Who Me? Yes, You. Couldn't Be...
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
There I was, with a dozen or more other students in a Hot 26 Yoga class when the instructor said, left ear on the towel, eyes facing the wall. I did as instructed. But rather than facing the wall, I was facing another person. Or they were facing me. I was facing the wall, like the rest of the class.
I tried to advert my eyes to another place, but there was really no other place to look. Why wasn’t she facing the wall? What part of me looking at her is not prompting her to lift her head and face the other way? For 20 or more seconds, we faced off.
I felt myself feeling the opposite of what I believed I should be feeling in yoga. I felt myself feeling what I usually feel in settings where the rules are clear and someone is not following them. Like when the guy got up and walked out of class while we were in the middle of a posture, rather than waiting for the time in between postures.
I felt bothered.
Did he not hear the instructor request that of us before we started our series? What. The. Fuck???
I don’t always feel this way towards those who are not following the rules in yoga, but I’d be lying if my first thought wasn’t you’re doing this wrong. My second thought leads me to look and discover, more often than not, I’m the one facing the wrong direction.
Wait, what? I’m wrong?