I apologise for the lack of pictures for my posts over the last few days. My damn cat has chewed through the charger of my laptop and I’m waiting for a new one to be delivered (a new charger, not a new non-chewing cat, sadly). This means I haven’t had access to my Filezilla or my photo editing tools etc etc. So text only for now. Hoping to get some pictures up over the weekend (UK postal service permitting)!
Today I want to talk about yoga class etiquette. Over the years I have spent teaching yoga I have come across people from all walks of life. 99% of my students have been polite, sweet, kind and very, very open minded (which is really just as well). I have had students who have come once, contributed fully to the class and never come again; I presume because they found yoga wasn’t for them, or my way of teaching wasn’t for them, or that life just got in the way. You learn not to take it personally.
But then there are that tiny handful of students who can be downright rude. Now maybe I rule my yoga classes with an iron thumb, maybe I’m too strict but I feel I have to look after the good of the whole class and not just the individual. My students come for a variety of reasons, some of which I will never know, some of which they probably don’t know and I want their experiences to be as safe and as comfortable as possible. This means that arriving anymore than five minutes late is not an option. Neither is leaving during or before final relaxation unless you have told me you might have to beforehand and I have put you near the door. If your mobile phone rings I will let it go once. If it happens every week I will pull you up on it. And may the gods help you if you actually have a conversation on it during my class! 
But by far the worst thing that has happened to me though was once when I was covering a friend’s class at a gym. Suddenly, about five minutes into the class one particular student began to do her own personal practice in the middle of the room. I quietly asked if everything was OK. She told me she didn’t like “this kind of yoga”. Now, everyone teaches differently and not everyone welcomes the cover teacher with open arms but I do believe if you teach from the heart most people will enjoy it. Clearly not all though.
I said I was sorry to hear she was unahppy and quietly asked her if they would maybe like to leave and come back the next week when the regular teacher returned.
She just carried on.
And I just carried on teaching.
She continued to practice throughout the class and throughout my relaxation session.
She was still going when I left.
I honestly didn’t know what else to do.
Even now, with many more years teaching experience behind me I’m still not sure I would know what to do.
Yoga teachers – what would you have done in this situation? How would you have felt? And what etiquette do you expect from your students?
Non-yoga teachers – what behaviour drives you wild when you go to yoga class? Or just behaviour in general?
Of course, we should all be practicing mindful detatchment and letting these situations go. What can I say? We’re only human!
“Though the unwise cling to their actions, watching for results, the wise are free from attachments, and act for the well-being of the whole world.”
–Bhagavad Gita, 3.25 (as stolen from Brenda P’s blog post yesterday)
That would probably bother me too. Sometimes I do a bit of my own thing (as a student), like if the teacher cues us into extended angle and my bent leg is extremely tired from warriors, I’ll pop into triangle for a couple of breaths and then go back into extended angle. But to completely ignore the teacher for almost the entire length of the class is just rude.
She might as well have gone home to practice if she didn’t need you at all. As a teacher though, I’m not sure what else you can do. If you suggested she come back next week and she ignored you, you’re stuck – short of physically kicking someone out of class.
I’ve wondered about this myself. Since I’m still a green teacher, my experience with rude yogis has been mostly as a student. I’ve wondered how I would handle it and fortunately haven’t had to find out yet. One thing I’ve found very distracting is when an obvious couple come to yoga class together and talk or whisper throughout the entire practice. The teachers (two different ones) both ignored the behavior, but I wonder if they gave a few dirty looks. I couldn’t tell.
I think you did the best you could without disturbing the other students, although I’m sure the ’solo practitioner’ in the middle of the room was disturbing too. It sounds like an extreme form of acting out – against what or whom, who knows right? You didn’t want to insist she leaves and thereby cause a scene, but it sounds like a scene was there to be had no matter what.
When I’m in someone else’s class, I tend to find most people are pretty good. I tend to be quite inwardly focused so a person has to be REALLY annoying for me to notice what they’re up to. Although the school where I did my YTT had a woman turn up one day for class 10 minutes late, and when she was asked to wait until the meditation was over before entering the class, she chucked an absolute fit. Most unbecoming…
I think as a teacher, it’s easy to see why a yoga class is something to honor and respect, but probably some students don’t…yet. Or, they might not see coming in late as disruptive to the other students. So often in our lives we rush from place to place, and many students don’t understand that we have to take time, sometimes at the expense of other things, to get to yoga on time. We want to squeeze it all in, rather than deliberately choose the activities that are most valuable.
The studio I teach at is set up in such a way that we don’t have much of a reception area so anyone coming in late definitely disrupts class, so I lock the front door at the beginning of class. I’ve only ever had one student do something completely different than what I was teaching (but I’ve only been teaching 9 mo.) and I didn’t say anything to him. He has come back to my classes after that time and does seem to do what I lead, so maybe there was some resistance at first? Resistance to my sequencing, or attachment to the regular teacher? I try to be compassionate toward student’s possible fear of change even though my ego is screaming “oh come on, just give what I’m teaching a chance!” It’s so challenging and rewarding to be a yoga teacher!
Wow, I can’t believe a Yoga student would do that! Forget your response, her actions are in defiance to the practice of Yoga as well! I could understand modifying or substituting a move to your comfort level, but to modify an entire lesson?!? Unbelievable.
I’ve been fortunate to attend classes with mostly considerate and respectful Yogis. The only thing I could say that drives me batty is when mats are close together and someone spreads out off their mat (with an arm or a leg) into your space, so you are forced to modify your practice. That used to drive me crazy!
I’m pretty new to yoga, but as a student, I find people “doing their own thing” incredibly distracting! Especially when I’m trying to balance. There’s an incredible energy from all doing thee same thing at once, I’m sure solo yoga is cool too, but I like the group-ness of it!
Also, often yoga classes are crowded – the only thing keeping us from getting in each other’s way is that we’re all doing the same thing at the same time.
Some people just blow my mind!
This happened to me too when i had only been teaching for a couple of months… I was horrified – I could tell the student thought the class was too easy/too slow/too boring for her and she decided she’d rather do her own thing – she was very flexible so proceeded to do a whole lot of quite challenging poses but her technique showed her immaturity (and mirrored her behaviour!) – it infuriated me and distracted the rest of the class but I was too inexperienced to know how to handle it so just ignored her and carried on as best I could – i spoke to my teacher about it aftewards and she said in future I should politely ask her to ‘get with the program’! (of course this student never returned but I will certainly use this if it ever happens again)
I think some students are so arrogant they feel they know better than the teacher instead of realising that even if they have walked into a beginnger’s class or a style of yoga that they are not familiar with, there is ALWAYS something that they can learn by paying attention, listening and being present. And if their egoes are still too inflated to do that, they would do better to politely and quietly excuse themselves!
I am also a little bit strict about class etiquette… As you say, as the teacher has to try and act with the best interests of the majority in mind, not pander to individuals.
I think you did the best you could with a difficult situation. Obviously that woman was ‘acting out’ in some way as Svasti says. Since it wasn’t your regular class, really, there wasn’t much you could do. Isn’t it awful how long an hour and a half can be in a painful situation like that?!
As a better example of what your student could have done, there is a woman who occasionally comes to my classes who is very flexible and likes to practice some advanced poses. She always comes early to make sure she gets a place in the back corner of the class, and she respectfully follows the flow of the class, just modifying poses with more advanced variations.
I generally call people on little behaviours like having private conversations in class. I try to do it in a good-natured but public way (i.e. saying it out loud instead of whispering it just to them) so it’s obvious that their behaviour is not appropriate, and if they keep doing it they will end up getting dirty looks from the other students.
I do have one student who a year or more, arrived chronically late for every class, asked people to move so she could lay down her mat, insisted on laying her mat at strange angles to everyone else, and sometimes vocally complained about poses or sequences. Seriously! I would ask her to come on time, make her line up her mat with everyone else, and when she would complain about a pose I would tell her to go ahead and modify, and use it as a point to the class to listen to their own bodies first, and the teacher (me) second. Interestingly enough, something finally clicked and she has not only started arriving early, but lining up her mat with everyone else, and practicing in silence, occasionally modifying poses to suit her needs. Guess the yoga is finally working!!
I’ve only been teaching 5 or 6 months, so this is all very interesting and helpful.
A couple of weeks ago, I had a couple in the front row of a very full class, and the woman kept talking to the man – not even whispering. After about 3-4 minutes, I just walked over and asked her nicely not to talk during class.
She looked completely surprised and embarrassed – I honestly don’t think she realized it was rude. She never said another word, and I made sure to give them both adjustments during savasana and to smile at them when they left. Hopefully it worked out okay for everyone, but I agree that the good of the whole has to come before the good of one or two rude individuals.
I’m glad you’ve written this post because I think yoga class etiquette is so important. It really annoys me when people arrive late (especially as I always make an effort to arrive early). There’s nothing worse than when you’re trying to be present at the beginning of a class and someone interrupts.
Not a fan of mobile’s going off either. I think they’re my two pet peeves when it comes to yoga classes.
I can’t believe how rude that person was in your class. That’s totally disrespectful and not very yoga-minded!
Hope you have a great weekend and that it’s sunny in your parts
haha… as i was reading this, i knew there was going to be a maelstrom of responses…!
i recently had someone send a text message during a class. she asked permission first, but that was also a bit awkward, as i was currently *leading a class*.
i think you did the right thing in your sitch, but it is a bummer.
While in at Seane Corn’s workshop, someone’s cell phone went off. Seane politely asks the owner of that ring tone please go turn off their phone. No one moved. Phone stopped. 10 minutes later, phone rings again. She requested the owner go turn off the phone. Again no one moved. Phone stopped. Another while passes and phone rings again. Seane proceeds to the cubbies and listens for the phone. Found the bag the phone was in and threw the bag outside. Wow! I thought. That’s bold. I felt so bad for the owner of that bag because now everyone will know who they were. I’ll get an occasional cell phone go off during class and would just joke about it and it won’t ring again. But one time I had the keep ringing phone. The second or third time I asked that person to turn off their phone. No one claimed it. 4th and 5th ring, I went to the cubbie and listened to where the ring was coming from and threw it into the lobby. No more cell phones rang in class after that
I think it is not so much a question of someone doing their own thing as it is about the attitude that they do it with.
I have one student who comes to 3 classes a week when she is in town, she has some auto-immune issues and totally does her own thing… I used to dread her arrival because it made me very uncomfortable as a new teacher at the time to have such an ‘uncompliant’ student. But I tried to be open to the reasons behind the behaviour without compromising the flow of the class by offering her a space on the side vs the middle and checking in with her after every class to offer a tips or a few alternative poses for ones that she just skipped all together. I tried to assume that I had something to learn from her and from the challenge of working with her… everything for a reason and all that… I really do believe that there are no accidents.
Anyway, gradually we got to a place where she knows enough to do her own thing safely and I know enough to know when to offer specific verbal and physical cues in class and when to just let her be. After class, she says she just feels so much better even though she hasn’t been doing much, she just likes to be in that space and follows along in her mind with the breath and movement cues even when she appears to just be lying there oblivious in her own mid-session savasana.
No matter how much experience a teacher has, I think that in some cases, the student does no more about their own bodies and their own needs than any teacher could. As a teacher, I hope to be able to give them the abilities to see past their pre-concieved ideas of what they can and can’t do and to really trust their bodies inner wisdom enough to develop a strong personal practice that can carry them through the ups and downs of life, beyond their my class. That is the biggest gift my teachers gave me and that is what I hope to pass on with the greatest humilty and respect for the tradition as a whole.
Anyway, thank you so much for this post, it’s made me think alot and connect some things together that I never really considered in the same space.
wow – so many more responses this morning than last night when i started writing more comment before having to run out! i forgot to say, the cell phone thing – i immediately find the phone, turn it off and keep it until after class so they have to come get it from me… this usually works pretty well to deter future offenders and accidental ones are usually grateful to have it dealt with quickly as i can get to it more easily than they can as i’m on my feet and they are… on their hands ; )
wow – so many more responses this morning than last night when i started writing my last comment before having to run out! i forgot to say, the cell phone thing – i immediately find the phone, turn it off and keep it until after class so they have to come get it from me… this usually works pretty well to deter future offenders and accidental ones are usually grateful to have it dealt with quickly as i can get to it more easily than they can as i’m on my feet and they are… on their hands ; )
Wow, what a great post and what a great response (glad you could use the Gita quote). I have a student very similar to LaG’s, who, I guess, thinks she is so far ahead of everyone else that she can come late/do extreme modifications/ignore my verbal directions. Luckily she is usually in the back of the class so she only annoys me.
I try to accept that her behavior is her need to draw attention to herself and that her presence in the class must be the universe’s message to me to chill. It’s hard not to take it personally, altho, since this has been going on for years (despite some quiet conversations after class), she keeps coming back. I guess something is working for her.
I’m not dead, so I must be stronger…fun post!
Wow. I guess I have been really lucky with students. I have a few younger guys who can get a little goofy in one of my gym classes…but I don’t give them any attention and they eventually start to focus again. I’ve never had a problem with cell phones. My students ask permission or let me know when they are going to leave early. I rarely have late students but when I do, I just smile at them and keep on keeping on. I’ve certainly had challenging students but no one has been outrightly rude to me. However, I do have one student who comes to class at the gym with his wife on occasion. He never stays through savasana and lets the door slam on his way out. I honestly believe he just has no idea and I haven’t had the chance to catch him and ask him to quietly close the door.
I’m trying out a new studio in the suburbs and when I arrived at Basics class it was a bit crowded but there was plenty of room between students. I walked towards that space and asked the 2 on either side if they would please move their mats over. The teacher interrupted and directed me to the back of the room – “why don’t you set up over there, by the door.” I saw that space, and didn’t want my back to the door and with a poor view of the teacher. Sure enough, several people came, and that spot and more were filled. It really pissed me off (I’m a beginner, after all) and took me out of the moment for quite a while. Next week I’m coming early and setting up there first – Isn’t that terrible? I think it might be where the “regulars” go b/c the woman who took that spot knew the one to her left. I don’t think the teacher should have interfered.
Oh I agree Victoria. In fact I’m not a huge fan of students sitting in the same place all the time anyway. They get too attached to a spot. I always move my students around every few weeks!
Great post and great responses! I am not a teacher yet but I believe that if I turn up to a class, I should respect the the teacher, my fellow yogis and the space. If I don’t like it, it doesn’t matter. Yoga is not about being comfortable all the time. I think the person who did their own practice in your class is rude and should have moved to the back of the room at least. We can all learn from styles we we don’t like in a sub situation. We should be open enough to allow for that experience, or simply leave.
http://www.suburbanyogini.com’s done it once more. Superb read.