Am I being too sensitive (its never happened before). And other lies.
Bikram day #1 practiced after two martinis and being up late reading (The Good Lord Bird). I don't recommend either practice before a 7:30 9 AM class practiced in 105 degree heat.
Last week when Mr. Cool asked if anyone was doing Bikram for the first time I didn't raise my hand. I don't like having attention drawn to me, and I figured, sure, yoga blahty blah blah. I should have learned after my experience of years ago in Costa Rica which involved me not raising my hand when they asked if anyone hadn't kayaked before (I figured we would be tandem....and I mean, boats? Right? And rowing machines at the gym? And paddles? Got it)....which led to one of the most frightening experiences of my life involving crocodiles, bad tour guides on a night kayak tour, barbed wire strung across rivers (farmers protecting their cattle.....) random islands, a gigantic thunderstorm with lightening and blinding rain, and me in a single kayak. Oh, and hungry croc's, of course, because the reason we were out at night was because that's when they are active. Active is another word for EATING.
Didn't learn. So I didn't raise my hand.
The new people in class today, there were about 4, all had the courage that I lacked. One of them, a woman, was overtly different from every single other person in the room which probably held 50 people. First off, she was the only person in the room who wasn't white. Secondly she was the only person in the room who wasn't thin. And I say this with no shaming or anything but as a statement of fact, she was obese. So right off the bat I admired her. There she was, being the only different looking person in a class of homogeneous people, and I had been too cowardly to even raise my hand admitting that I didn't know what I was doing? Anyway, I found it awesome. These days I spend about as much time practicing in a given class as I do watching the people in the class practice (subtly. Because who wants to be watched by another student while they are doing yoga? No one). I think that to be a good teacher I have to recognize what people can actually DO, not how people who do yoga every day can do a pose. Its fascinating paying attention to the older people in a class, the people who are built differently or the people with limitations (like me with my hip)...and seeing how they innately modify poses, so that I can then offer those modifications when I teach.
So Mr. Cool spent a lot more time today saying INSPIRING QUOTES like "If you do 1% correctly with 99% effort you will achieve 100% results" and shit like that. Or, stuff about inspiration and perspiration. (for serious?) And even one about regrets about things failed at versus things not tried and the latitude of grief which differentiates them. I'm mangling these, but you get the gist.
At one point he said "YES I KNOW THIS IS HARD. BUT YOU ARE ALREADY WINNING. YOU HAVE ALREADY WON!!! WHY? BECAUSE YOU ARE HERE, RIGHT NOW, DOING THIS, AT 7:30 IN THE MORNING INSTEAD OF SHOVING KRISPY CREMES IN YOUR FACE!!!! BE PROUD! BE STRONG!"
Now, I've never had a krispy creme. I know its a doughnut. I've had doughnuts! And I don't think that having a doughnut on a Saturday morning means that one is "Losing". Why demonize doughnuts? (Mr. Cool also drives this tricked out deeply tinted glass mini cooper with like racing stripes and everything else you would expect. Today he wore a white undershirt and board shorts to teach class. Philly pride, baby, Philly pride).
His comment OUTRAGED me. I admit to being sensitive to anyone food shaming anyone else. If asked, I will gladly give my opinion on things, but to throw it out unsolicited like that? Whatever. Your side of the street and all. But for some reason I thought about the fact that there was one, ONE truly overweight person in the room, and I immediately thought of her when he said that. Perhaps that shows my OWN prejudice (she may have never ever have eaten a doughnut, and I have, so there is that to consider)......but it just felt so, so disgusting to me. Like, we, these sweaty people standing on sweaty carpet people, half in these terrible what must be "Bikram Outfits" (I have to google, they are bikinis.) with horrible tattoos and piercings and sweat oozing all over the place onto sweaty carpet and weird not talkingness are somehow superior to those people who may be happily eating a doughnut with their kid at home.
Yoga isn't about winning. And krispy creme's (or any food on earth) isn't about losing. Is it? Is it just me being too sensitive? Or is that just a shittastic sort of thing to say?
Curious.
yeah, it's an awareness thing. that's the kind of thing I *MIGHT* say if I were teaching a small group of students I knew VERY well, and maybe if we'd had a conversation about struggles with clean eating. but I'm always hyper aware of how things might be taken, or try to be. especially as someone who struggled with my weight for many many years basically until I had kids and breastfeeding sucked all the padding off me. I'm always sensitive to the possibility of larger students looking at me like, "ok, crazy skinny lady, whatever, you don't know WTF you're talking about, you've never walked in my shoes". aaaand kids are screaming at each other, gotta run!
ReplyDeleteI've had Bikram teachers use a similar motivation when the class is slow/low on energy, but not to that extent, more of a "be happy with yourself for being here" motivation. They would have said (and have at the 7:30 am class) "Yes, I know this is hard, but you are here, right now doing this at 7:30 in the morning. Give yourself a pat on the back." (and we all pat our own backs, to our own extent of course)
ReplyDeleteAgain, I would have walked out of that studio.
That teacher/studio skeeves me. The end.
ReplyDeleteI think that comment could have been taken badly. But considering the audience of people who did get their butts to yoga with Mr. Cool, it probably was taken as a nice little kudo/ass pat. You might feel crappy about it if you took a day off and got a donut instead of going to class...but then you wouldn't hear the comment anyway, I suppose.
I feel like we are all sorts of backward about eating/exercise in general in this country. Comments like that are probably not helping the issue.
I'm with you guys on the skeeve factor of the studio! I'm so cheap that I want to get in the 5 classes I paid for and then never attend again. I'm going to try to find a different class during the week that I can attend in hopes that I encounter a less offensive teacher.
ReplyDelete