Off My Mat Please!

Although my yoga practice has suffered in the past two years due to my dissertation completion and an insane work schedule, I respect the practice and the principles for which it stands for. I would assume that most who practice yoga do the same as honor and respect are inherently part of yoga.  Dishonoring the yoga studio (ie walking in with shoes on, talking during class) is like swearing in church, seriously. So, let me tell you about my first and only yoga class in London. 

Imagine, if you will, a large, square room with a peaked ceiling  spotted with four symmetrical sky lights.  There is only one door and opposite that door is a wall of shelves that holds all the yoga paraphernalia (blocks, bolsters, straps), and the two remaining walls are mirrored. The room is packed with mostly women who are oddly dressed in tight pants and t-shirts and some half-naked; due to the configuration of the room, I sit in the back near the wall with shelving. I spread my mat out and begin to concentrate on my breathing and assume the typical cross-legged yogi pose. Women keep streaming into the room rushing toward me and my mat, and I soon realize sitting near the shelves was a huge mistake. Not only can't I concentrate but these bloody Brits are stepping on my mat with their bare, sweaty, unpedicured feet (I'll blog soon about the lack of beauty treatments here in London)! Now, I know we citizens of the good, old US of A are germaphobes, but anyone with any honor or respect would NEVER step on someone else's yoga mat. Good god, I would have to put my face on that mat later in the class (I didn't which resulted in a minor strain in my back as I executed a pose incorrectly so my face remained raised).  

After everyone, all 25 of us, settled into the room that was probably meant to hold 15, I tried to focus on my breathing and the postures but the yoga instructor -- a woman of about 55, in fabulous shape -- would not stop talking. She blathered on about breathing through the pain and how she hated her first yoga class so many years ago and look at her now, she's a yogi.  She did not count for us and insisted on  maintaining the same amount of breathes for each side of each posture. Who the hell could do that with all her babble and reminiscing? It was becoming clear why my classmates had no respect for my mat or their studio... While in mat poses, I also spotted strands of hair, dust and other pieces of dirt on the floor, and I cringed every time any piece of my body went beyond the boundaries of my defiled mat. 

Remember those four skylights I mentioned earlier, well they allowed the sun to pour into the room and it quickly became hotter than Hades and I had flashbacks of my one bikram yoga (hot yoga) experience and prayed to any deity available that this class would be over soon. Let me remind you that I paid £10 for this class and several times I almost stomped out and demanded my money back. Not wanting to be the Terrible American keeps me and my temper at bay here in England...not sure if that's for the good or the bad.

I never wanted to rush through savasana (corpse pose) more in my life. The obligatory Ohm and Namastey and I was out of there, never to return. I now know why there are so few yoga studios here in London; I don't think this bustling city is ready for the inner peace and interconnectivity which yoga stands for; as for me and my mat, we will practice at the flat with the gentle reminders of a DVD I was right in packing.

Namastey to you, friends and family -- honor and respect others, and their mats! 

The Temporary European