In class : some super, some bitter moments! U Must Read This:)

Jit and Amitabh kept a steady chatter in the Saturday. In case my other students are reading this, only these two men are normally allowed this luxury -- essentially because it entertains me:) But also, and mainly because, when I gently prod them back to the mat, they are back to the pose with complete focus and almost immediately.. . From the profane to the sacred in a jiffy... Only few can do that.. I think it has something to do with being inherently focused or even intrinsically  nice. The latter is more relevant somehow I feel, in how u progress on the mat:)  I recall, sometime back, when another student was in one such class, he thinks he is witty, when he takes the chocolate I keep for my students, pops it into his mouth, then presses the wrap into my hand, and orders me , with his chin, to indicate I must go put it in the bin! He thought he was being witty! Being familiar and rude! What I call the Roadies Syndrome -- anything for the TRPs nonsense.. Cheapness means celebrity.. If they do it on TV why not in a yoga class??!! And that gesture of that student  in fact made me feel very cheap... somehow.

Oh, btw. among the other bitter things I endured from  my students last month, one ex-student, travelling abroad, and who had not paid her credit card dues, updates her Mumbai contact number and puts my contact number (my personal mobile number, can u imagine) in her personal details. I start getting calls from a recovery agent!! Believe it or not... BEING A YOGA TEACHER CAN BE TREMENDOUSLY HORRIFYING SOME DAYS!!  In the to-fro emails that came, in the end the girl makes out that I am being insensitive, and that somehow, accidentally (really?? !!!)  the bank got my number and that I was being paranoid, while she was not!! Some such breast-beating, all designed to make her sound like a victim (!!!!) because I was ccing her mail to another  client of hers(also my student thru whom this weirdo got my mobile number in the first place)... Not only is she unwilling to see that nobody will buy her story that somehow the recovery agent got a protected number accidentally, she also turns nasty in her emails, making out that she is the victim and I was being insensitive, plus paranoid!! She actually writes that to me!!! U wonder that I worry that I am such a push-over?? I mean, heavens, this sort of weirdos come to my class!! Fro Rs 2500  I swallow sooooo much shit!

Any case, Amitabh did a fantastic Astavakrasana (eight-limbed pose) and also Jit. Sonia is getting it right... the form seems to give trouble to her, but otherwise she is lifting up well.  Sarah has started on the scorpion and is able to lift her head up -- the biggest challenge in teaching scorpion. If the student does it, half the battle in teaching scorpion is won. Plus, today, she was again asked to give the Sun salute instructions and did it for two rounds. This first shaky part is the most difficult when you want to become an instructor. That is why half the Sivananda teachers in Mumbai become private teachers... they simply lack the confidence to do sun salute to a group (it can be tremendously disorienting, believe me:).

And  Sonia did a standalone scorpion, finally today.. And on Saturday too, after going up twice into scorpion and squalling with pain from the shoulder, Amitabh offers to do it the third time, and floats up into it and stays there, steadily and for long... So, yes, the bitter part of teaching is always overwritten by other such sweet parts! :)

And so yes, despite my cathartic outbursts here ( I need a vent, mann!!)  it does not always feel like hell, being a yoga  teacher:) !!