Don’t Speak

The following was originally posted on September 10, 2018. Enjoy!

I went to a yoga class.

I know yoga is supposed to be good for you, but honestly, that’s based on a lot of variables. For example, if you have a really good instructor and you’re practicing your yoga in a beautiful, peaceful location with no interruptions, then yeah, it’s good for you. However, if you have a crappy, annoying instructor, and you’re hmm… let’s say, outdoors, at a fucking kid’s park, with no shade and it’s too damn hot, then no, it’s not good for you.

Case in point: my yoga class this morning.

Okay first of all, it was free, which should have been an indicator of how things were gonna play out. Now I’m not saying all free things are shitty, it’s just that…

… well hang on a sec… yeah, I am saying all free things are shitty, because nothing good comes free. If you’ve ever paid for sex and compared it to the sex you had for free, I’d bet money the paid sex was ten times better than the free sex!

Don’t lie, because I’d want to know if that’s actually true or not.

Secondly, the instructor was from Minnesota and she had that annoying Minnesotan accent, and if you’re from Minnesota, you should never teach yoga because your accent sounds awful teaching yoga (amongst other things, like having sex and ordering food). It’s not meant to utter sentences such as “Now gently lower your body onto the mat.” It’s more suited to saying short, clipped phrases like “cheddar cheese” and “Boy, that was a lot of snow.”

She ended her sentences on an up note, so it sounded like she was asking a question rather than making a statement, and her voice was high and sing-songy. I kept waiting for pink heart emojis to come flying out of her mouth. Not only that, she struggled with the yoga terminology, so she kept tripping up on the sequences, sputtering and stopping and restarting again. Listen, a yoga instructor should be always be in control; they need to be urbane… smooth… like a sexual predator lulling you into trusting them, that’s when the magic happens.

I kinda think you should prepare ahead of time how you’re gonna phrase things when you’re instructing a class also. During one particular pose, our hands reaching towards the sky, she asked us to pay attention to where our middle fingers were and boy, did I ever! It took all my will to keep my mouth shut, as you can imagine. You might also want to check in with your students before you begin the class to see what level they are and not expect them to twist themselves into a pretzel while you show off your chaturangas, or whatever the hell they’re called.

Is it inappropriate to burst out into laughter during yoga? Because if you’ve ever practiced yoga, you’ll know that when you twist and turn and bend yourself into various poses, it releases a lot of trapped gas. Thank God we were outside.

Actually, I take that back because doing anything outdoors is hit or miss since you’re bound by the weather. Well, it was really hot outside! (please imagine that being uttered in an annoying Minnesotan accent). The sun was trying to burn a hole through my black yoga pants while I was attempting a downward dog. Did I mention we were at a kid’s park? I think I did. So yeah, a bunch of screaming mouth-breathers showed up to play on the swing sets, and it completely interrupted my karmic energy.

Well, that did it. As I was coming out of the pose, I was adding up all the reasons why I would want to stay to finish the class, of which, there were none, and all the reasons I should leave and go stuff my face with a cinnamon roll because that sounded like an infinitely more satisfying activity, and does anybody ever really need a reason to eat a cinnamon roll? I think not. So I rolled up my mat and left with zero guilt whatsoever for doing so.

If there’s one thing I learned from yoga, it’s to release all guilt, because as all yoga instructors will tell you, you are a peaceful, light-filled being with freedom of will, and I remembered this as I was stuffing my face with a pastry while simultaneously emanating my light to everyone around me.