I love the studio I teach at. It's very community based and people act like it. We all clean up after ourselves, wipe down rental mats after using them, wash the cups that we use, answer the door buzzer when the desk person is busy, take our shoes off before entering. People at the studio are friendly towards each other and we all take class and breath together. We create this awesome union which is exactly what Yoga is.
I love all of these concepts but they are often lost because Yoga is so Westernized or New Yorkified. I've been to other places where classes are so crowded and people are not willing to move their mats over to fit another student in. Or worse, "yogi's" will fight over what they claim is "their mat space"! Who does that?! My class that I have been taking for years is generally full of pretty nice and giving people but this past week the class was so crowded we were mat to mat. 4 people came just as the class was beginning and my teacher really had to move people around to try to fit them in...2 of them couldn't take class. Sucks! But it was an interesting dynamic because a few people acted like they couldn't move their mat over an inch or two. One person even commented on how they wouldn't people to open their arms out if they were too close. And another person refused to move their towel out of the way to give better spacing to the person next to them. Look I get it, its your morning practice...but its not just YOUR morning practice...its all of ours. How do we continue to enforce this sense of community and union in class? Are we here for only exercise? Or are we here for Yoga?
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