To the Yogi who Thinks She Owns the Studio

To the yogi who thinks she owns the studio, thank you for disrupting my peace. 

Every time I share a class with you, I get hot and bothered. 

You always arrive late, it’s not a one-time thing that happens because of traffic or some kind of emergency. If it was, you’d arrive late once in a while. You arrive late every single day. 

Before I start my yoga practice, your late arrival creates a verbal cue in my brain “rude”. So before I even start my yoga, you have made me think “rude”. 

You always throw your things down. In such a quiet and sacred space your disregard for cacophony is cringe-worthy. 

Before I start my yoga practice, your sound disrupts my meditation and I flicker open just to roll my eyes at you. So before I even start my yoga, you have made me judge you. 

You always flow front and center. No matter if you arrive late, you’ll have the whole class move their mats so you can flow on your favorite piece of hardwood. 

Before I start my yoga practice, your egoism makes me react with a snobby scoff. So before I even start my yoga, you have made me ridicule you. 

To the yogi who thinks she owns the studio. Thank you for disrupting my peace. 

Every time I share a class with you, I get hot and bothered. 

Instead of leaving all the shit beside my mat that I don’t want to carry with me through the practice, I am actually piling more shit on the mat. 

So you fill my space with “rude”, “judgement”, and “ridicule”. 

And it’s much more challenging than every other class I take without you. Because you fill me with rage before my practice even begins. So those hardships and tests that I usually face halfway through my practice are staring me down as we begin with sun salutations. 

Every time I share a class with you, I get hot and bothered. And halfway through the class I get hot and unbothered. 

But just before I think I’ve had enough of you messing with my energy, just as I’m diving into pigeon to release all that pent up energy stored in my hips, you disrupt the room again as I hear you packing up your things. 

Every single time before savasana, waves of “rude”, “judgement”, and “ridicule” come washing over me. 

What is usually the most peaceful part of my practice, the moment where I get to lay like a corpse and just be, gets stolen from me as you decide savasana is never worth staying for. 

So I lay with “rude”, “judgement”, and “ridicule”. I tighten up with ahimsa and frustration. 

To the yogi who thinks she owns the studio, you make me face my greatest obstacles in this hot box, on these 68 inches of mat. 

And for that I thank you. 

One day, you’ll be my release from it all.