It was only a matter of time and that time has come.
Like a movie critic, there is now a Yoga Critic who is panning the yoga classes she doesn’t like and championing the ones she does.
Yoga teachers: become famous enough and it won’t be long before you might be subjected to The Yoga Critic’s verbal beatdown.
Here are some of her reviews, of course leaving out the yoga teachers’ names.
- ______ ________ is the Titanic of yoga teachers. Just as the hubris of headstrong shipbuilders who insisted that the Titanic was unsinkable led to an unparalleled maritime disaster, so ____ _______’s overweening pride makes you feel like you’re on a capsizing ship from the first words that come out of his mouth to the final “Namaste” 90 impossibly long minutes later.
- All of 97 pounds, _____ _______’s screechy voice and tedious sequencing made me wistful for a shot of Demerol and a colonoscopy. Actually forget the Demerol.
- __ _____ teaches a masterful yoga class that stirs within her students a monumental battle between an imperturbable layman and the King who seeks power. There is no denying that all students leave bequeathed as Royalty.
- The sheer stench of ___ ____ as he lay on my back during Paschimottanasana sent me running to the toilette causing an all-orafice eruption the likes of which I have not experienced since eating street meat in Jaipur.
- Impressively sequenced with a precise tempo and profoundly articulate voice, ___ _____’s class is an engaging affair that packs a powerful physical, emotional, and spiritual punch.
- I couldn’t even begin to focus on the yoga while pondering the grime in ___ ____’s beard.
- Thank God for the chocolate because the yoga in ____ _______’s class made me feel like a lobotomized rodent with my scrotum trapped on a hamster wheel.
*****
I know what you must be thinking and I agree.
She writes really well.
And y’know, before everyone in the yoga world freaks out about this, I think it’s a good thing. Let me tell you why.
I recently read that a person who spends all their energy and attention trying to win the good favor of someone who doesn’t like her, is like a person who goes to picnic at a beautiful park and sits down right next the single piece of dog shit in an otherwise wide open grass field.
Point being…Criticism is as good or as bad as we allow it to be.
A harsh critic in our midst is good for the yoga world.
Why should yoga teachers be any different than actors or writers? It’s a creative act subject to review and opinion.
Critique keeps yoga teachers on their toes and reinventing their game.
We’ve all been to that teacher’s class who refuses to change their sequencing (might be me). Nothing like a good ol’ fashioned panning in the paper to pump a little creativity into your 6pm Flow.
We’ve all been to that teacher’s class who hasn’t changed their music playlist since 2007. Nothing like “a beatdown in the Bulletin” to send that teacher running to iTunes.
We’ve all been to that teacher’s class who gets a little too frisky with their hands. You better believe the abovementioned reviewer had something to say… “Such were ___ ____’s adjustments, I felt like a hooker rather than a yoga student at a quiet Friday Deep Stretch.”
Critiques, challenges, feedback are healthy.
It’s the individual’s responsibility to know how much criticism he can handle, how it can help him grow, and when to get up and walk away.
To ignore or suppress an open forum for feedback and criticism leads to weakness, laziness, and lack of character.
And God knows, character far exceeds any other human quality.
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