by Sarah Miller
For some it's an ancient path to health and enlightenment. For others it's utterly infuriating. And I should know – I'm an instructor.
In addition to being somewhat crazy – a shrink once diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder, which I thought was a bit of a stretch until I realised that, like everyone else, he just wanted to have sex with me – I am a yoga teacher. Should you, recoiling in horror as you read this, find yourself asking, "But how does someone like this become a yoga teacher?", the short answer is that I gave a man with a beard and his hot wife $3,200. The long answer is … well, I'd like to say that it's because if I hadn't become obsessed with yoga I'd probably be dead, because that's what people always say about things like this. But that would be, frankly, a little overdramatic. Let's just say that if I didn't do yoga everything bad about me would just be worse, and what is bad is already bad enough.
Now, because you can't get something for nothing, there's a problem: yoga can be extremely annoying. There's no getting around it. Yoga has moments of such profound annoyingness that after I finished Eat, Pray, Love (I read the ashram section 100 times) all I could think was: "You wrote an entire book about yoga and meditation and you never mentioned, 'Oh, by the way, sometimes you will want to punch these people in the face'."
And this is where I perform my public service; in yoga we call that a seva (how annoying is that?). All the stuff Elizabeth Gilbert was too high on homemade pizza and Javier Bardem penis to mention, you need to know. Everyone's always telling you how great yoga is, and that's true, but then you go and maybe the studio smells like onions steamed in cat pee, and it might have been helpful to know about that beforehand.
You need to know exactly what will disturb you before you get there, so you can prepare; and you should also know that, even though everyone around you will seem perfectly unperturbed, someone feels your pain. Oh, and by the way, I want to underscore that what follows below is what bugs me about yoga; everything else is a glittering gift from Lord Shiva. Namaste!
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In addition to being somewhat crazy – a shrink once diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder, which I thought was a bit of a stretch until I realised that, like everyone else, he just wanted to have sex with me – I am a yoga teacher. Should you, recoiling in horror as you read this, find yourself asking, "But how does someone like this become a yoga teacher?", the short answer is that I gave a man with a beard and his hot wife $3,200. The long answer is … well, I'd like to say that it's because if I hadn't become obsessed with yoga I'd probably be dead, because that's what people always say about things like this. But that would be, frankly, a little overdramatic. Let's just say that if I didn't do yoga everything bad about me would just be worse, and what is bad is already bad enough.
Now, because you can't get something for nothing, there's a problem: yoga can be extremely annoying. There's no getting around it. Yoga has moments of such profound annoyingness that after I finished Eat, Pray, Love (I read the ashram section 100 times) all I could think was: "You wrote an entire book about yoga and meditation and you never mentioned, 'Oh, by the way, sometimes you will want to punch these people in the face'."
And this is where I perform my public service; in yoga we call that a seva (how annoying is that?). All the stuff Elizabeth Gilbert was too high on homemade pizza and Javier Bardem penis to mention, you need to know. Everyone's always telling you how great yoga is, and that's true, but then you go and maybe the studio smells like onions steamed in cat pee, and it might have been helpful to know about that beforehand.
You need to know exactly what will disturb you before you get there, so you can prepare; and you should also know that, even though everyone around you will seem perfectly unperturbed, someone feels your pain. Oh, and by the way, I want to underscore that what follows below is what bugs me about yoga; everything else is a glittering gift from Lord Shiva. Namaste!
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