My First Yoga Class and the Importance of Consent

I had a bi-level spinal fusion in April 2009, but my back still hurts. My surgeon keeps moving the goalposts every time I tell him this. “It will take three months for you to notice a difference,” he said at first. Three months later, he tells me six months. At six months he said, “Well, for some people it takes a year or longer.”

Ever since my back problems started, people had been suggesting yoga. I’ve always exercised and I’m not averse to trying new things, but I was in no rush to try yoga. A Western worldview dominates my education, so I had to hear a lot of success stories and read a few empirical studies first. I also hesitated for stupid reasons: I thought yoga was for girls and yoga looks weird. Since Western medicine had provided little more than addictive painkillers and Ben Gay, I decided to give the yogis a chance.

I started at home with a beginner’s video. It was hard but the instructor was good. Proper form is easier for me if I know which muscles an exercise targets. The spunky little yogi on the DVD was all about anatomy and physiology. She explained the what, why, and how of each move. I ate it up. The pain didn’t vanish, but I always felt better after a yoga session and I woke up a little less stiff in the mornings.

After about three weeks, I could do most of the moves without looking like I was falling off a bicycle. I decided to challenge myself with a real yoga class. A neighbor recommended a yoga studio on Ventura Blvd. My wife and her mom agreed to watch the kids while I attended a beginner’s class on a Saturday afternoon.

I’ll spare you the tale of my awkward entrance into the yoga studio where nobody looked at me or told me what to do or where to go, which landed me on the wrong side of the room facing the wrong way. We’ll also flip past the part where the teacher asked if there were any beginners and I raised my hand only for her to say, “Welcome!” and then ignore me. Let’s just skip to the breathing.

The teacher told us all to take a deep breath in and hold it. She then told us to exhale hard, just as the yoga instructor on my video had. What didn’t happen on the video at home was a chorus of quasi-orgasmic noises that sent me into a fit of laughter. The folks in the yoga studio took their exhaling . . . seriously. I was trying not to laugh, but you know how that goes: not allowed to laugh equals overwhelming impulse to laugh. My surprised guffaws made me the jerk in the yoga studio, the Western cretin laughing at his enlightened betters.

I only got a couple sideways glances and the moment passed. Then it was time for the “aum” or the “om” or however you spell it.

The instructor told us to take a deep breath and knock out an “om” on the exhale. The sound of twenty people chanting in unison produced a big, fat minor chord. The loud, ominous chorus sounded creepy in a room that had been so silent seconds before. I started chuckling, but it was nervous laughter this time.

I relaxed a bit when we stopped making noises and started doing yoga. It was a good workout, but I became aggravated as I realized that the instructor wasn’t explaining how to do the moves. She said next to nothing about physical maneuvers, though she knew it was my first time at a yoga class. Instead, she walked around the room talking about balance, light, centering, acceptance, peace, authenticity, and a bunch of other abstractions. Good stuff, but not what I came for.

Still, I was dripping with sweat as we neared the end of the class. If nothing else, doing yoga in public made me work harder. I decided that it had been worth the seventeen bucks. But what happened during Shavasana, the final relaxation pose, made me want money back.

We rested on our backs, eyes closed, and focused on deep breathing and muscle relaxation. It felt great after all that hard work. The tension in my lower back began to release. Then the instructor started singing in Sanskrit. Loudly. Her voice erupted from the room’s dead silence and bounced off the walls. The sexy deep breaths and the om’s were surprising enough, but I had no idea where this musical, mystical journey would take us. All I knew is that I wanted her to stop because it was freaking me out.

After minutes that seemed like hours, she stopped singing.

“That was a prayer to Shiva for peace and enlightenment,” she said.

My hand shot up to my torso and made the sign of the cross. I’m Anglican, but this isn’t something I do very often outside of church. It was an anxious reaction to intense discomfort. When the Shiva priestess dismissed us, I rolled up my mat and got the heck out.

Lest you think me a rube, I should tell you that I understood everything until the Sanskrit serenade to Shiva. I studied Eastern religions in college, becoming obsessed with them during sophomore year. Herman Hesse’s Siddartha is still one of my favorite books. I wasn’t oscillating between amused and anxious because I didn’t know what was happening; I was just caught completely off guard. My yoga videos featured no om’s or aum’s. Nor was there any hot and bothered breathing, much less a ballad to a pagan deity. I had no idea things got so funky so fast at a “real” yoga studio.

The next day I saw the neighbor who had recommend the studio. She asked about the class and I told her.

“Oh no,” she said. “You got the weird substitute teacher. The classes aren’t usually like that. I’m so sorry!”

On Monday, I talked to one of my students who’s a yoga enthusiast. She explained that yoga studios place more emphasis on the spiritual. She said I should stick to classes at the gym for a more physical focus.

So I had been a fish out of water, one that should have learned more about what was on the surface before jumping out of the pond. I felt guilty for freaking out due to ignorance. Still, I couldn’t shake one angry, festering thought:

If I taught a yoga class and led everyone in the “Our Father” at the end, they’d throw my ass out of there.

Yet, they would be right to do so.

As a white protestant male from the South, I’m unaccustomed to the margins of religious culture. When Coach asked me to say a prayer in the locker room before wrestling matches in high school, I prayed in Jesus’ name and thought nothing of it. When orientation week at my secular liberal arts college included a couple stops at the chapel where we sang hymns and prayed, I felt right at home. That yoga class was the first time someone shoved their religion down my throat, and I hated it. And all she did was sing a zany song. I can’t imagine how being compelled to pray to Shiva would feel. Or if I went to sporting event where everyone but me was singing to Shiva. How awful that must feel for those who don’t want it.

I’m glad I know what it’s like now. I understand why religion works best in a secular society. I’m happy to share the Gospel with those who want to listen, but the singing yoga teacher showed me that consent is crucial. I believe that Jesus Christ is The Way, The Truth, and The Life, but pushing this truth too hard can push people away. I know this because I’m not going back to that yoga studio.

Now I just need someone to teach me some yoga that doesn’t sound like sex.