain light blue leotard and the long braid down her back, face scrubbed and make up free and she is very soft spoken. The other costume I think of is the take no prisoners, jacked arms, side crow holding, vegan, let me show you how I can do these poses better than you yogi elitist. (Also known as “Yogier than thou” type people.)

I definitely fell somewhere in between these two. Slowly but surely with the support of my friends and family I got the nerve to start teaching. I realized very quickly that I really did have something to offer. I learned a great lesson very early on when I taught one of my first classes and a woman came in and immediately went front and center with her mat. I began the class and about 3 postures in I realized that this woman could out maneuver me with one arm tied behind her back. I would demonstrate a beginner variation of a headstand she would go ahead and take it up to a full headstand. I was demonstrating bridge and she took it up to wheel with one leg raised. I thought I was in an SNL skit. All I could do was say, “Oh good for you! Wheel is fine if you want to move on like this young lady, that’s good too.” My voice trailing off and in my head all I was thinking was, “maybe they are hiring at Bloomingdales.”

I managed to keep it together and outwardly I appeared like I hadn’t skipped a beat, (I asked a few friends if they could tell I wanted to push her over while she was in her perfect headstand and they said no) it was a great lesson for me to have very early on.  We are all different and a true yogi is ok with that and accepting of that. This woman had a beautiful practice and it didn’t mean that because hers was so advanced mine stunk. I may never be able to put my head between my legs and kiss my own ass, (do I still sound bitter?) But my practice is just that, its mine. The beauty of yoga is that it is whatever you want it to be and you are a real yogi, wether you can hold a scorpion pose or you need more blankets, bolsters and pillows to just sit on the floor with your legs crossed, if you keep an open mind and an open heart and let your fellow yogi’s do whatever feels right to them. Can you imagine how nice it would be if we could learn to be as accepting of each other in everyday life and not just in the studio? Just like side crow, its something to strive for.