Yoga Fight Club

I thought a fist fight was going to break out in my yoga class yesterday. Allow me to set the scene:

Class is just getting started, and we are all sitting in the darkened room. There is still a bit of chatter, as not everyone has quieted down yet. I hear, from the other side of the room, someone say in a bit of a loud voice:

Yoga Lady 1: "Please turn off your phone."

Class continues to quiet down. Now it's pretty quiet. The teacher is giving us some instructions.

Yoga Lady 1: "Please turn off your phone. The light bothers me."

No response that I can hear.

I peek over and see Yoga Lady 2, sitting on her mat, with her phone just to the side of it. It's a larger-sized iPhone, facing up, and the screen is lit up. It is fairly bright in the darkened room. Bright enough that I can see it from across the room.  I think, yeah, that would probably be distracting if I were sitting closer to her.

Yoga Lady 1: (quite loud now): "Please turn off your phone!"

No response that I can hear.

Yoga Lady 1: (almost shouting now): "PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR PHONE!"

Yoga Lady 1 repeats this a couple more times over the next 5 minutes or so. Now, while her words are, on the surface, polite, her tone of voice (and increasing volume) is not polite at all. She sounds very angry and hostile, even from the first request. Meanwhile, the yoga teacher (who I suspect, like me, does not like confrontation), giggles a bit nervously and otherwise tries to ignore the drama.

Yoga Lady 1: I HAVE ASKED NICELY SEVERAL TIMES. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR PHONE! (note: she does not sound nice at all)

Finally, a response from Yoga Lady 2: "It will turn off on its own. Take a chill pill."
(yeah, that's the right way to defuse the situation)

I peek over again. Yep. Phone still lit up. Our teacher goes over and has a quiet word with YL1 and YL2. I don't hear what (if anything) she says about the phone, but I do hear her say, "... or take this outside," and I do hear her point out that there are other spaces available if YL1 wants to move her mat.

A couple more minutes go by. Then Yoga Lady 1 stands up, picks up her mat, and moves to a different spot in the room. But before she quits her original spot, she leans over Yoga Lady 2 and shouts, "RUDE! RUDE! RUDE!"

For a minute there, I thought we had a fight on our hands. But class proceeded apace. And I think YL2's phone did eventually go dark.


Am I the only one who thinks it's hilarious (and ironic) (and ironically hilarious) when people get aggressive, passive-aggressive, or otherwise confrontational in yoga? Isn't this the place where we go to learn how to let things slide off our backs? How to focus despite the constant chatter from inside our own heads and distractions from outside our own heads?

I have written about Aggressive Yoga Ladies before (Cutthroat Yoga). I fully admit that I can sometimes be one of them. I do like "my spot," but I would never yell at anyone over it!  I have actually heard women shouting at each-other about someone "stealing" a spot—that was another potential fist-fight in the making!

I have been guilty of mentally shaming people who answer their phones in class. I get a little judgy when the phone rings, but I calm myself down and chalk it up to the person forgetting to silence their ringer. But when someone ANSWERS their phone without stepping out of the room, I feel I have the right to get a little peeved. I had enough of that with entitled doctors at medical conferences.

Okay, I've gotten a little off-topic. This transgression was a mild one. Leaving one's phone lit up is inconsiderate, sure, but hardly the same as answering the phone and carrying on a conversation. And yes, it was also inconsiderate to refuse to turn off the phone. But Yoga Lady 1 was hardly a model of kindness and compassion, either.

I guess the moral of the story is this: be kind to one another. This includes being kind to ourselves. And if you can swing it, disconnect from your devices for an hour here or there. It will drastically lessen your chances of getting into a fist-fight.