forward folds & moving backwards
on having a body that exercises in public
Several weeks ago, I bought an unlimited-intro class pass at a yoga studio in my neighborhood.
I’ve always loved yoga. It’s the best form of meditation for me. I love aligning movement and breath. I love finding something new in a posture or stretch I’ve done a million times. I love how good my body feels in savasana at the end, exhausted and sweaty and alive. Vinyasa, yin, hatha, “power” yoga flows—I’ve done’em all and loved them. Before the pandemic, there was a community-centric studio in my old neighborhood that I adored going to. It was a simple, humble space with pay-as-you-wish classes, thoughtful yet challenging instructors, and a wide variety of ways to advance my yoga practice.
But of course, it was one of many small business COVID-19 casualties.
So I was buzzing with excitement for a class at a new studio while simultaneously filled with a dread I couldn’t quite place. I’d had very little public yoga practice since The Pandemic, and my body has softened, widened, become curvier, for a multitude of reasons (most of them stress-eating related but that’s a story for another newsletter). I’d continued my practice at home with regularity, but something in me sensed that this was going to be a challenge, and likely not in the ways I had hoped.
Ever the people pleaser, I followed instructions: I showed up to class ten minutes early, set out my mat near the back of the classroom, grabbed some yoga blocks and a blanket. I did some stretches where I felt tight as other practitioners wandered in. It was an all-levels class, so I felt like I was where I was supposed to be.
The class started with some very goofy breathing exercises but hey, that’s what you pay for at a yoga studio in a major city. That’s what I told myself anyway. The class then launched into poses quickly, no easing in and slowly ramping up with some easy peasy sun salutations like most classes I’ve attended.
It was then that I began to realize that everyone in this classroom—late morning on a Thursday—was the kind of person to regularly take yoga classes at odd times on weekdays. As in, these were yogis. Fit, long, lithe, and at ease. I was sweating at this point from exertion and also a realization: I think I’ve made a huge mistake.
But this was confirmed for me when the instructor often loudly called me out by name to correct tiny imperfections in my postures. To be clear, I was doing the poses—I simply made modifications I’d learned in other yoga classes, ones that work best for my tender knees and lower back. Only one other student’s name was called out, hers for a small misplaced foot. Not to mention the studio also hosts hot yoga: this class wasn’t hot yoga, but someone also definitely didn’t turn the heater off, so I was positively dripping with sweat and not in the fun yogi way.
The worst part though? I was the only one the instructor touched—specifically pushing on my lower back while I was in forward fold so that my stomach (larger than basically every other student’s) was even more squished against my thighs. Dripping with sweat, my belly being pushed into my thighs…for what? She didn’t ask permission or warn me either. She just…pushed.
Another way to put it? My body was just not cut out for this woman’s idea of what yoga ought to look like.
So I did something I’m not 100% proud of: I left. I’m not one to quit on things easily. I am a completionist—I finish books I don’t like, I try to clear my plate, I have to gather every foragable in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (if you know, you know). Ending things early and not seeing them through to the finish due to discomfort feels wrong, unsatisfying, bad. That doesn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do, but that also doesn’t mean it felt good.
This is the part where an internet troll would make fun of me for being a ~triggered snowflake~. And maybe I am (I definitely am). But I couldn’t stand another moment feeling so surveilled and at the whims of a person who didn’t know me, my body, or my practice, who felt compelled to humiliate me in front of my peers.
The idea that my simplest pose—a forward fold, second only to mountain or savasana in regards to ease—was incorrect and not enough given the shape of my body was mortifying. It was a reminder of why I had always been wary of yoga studios even before I found my favorite place pre-pandemic. There was always A Way in Which to Pose that, regardless of suggested modifications or supposed body positivity, I couldn’t catch on to.
Something in me oozed a weakness, physical and spiritual, that this yoga instructor could sniff out. I was, and I continue to be, a body with an unruly shape, one that needed to be corrected and prompted to fix, not for safety, but for aesthetics. Goddess forbid I know my own body and the shapes it takes, the contours and topography I’m working with all day, everyday.
I wrote an email to the studio letting them know what had happened. I was certain I was not the only one who had experienced something like this and it felt only right to let them know privately. I received a thoughtful apology and a promise to do better and an extended intro offer. That’s fair, I suppose. But I can’t say my body will ever be fully at ease in that space. I’m not likely to return though I can’t say I blame the owner.
To point out the limitations of another person’s body is an act of othering, even when it is well-intentioned. To point out the limitations loudly in front of others is about power, not guidance. To point out the limitations of another person’s body that is doing no harm robs that person and their body of comfort. It is a curse, a perpetual hex: may you never feel like you and your body, no matter how hard you try.
Some of you may be thinking: Sarah, bestie, it’s not that fucking deep. Chuck an empty can of High Noon hard seltzer down any Brooklyn block and you’ll hit a yoga studio. Just go somewhere else.
If you’re someone thinking that: I agree! But this is a phenomena I’ve experienced enough in various ways at yoga studios, gyms, and fitness classes to know its not just me. After all, there is an entire body positivity movement that has paved the way for this post (shoutout to writers like Roxane Gay, Samantha Irby, Lindy West, Aubrey Gordon, and others who have inspired me).
I suppose I was so bothered not merely because it was embarrassing, but because it was indeed so banal. My gut feeling beforehand had been right despite no evidence to support it, but that didn’t save me from the burn of my dashed hopes. And I think more of us walk around feeling this way—for far more extreme, challenging, or even traumatic reasons—than women like that yoga instructor seem to think.
For those who have the privilege to work with other people’s bodies: do you consider your relationship to power and the body of another? What is it you see when you look at me? And when the shape of another person bothers you, do you think you have a right to humiliate them and touch them? And if you do: what or who has given you that (misguided) privilege?
