Position on etiquette

There is one consistent in the yoga world. There will almost always be more women than men in class. And what happens when you put a room full of women together? Yes, they compare and become competitive. This is fine if taken in moderation. Pushing yourself to be better is a great thing, and if measuring yourself against others to see where you are in terms of skill level is helpful, I say go for it. Over time you forget others in the room and flow through the experience as if no one else is around anyway. But from time to time, I do find myself admiring another's effortless looking crow pose while I cursing my lack of balance and grace....but I'll get there. Just gotta have faith.

There are however a small group who use class time as an opportunity to show their stuff...whether they have any or not. Either they attend a class far below their skill level to give themselves a shot of self love or they have a bizarre sense of rebellion and spend the hour competing with the actual instructor. The latter really messes with my chi and makes me yearn for a Krav Maga class.

Elizabeth Post may have known her stuff at a proper English tea party, but she never included a chapter that broke down the proper etiquette of maneuvering within the yoga community. This fact was never more apparent than my recent trip to a hot yoga class.


Perhaps I'm alone in my thinking but I believe there is a code of conduct to follow. You should always be aware of your space. Are you too close to your neighbor? Are there other areas than might allow you (and others) more room to move? Depending on the room, usually people are aligned in rows or a certain pattern. Most people understand this and abide so as to make room for others. I had the misfortune of being next to a woman who had something to prove - seemingly not to anyone in particular, just in general. We'll call her Menace.

So Menace begins by coming into class and dropping her mat 2.5 inches from mine - with plenty of room available elsewhere. In retrospect I should have picked up everything and moved but I didn't. The room filled up as she was stacking her blocks, belt, etc around her with some of them laying on my mat. Um, yeah. I moved them onto hers and just laid down to collect my zen and try not to kill thy neighbor. As the class began it became apparent that 'grace' and 'fluid flow' were of no concern to her. Menace stomped into poses like Wayne Gretzky attacking a hockey puck. Breathing loudly - even by yoga standards - she raced from one pose to the next before the instructor even suggested the next pose. And she would hold the last pose in the series and look at others as if we were somehow slow. The cherry on top to the entire experience was that when the instructor would specify a side - such as raise the left leg or the right leg - she would do exactly the opposite. This would leave me facing her, inches apart on poses we were holding for at times a minute or two. Long enough if your looking towards someone's back, an ETERNITY if they're in your face. And what an angry face it was. One hopes when you reach your mid-late thirties you have a respect for others and a self awareness keeping you from being 'that' person.