Yoga Guy Video

I could tell so many stories about inappropriate yoga people in general; I'm sitting here laughing my butt off. In this video, the yoga guy is hitting on women, but what about the inappropriate yogis who are just annoying and can't be bothered to learn basic yoga etiquette? While there are many "Inappropriate Yoga Guys," not all of them are hitting on girls; some of them are just too loud, too raucous, too obnoxious, and not always men.

Of course there has to be some kind of concession made for the newcomer - he or she might take a few minutes or a few classes to get the subtle hints about behavior. But what about the regular practitioners who are still doing things like talking loudly at the beginning, or worse, during class?

I've been teaching for about five years now and I've seen some...interesting characters. And I should say that I'm not the strictest, most rigid teacher. I like to keep things light because I find that it lends a nicer energy to the class and the practice. But even with that, there have been some moments.

I taught for a long time in a gym, so you can extrapolate whatever you will from that, in and of itself. There was one "Inappropriate Yoga Guy" who I always dreaded seeing because he hit on me every time he came to class. It was to the point that at the end of class, I would make sure that one of the other regulars would hang around and not leave me along with the guy.

It started pretty early in my teaching, too. In the beginning, since my classes were fairly small, I would do manual adjustments on each person during final relaxation. It's a common practice: apply some pressure to the shoulders, give some traction at the head or legs, all in the name of helping the students relax more. Well, that didn't last long. This guy happened to be at a class where I was doing the head-traction thing and suddenly after that, he would request it during every class. Now, I was also pregnant at the time, so the manual adjustments had to stop anyway - the bending was to much for me - but even if I hadn't been, I would have had to stop because, quite frankly, he creeped me out.

This situation went on, on and off, for the four years I worked at that place. He wouldn't show up for a lovely period of months, then out of the wood works, he'd come to class, stand around not doing half the poses (so I'd come and pay some attention to him, which eventually, I stopped doing) and then after class would ask really inappropriate things. The last straw was when he started asking about soul-mates and if I could help him find his. He had the nerve to say this in front of at least two other people who were gobsmacked at his audacity. I responded, less than politely, that I'd found mine and I couldn't help him with that. After that, unprofessional as it may sound, when he would come to class, I would try to pretend he wasn't there for the most part. See, in that environment, there was no one for me to complain to. If it had been a studio, I would have told the owner and he would have been dealt with. But in a gym, the management couldn't care less.

Even where I'm working now, my very first class was during a 'free' week. Two men came to the class, and at the end, sure enough, one of them started asking me if I danced and gave me his number and all this information about a swing-dancing group. This was after I pointed out that, no, my HUSBAND and I don't dance. Insert sigh here.

There have been the guys who just make loud proclamations of an irrelevant nature in the middle of a class, or the guy who loves to show off his headstands, or the woman who has to let everyone in class know about every ailment she's ever had, and by the way, she's getting old and can't do this stuff, or the person who just can never seem to get to class at any other time but during meditation.

The best was the woman who came to class with her two very elderly parents - one who could barely move and the other with sever Alzheimer's - and then left them there in a room full of about thirty-five other people. That one I had to put a stop to for their own safety and the safety of my other students. I mean, honestly, it's not good for anyone to see a person climbing on their spouse's back during Downward Facing Dog.

What do you do if you encounter one of these characters? Talk to the teacher first. If that doesn't work and you're at a studio, go right to the owner - they have the authority to ban people from their studios for refusing to behave. At a gym, members have much more weight than instructors in the eyes of management, so going to the teacher is still a good move, but then you may need to address the complaint to the club manager or the group exercise manager if the club is big enough to have one. I don't recommend getting overly upset (unless the behavior is so out of control, like someone making physical contact) right off the bat. Gentle admonitions can often do the trick - some people really just don't know any better and need a little guidance. Getting angry and calling the perpetrator out in the middle of class though will only serve to ruin your practice and sense of calm, along with everyone else's. If all else fails, set yourself up for deep relaxation, grab and eye pillow and just say OM...and then chuck said eye pillow at the back of the jerk's head. But you didn't hear that from me.