Yesterday my husband and I went to yoga together. We got there as we always do a few minutes early so we can set up our mats and settle in before the class starts. There are some people who don’t really care where they may end up in the class, but there are others who are very adamant about not only their personal space, but where in proportion to the rest of the class it may be. I fall somewhere in the middle.
Class started, we were working on bumble bee breath, which I had never done so I was trying to concentrate on the instructions, but someone arrived late and the distraction began. I could see out of the corner of my eye that she had nowhere to put her mat and the teacher, I don’t know whether it was to make a point or not, really wasn’t helping her. Once we finished our bumble bee breaths, which I bumbled pretty badly, the late woman came over to me and asked me to move my mat so she could put hers down.
This was yoga, but man was I bugged. It was the way she asked, which was more of a command and without any apology. I moved of course and staggered my mat, but she chose not to stand at the top of hers, but rather in the middle. Mats are staggered not because the mats bump into each other, but because people do, but if you’re not going to stand where you’re supposed to, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Aggravated, I moved again and let her hand bump into me on the next swan dive forward just to make my point.
Half an hour in to class and I was still irked, but now it was because she was one of those over achievers. The teacher would call out a pose and she would take it to the next level – I hate that. What I hated even more though was that here I was in yoga of all places filled with so much hate.
The studio where we practice is the studio where I actually got my certificate to teach yoga. Although it’s changed ownership since then, it’s continued its atmosphere of pretty down to earth yoga and by this I mean, it stays away from a very spiritually led practice. For me, this is not a deal breaker – truth be told, I started going there because of its proximity to where I live, but I like the classes and find them challenging. The clientele, however, I think very much likes that the spiritual side is not really included apart from a few Om’s and a Namaste once in a while.
There was an article in the paper yesterday about this very thing as it related to teaching yoga to schoolchildren. Most schools insist that the instructors refrain from chanting Om or using the prayer position or even saying Namaste, which struck me as a bit extreme.
Om, for a simple definition, represents the sound of the universe, which we all do unarguably inhabit regardless of what religion you follow. Namaste means “the divine in me bows to the divine in you” and who doesn’t want to be divine?! Anjali Mudra or hands in prayer is really just a position where your hands are pressed together in front of your heart, which I find hard to believe could offend anyone.
To take this topic to a more controversial level and across the pond, France passed a ban on head scarves or hijabs for Muslim school girls, which raised a lot of protest. Taking it a step further, they also want to ban the niquab and burka as the traditional full face veil for women in public. These are seen as oppressive to women and against the secular nature of the French government.
But where does it end? What about the orthodox Jewish women who also cover their heads, whether it be by a scarf or many times a wig? What about the yarmulke or the kippah as the French call it? What about people wearing crucifixes or Stars of David? What about the red dot or bindi worn on Indian women’s foreheads? What about lip plates or neck rings worn by African and Burmese-Thai women? True the latter are seen more commonly in their native lands, but hasn’t western culture adopted all sorts of body modification practices itself, the most common among them, tattoos?
It’s interesting that the French culture, which is much less puritanical than ours and where topless sunbathing is the norm has bigger issues with too much covering of the female body. I understand there are more complex issues that are behind the burka ban with regards to women’s rights. Further complex still is the fact that many of the people protesting the ban were the women themselves.
I unfortunately have no answers, only questions. I know it’s far too simplistic to say live and let live even if I don’t know how I got all the way from an annoying yoga moment to questions about religious freedom. But that is the journey that began yesterday and who knows where it will end. For this moment, however, deep breath in, deep breath out and Namaste.
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