Yogic F-Bombs

Somedays, I fucking hate yoga. Somedays, I want to burn my yoga mat like hippies burnt bras and flags back in the sixties. Look out Yoga Journal, I’m starting a Yoga Sutrarevolution. There are articles, classes, teachers, Instagram photos, Nag Champa, Facebook posts, coconut water, chia seeds, #yogaeverydamnday, stretchy-see-through-over-priced-yoga-pants (yes, darling, I can see your butthole), scorpion selfies, oil pulling:  swish, gargle, spit…ahem, which, at times, makes me want to barf up my spirulina-infused green smoothie. Somedays, it makes me feel embarrassed to even be a part of the entire industry. Somedays, I want to turn my tail and run and maybe, perhaps, start a new career in, say….carpentry.

Don’t get me wrong. Yoga changed my life. I am calm. Grounded.  Patient.  Unreactive. (For the most part) And confident in myself; which allows me to be flexible when I need to be, to trust when I am unsure, and to relish and revel in the beauty of moments, with less attachment to outcomes.  Those are life skills for the keeping.

But when did yoga get so cheesy? Why is it necessary to force class themes and intentions down my throat and in the process, swallow up any allusion to mystery, subtlety, introspection, and inspiration so that I am left gagging on incessant renditions of 1,000 ways to Let. Things. Go.  Isn’t there some magic in simply allowing the postures to wiggle their way under your skin and just touch you gently?

Last month I took a class and the teacher told us to “focus your awareness on your inner cosmos.” Honey, please. I might just do that if you could only tell me where the fuck that is. Is my inner cosmos swirling around somewhere near my kidneys? Resting underneath my funky, ingrown toenail? And would you mind, love, telling me just what I should be looking for? An energetic rainbow of spiraling stars, perhaps? Or a sucking, imploding, vacuum of my black soul-hole?

On the other end of the spiritual spectrum, what about those classes that pump Top 40 hits so loud that the instructor has to scream as she paces about the room? We hyperventilated as we pulsed lunge squats last week for three…AND two….AND one. Add a couple of bicep curls and we’re just six degrees short of separation from a Jane Fonda workout video circa 1982. This is not yoga, people.

Does every sequence have to be so weird and complicated? There is beauty in simplicity. Comfort in repetition. Joy in humour:  I promise, it’s okay to not take yourself so seriously. And if you’re a yoga teacher, why can’t you please, sometimes, shut the fuck up and just let me think and breathe by myself?

So much for being unreactive. I get it, this is yoga.

But…at least now I know 1,000 ways to Let. Things. Go.