#ihateyoga

[mzbflower]

I love @biggangvh1 #Ihateyoga lolol

[childishepithet]

An un-love letter to the studio yoga class

The following is my interpretation of more or less every yoga class I’ve ever attended. Yoga classes in an urban studio are goddamn terrible.

Oh hey. What in god’s name are you doing here? In those clothes? Those clothes look like something you would sleep in. You, not me, I have more respect for my bed than that. Don’t you care what you look like? People judge you by the way you look, you know that right? Okay, whatever if you insist. Welcome to the ancient Eastern spiritual practice of YOGA. Here is your room full of fit, attractive young white people. Where is your mat? You DON’T own a yoga mat? How do you continue to take in oxygen? Very well, I suppose you can use one of our mats. We sanitize them approximately every 23rd of never in hopes that pleebs like you will either 1) take a hint, straighten up and fly right or 2) take a hint and remain relegated to your pathetic world of fast food and spiritual unfulfillment and baggy clothing. To hide your shame.

Alright, come in. No no, not there, not in the back. We saved you a space at the front of the room, we all want to see how hopeless you are at trying to manipulate your doughy, inflexible meat bag of a body. 

Great. Now. Welcome to Yogafest12PM. A rational, warm human being would tell you to go at your own pace, that this is a spiritual practice, that you shouldn’t do anything to the point that it is painful, and that we are going to go through everything step-by-step so you understand what is happening and the rationale behind it and can ultimately use what you learn here to become a more balanced, contented person. But this isn’t some pussy yoga playground for babies. Also, babies are more flexible than your sorry ass. No, welcome to the real world.

We are going to start. We will explain nothing of what we are doing nor how to coax your body into what should be impossible positions. We would like to encourage you, verbally and nonverbally, to hold these positions well beyond the point of pain and possibly sanity. We also encourage you to look around as you attempt the yoga. Take note of the ease with which your “peers” achieve these positions. Please understand that this discrepancy owes to the fact that they are superior to you in every conceivable way. They have more discipline. More self-control. More ambition. More money. They understand the importance of using their more money to purchase sexy fitness clothes so their fellow yoga-ers don’t hurt their eyeballs looking at fashion sad-faces like this eyepopping shorts and old t-shirt combo you’re sporting. They’ll probably get into heaven, and they look good enough that they won’t have to wait in line. With you. Who won’t make the cut. We don’t take kindly to your type and will make this as physically and psychologically uncomfortable as possible in order to assure that you will not return. So there’s that to look forward to. Moving on. Okay, start by bending over and putting your big ass right up in the air. Right, more or less like that. I guess. I’m going to come over and push on your back. I’m not going to explain why I’m doing this in words; I’m just going to push on your back until you figure out for your damn self why you’re wrong and correct your behavior. No, that’s not it. No, that isn’t it either. No. No. NO. Honestly, I’m starting to think you’re intentionally bad at this. You’re hopeless. I am walking away from you in disgust. (This is when the directives start. In a breathy voice (so my rage-filled reactions seem all the more inappropriate) I am instructed to assume plank position, lower my fleshy body all the way down to the floor while maintaining perfect, unmoving posture. As if there were a rod shoved up my ass and fused to my underperforming, slouchy spine. Then I am to put my big ass back in the air and walk my big feet to the front of my mat. Other people do this gracefully, I am incapable. My yoga-ing is bad and I should feel bad. Then several variations on aligning my hands underneath my shoulders, putting one foot between my hands, twisting my back to the point that I’m pretty confident if I slip I’ll never walk again, putting my elbow on the inside of my knee and trying to look over my other shoulder or at my fingertips or some shit).

Hold that until you have fully fleshed out all of the ways you would dismember the sadist of an instructor with your bare hands if you were prone to violence. Continue to hold as you become prone to violence. Continue to hold until you genuinely believe you can see through time. Release. Repeat in other direction, so a new crop of yoga jerks can see what a pathetic, sweaty noob you are.

(There is no formal instruction, but I know to look around to see if I have a partner in my misery; I have none. I am alone and indeed pathetic and it is my fault and I deserve it. Other people seek out and enjoy this. NORMAL people seek out and enjoy this. Something is wrong with me and I am not normal. I don’t belong here. I should never have come here. There is no unobtrusive way to bail out the back door. I must endure so that I may leave and renew my resolve never to do any more fuck damn yoga). (There are no clocks in yoga studios- they are like Vegas without any of the fun. Because of the lack of timekeeping device I have no idea how much more yoga torture I have to suffer. Time is meaningless. I start to wonder if I’m dead. Is this purgatory? A yoga class that just never fucking ends? Good one god, I knew you had a sense of humor. You miserable prick). (Finally we end up in corpse pose. I continue to wonder if I am dead. The head yoga human tells what is supposed to be in interesting and symbolic story about fucking pigeons or something. If I wasn’t already filled with rage you can bet pigeons would be the tipping point. Dis-gusting. I attempt to deescalate, abandoning fantasies of mass murder as I do so. I feel the twinges that tell me that my body will ache for days after this experience, further punishment to trying to enter into a world not made for me. The class ends. Yoga human spews forth a Namaste and an admonition to be well and return next week. Grateful that Stockholm Syndrome has not claimed me, I get the fuck out of there as fast as my jelly-filled legs will allow and search for a yoga free place to seethe and be alone).

(end)

So that’s about it. I hate yoga. More specifically, I hate the image conscious studio yoga bastardization that has my homeland captivated. This yoga makes me feel inferior and out of place. I am out of place damn near everywhere I go and it doesn’t always feel so good. It feels even less good in a yoga studio where the discomfort is multiplied tenfold. I can’t wear the uniform and I can’t stomach the kool-aid. It’s too much implicit performance, too self-involved, and too much competition. I can handle explicit performance; the implicit makes me miserable. Every yoga class is a crisis of confidence waiting to happen, and crisis of confidence isn’t my baseline. I am a firm believer in pushing one’s comfort zones, and I am also a believer in knowing the difference between comfort and survival. Yoga for me feels like a violation of my survival instincts; yes it is uncomfortable, but it is more than that. I’m so far out of my element with no safety net and no lifeline. It isn’t growth, it’s traumatic and stupid. I encounter enough micro-aggressions in my world, I really don’t see seeking them out in an inauthentic environment so unlikely to change. It’s not for me. I am retiring. So fuck it.