Yoga on the Dark Side

So, people keep asking me, now that I’m done with teacher training, what I plan to do with the skills I have learned? The obvious answer is teach yoga, but I really don’t want to. I just don’t see myself as a yoga teacher. I’m just a person who does yoga. See, I really don’t fit the “yoga teacher mold” and I think I can still get caught up on that. I mean, I have what you would call “a post-partum body in a pre-partum world.” I eat a lot of junk food—a lot. I say the “f” word all the time (in fact, I have the distinction amongst my colleagues for using the “f” word as four different parts of speech in one sentence). I get my Sanskrit terms confused with Hebrew and the Spanish slang that I learned in Costa Rica.

I’m not really a nice person. Some people see me as such, but those who spend a lot of time with me know that this is not the case (for confirmation of this, check with any of my neighbors, coworkers, my children, or men I have dated and/or been married to).

I’m really not athletic. Some days child’s pose kicks my butt. If I die, and I am not good in this world, I am convinced that I will go to a hot yoga studio where there is nothing but non-stop Vinyasa Flow and Chaturanga. Hell, I whenever we do a Yang sequence, I pray for some sort of natural disaster (like a rogue flock of birds crashing into the studio windows) to make the sequence stop.

And I really hate people. On the average, I would have to say I hate about 75% of the people I meet. And that’s because I think most of the world is full of narcissistic, ignorant, self-centered, entitled people. I’m not saying I’m not one of them. I am—I TOTALLY am. But the difference is that I KNOW I am narcissistic, ignorant, self-centered. The others have not recognized that they are of that category.

And that’s when it dawned on me: That is why I want to, nay, I must teach yoga. One of the most important reasons is that in doing so, I hope to spread the introspection and humility that yoga brings to my life, to others. I hope to make people a little less a-hole’ish. Or at least aware of their a-holeness.

We need more yoga instructors with pudgy bodies and wild wedgy problems whenever a forward bend is involved. We need more instructors who sweat so much that they look like they just took a shower by the end of the class. We need more yoga instructors willing to say, “In accordance with my own ethical principles, I refuse to do inversions on the basis that a drastic change in orientation may result in my internal organs falling out of my head” (and yes, I am sure that could happen). We need more instructors to push the envelope of traditional yoga classes and affirm that yes, damn it, Sukasana, constructive rest, legs-up-the-wall post, and then 45 minutes of svasana IS a legitimate yoga sequence for a class. We need more examples of people who are not embarrassed to use the wedge under their wrists (thank you Tami) and who are, in fact, empowered by it. Most of all, I need to teach for Stinky.

Stinky is a student who attended two of the classes I taught at a local college. He was called Stinky by the other students who lived in the residence halls because, well, he stunk. He was a shy, very large man with thick glasses. He had issues with showing butt-crack every time he bent over. He had no friends that we know of. At the first class, even legs-up-the-wall pose was challenging to him due to his size. I gave him a yoga mat to keep—and he came back to the second class. He had a great smile as he struggled through the class (which really was very basic). I didn’t know that “Stinky” was his nickname. I was just so happy he came to the two classes, and hoped he would continue to do yoga once the semester started.

At our first staff meeting, I found out his nickname. Apparently, over the winter break, Stinky was kicked out of school for poor grades. Everyone in the residence halls was relieved because he had been bounced from hall to hall to hall because of his odor and “clothing malfunctions” but no one wanted to confront him on the issue. People (staff and students alike) had a hard time dealing with him because he was socially awkward. I was sad that Stinky was gone. He was my favorite student.

I hope wherever Stinky is he still has the little yoga mat I gave him. I hope it can be like an island to him sheltering him from the cruelty in the world because that’s how I feel on my mat. I hope that someday, on that yoga mat, he learns, from some instructor somewhere, that he is just like every other human being on this planet—worthy of love, support, and divinity. And that’s why I practice teach yoga—for the Stinkys in the world.

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