Don't Stand So Close to Me

Imagine my relief last night at yoga school when before starting the anatomy test, which I was very much looking forward to getting out of the way, the studio director spent 45 minutes explaining to us that one of our fellow yogis had been put on suspension pending further investigation. 

I didn't need to know the background to this situation as I have been living it 3 times a week.  The suspendee in question is only one of two men taking this course, the rest comprising 15 women and the remaining man is an absolute diamond geezer.   After unsuspectingly pairing up with said stain of a person and being inappropriately manhandled for the best part of 3 hours, I decided that would be the one and only time I would have anything to do with him.  In retrospect I ought to have voiced my concerns and saved half a dozen other women from the same degradation.  At the very least I should have kicked him in the brick. 

Yoga is a very precise exercise which benefits the practitioner more if poses are properly aligned.  For this it is sometimes necessary to physically manipulate or adjust the person while in the pose in order that person extract from the posture everything it has to offer the mind and body.   Verbal cues are good and I appreciate them too but to be fair I like as much silence as possible during yoga practice as it's the meditative quality that sets it apart from other physical therapy.  And then there are those times when words simply don't make sense...melt the back of your heart to your thighs...I said what?  So of course - by all means prod.

It is very important then, to adjust but equally important to respect the rules of boundary and emotional space when doing so.  Here are a couple of rules of engagement - our code of ethics if you will:  Never adjust from the front; never touch the fleshy parts of the body and use as few appendages as possible when doing so e.g. heels of hands or fingers suffice.  You catch my drift.  So when you have a man pushing his gonads into your neck while adjusting you in triangle, you are free to leave because believe me this is not yoga.

This was common practice for the blokey who is now sitting at home waiting for sentencing - in denial I might add and very very defiant.  Hmnnn...I thought yoga was about truthfulness and non-violence.  Mahatma Gandhi he ain't! (nor am I but he's less!)

If that were not bad enough I've witnessed full hand placement on waist and chest areas - way too close for comfort.  He refers to chest as the boob area and seat bones as the ass.  Not being funny but do you want one slap or two?  two probably, the dirty dog.

And if that were not unsavoury enough - you really don't want to hear his locker-room talk.  In short, the man is a slimeball.  There to break boundaries not respect them and I for one feel he has been taking liberties of the sexual harrassment kind.  Again, I blame myself for not barking at the moron from the start but I was in a yoga frame of mind and wished to give him the benefit of the miniscule doubt.  Truthfulness is also about honest communication and assertiveness - I failed my fellow women but I have no intention of letting them down twice.

Now we are faced with a situation where we, as a group need to either stage an intervention with the intention of allowing him back into the circle of trust or banish him forever.  I will vote for banishment delivered with a few nuggets of advice.  I will spare you the details as to what my words of wisdom would be.  I'm trying to practice the virtue of non-violence and I'd get a big fat E minus if I let rip now but off and fuck would probably be in there somewhere.  Wanker and piss ant too.

I asked my husband (who would travel the world the long way round, on foot, just to prove me wrong) whether a man could be that unaware.  After long deliberation, because to conceed too quickly would be to lose his place on the leader's board, he admitted that in all honestly a man knows when he is flirting, being obscene and most definitely knows when he is touching women inappropriately.  Of course and that settles it.

In short he was the creepiest thing that ever slid into a place of karmic balance and until he takes responsibility for his actions there is no room for slugs like him anywhere really.  I will give him this - he can clear a room in less than 60 seconds.  Perhaps he should work for the fire department as the world's first human smoke alarm and put that skill to good use for a change.