Yoga Etiquette
My fifteen years or so of teaching yoga have shown me a thing or two about the rules and etiquette of practicing yoga. While these unofficial rules might seem normal to the initiated and dedicated student, those who are newer will have to learn them along the way. There is usually no official handbook of yoga rules at the entrance to a yoga practice room. Here are the rules.
1. Absolutely no cell phones. Leave them in the car. No turning the phone to vibrate or peeking when the teacher has turned his back to view an incoming text message. Let the yoga room be a sanctuary for stillness and leave the craziness outside.
2. Scent neutrality. Leave the perfumes, colognes and body washes at home. There may be someone in class (including a teacher) who will be tortured and forced to breathe your strong scent.
3. Do not perspire on another's mat. Basic hygiene. (The most criminal act you could ever commit is to perspire on my mat. While I am not a "germ phob," Niagara Falls of perspiration cascading on my mat will make my hair stand on end).
4. Wash your mat at least once a year. Those globs of sweat will be absorbed in your mat and it will begin to smell and create an environment of toxicity. If you are wondering why nobody wants to practice next to you then take a whiff of your own mat.
5. Do not walk on another's mat. Yoga mats are considered sacred territory, like borrowing someone else's toothbrush. Keep it sacred and step around a mat.
6. Be on time. What more can I say.
7. Leave your shoes outside the yoga room. Common sense.
8. Stay for Shavasana. It seems that the most stressed out people skip the last ten minutes of class and run out to go shopping or head to their nearest designer coffee house. Shavasana is the place of rest and relaxation; this is probably the most important part of the entire practice.
9. Keep the chit-chat to a minimum. There is nothing worse than a couple of friends joking or chatting in the back of class. Respect the space for those who wish to be there.
10. Stick to the routine being presented. There is nothing more annoying than someone coming to class who is doing a routine completely on their own and completely different than the rest of class (unless it is a Mysore class). Even if you are more advanced in your practice there is always something to be learned by going back to the basics.
11. Prepare before class starts. Grab as many props as you might feel necessary before class begins, even if you do not need them. It is very annoying for someone to leave a pose and forage their way to the prop area to get their tools.
12. Make friends. You are allowed to make friends and communicate to others next to you before and after class. Yoga rooms do not have to be deadly serious.
13. Do not adjust the air temperature or open a door or window without asking the teacher. Each teacher will keep the room at the desired temperature. The teacher has to gauge the vibe of the entire room. One person's desire might be for a warm stuffy room while another wishes for a cool and airy room. The teacher is in charge of the air, not you.
14. Keep quiet outside of class. Most people magically believe that thin walls and cardboard doors will keep sound from traveling into a yoga room. It will not.
15. Sign in before class. I don't ask you to give me a free service for whatever your job might be. Why should you expect to get a class for free? We yoga teachers love what we do but we still must pay our bills.
16. If you start to cough in Shavasana, get up and leave. It is very unsettling when someone begins to cough during Shavasana and stays in the room trying to tough it out. Now no one can relax. Get up and leave if this happens to you.
17. Give the teacher feedback. We do not read minds (well, at least not all the time). If you enjoyed a class or a sequence, inform the teacher. If you were not thrilled about a class or a pose, also tell the teacher. It is your practice. We will try to listen to your needs and desires.
18. Make room for students if the room is full. You are a grown up. Why wait for the teacher to rearrange students to make room for someone else. Take some initiative yourself. And while we are on the topic, stop being territorial. You do not own that eighteen-hundred square inches of bamboo floor that you have become so familiar with. Be willing to move to squeeze someone else in.
19. Put things back where you found them and how you found them. Fold blankets up neatly and stack blocks in an orderly fashion. If this were your home, how would you treat it? (Never mind that last part, I have seen some of your homes).
20. When you retrieve your shoes at the end of class make sure that you are walking home in the shoes that you came in. I am still looking for a pair of size 13 sandals that just seemed to walk off on their own.
21. Leave your animals at home. I once had a woman bring a small dog to class in her purse. (No, it was not Paris Hilton). I was not aware of this until after class. If I would have known I would have made this pooch perform a host of downward-facing-dog poses. On another occasion, someone brought a seeing-eye-dog in training to class. She (the woman not the dog) wanted the dog to get used to being around crowds. The dog lazily lounged in the back of class for the entire session. Who would have thought?
22. Take your used Kleenex with you. I can count many occasions when students will just toss their used tissues in the corner of a yoga room. Guess who gets to clean up after you leave?
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