Jenifer Parker and I had a bit of a kvetch last week (I love that she tosses in the yiddish from time to time, just like I do!). We were bitching about The Yoga Police. You know the ones, they tell you how you should practice yoga, that once a week isn’t often enough, and how you should look & act if you want to call yourself a yogi.
Then I read Barbara Denowh’s post about someone calling a student a WHALE when they were in Down Dog. Well, fuck me.
That person, she’s gone beyond Yoga Police into a whole new league.
If I’d had a teacher like that when I first started yoga, I would not have carried on. I was overweight. Probably, that yoga nazi would have said I looked like a whale in down dog. Luckily, I only encountered those kinds of yogis a bit later, when my love of yoga was already entrenched.
But it’s something that really grates on me, this elitism around yoga. The word means union, for frikssake. Unity. All.
Not just the self-nominated special people, who are thin enough or bendy enough, or whatever.
ALL of us can benefit from doing yoga.
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Lovely post, Nadine and a great conversation.
However, just to be clear, the person who made the “whale” comment to me is NOT a yoga teacher. Thank heavens!
Babs, that IS a relief! I got the wrong end of the stick there, as I sometimes do. Probably because I’ve had teachers who’ve been like the whale woman…
Love this, Nadine! And couldn’t agree more.
Some teachers are just so judgemental. I cannot count how many times I’ve heard: “If you don’t get this posture, you’re just not trying hard enough”. Oh dear. We need to learn that not all people can look amazing in all postures. We need to accept that we come in all shapes and sizes.
Amen, ladies! Ahimsa all round.
great point…. support eachother y’all! And non-judgment starts with your thoughts……
Great post Nadine. I cannot imagine a teacher being this rude and unprofessional-it goes beyond any kind of responsible behavior. However I did have a yoga teacher roll her eyes at me for asking a question once when I was just learning. It upset me so much-(I was much younger and meeker than I am now) that I didn’t go back to any teacher until years later. Instead, I practiced on my own, with a booklet & cassette tape from Lilias Folan. Now, I would never tolerate this kind of irresponsible treatment from anyone, especially not a yoga teacher. I believe ‘Ahimsa’ applies to words as well as actions.
So true Nadine! I certainly don’t ‘bend right for yoga’ – but that’s the exact reason I practice it, & quite possibly part of the reason I enjoy it!
Agreed. There is way too much elitism & judgement, from teachers and students, about what yoga is or isn’t.
More so now than ever practicing yoga is embracing the yama and taking care of each other. This goes double for teachers.
Yup, triple for teachers! We are the culture makers.