Aselin

My first yoga instructor was named Ted. He was a soft spoken man who never, and I do mean never, exited his seated position. Regardless of the poses we were attempting, he remained seated on his mat and explained what he wanted us to do. It was an interesting technique, and without demonstration, I performed most of the poses inaccurately. At the time I thought he was the laziest teacher ever, but child care was included with the class and I had two toddlers so I would have found standing with my forehead against a wall for an hour worth it.

Ted soon moved on to different yoga pastures leaving our little class without a teacher. A few weeks later Phil was hired. Phil was a twenty something guy who owned one set of clothes, smoked like a chimney and refused to comb his long hair. Regardless of how many classes I took - and Phil taught four days a week - Phil had the same outfit on. I suspected he lived in his car.

Phil had a different style than Ted. He was very hands on, in an appropriate way, and after I got over my aversion to his hygiene I found myself learning quite a bit from Phil. I warmed to him the day he showed up with a shaved head. It showed off his earrings.

One day a uniformed woman came in to our class and announced that Phil had moved to Tibet. I suspect Tibet is better than a Datsun hatchback. Abandoned once again our disoriented little group rolled up our mats and went home.

Bev was hired next. Bev was an interesting teacher who chose to berate certain students into higher effort. Because most of Bev’s class was of the over 70 set, I was often the target. Some days it worked. Many days it didn’t.

Ted the Lazy, Phil the Stinky, Bev the Bossy have nothing on my new teacher.

The first day I entered the class a couple of weeks ago, I found a spot at the back, unrolled my mat and began to prepare. Usually it’s hard to find space in the back of a yoga class, so while the front of the room was completely full, I had my pick of the back, for which I was thankful.

Suddenly, in walked my new teacher, Lance. Good grief, no YMCA yoga teacher I had ever seen had looked like Lance. He was straight out of central casting. Bulging muscles rippling out of his muscle shirt and short shorts. I realized why there was room at the back. All but one of the members in the class were women, and they were clustered around Lance the Luscious like some sort of 80’s movie.

Despite the demand by most of the women for his personal attention, Lance was leading a very nice class. He was instructive, fluid and so far by my assessment not just a pretty face. About 3/4 of the way through the class we were all twisting our way into “Eagle Pose” A tricky balance pose where your arms twist around each other, your legs twist around each other and you stand on one foot in a squat with your arms reaching toward the sky. (If you don’t understand what I just said, this will illustrate why Ted the Lazy was such an ineffective teacher.)

So there we were, balancing and squatting with a gong solo being played on the CD player when suddenly, clearly, audibly poor Lance the Luscious became Lance the Loud.

Exploding with human effervescence worthy of a locker room, Lance passed gas like he had fallen on a whoopie cushion. The entire room lost their zen, devolving into a cacophony of giggles as poor, blushing Lance attempted to pretend like nothing had just happened. The unfortunate thing is gas is funny. Always. Yoga folk often refer to it as wind. In my experience, wind is more discreet.

Interestingly enough Lance’s appeal seemed to diminish on the spot. People actually scooted away from him.

It was bound to happen. You pack a hot room with 20 or so tofu eating, spandex wearing humanoids listening to gong music and you're just asking for trouble.

Suddenly my unwanted real estate was prime.

Yesterday in class, people didn’t cluster around Lance like they had. I had to fight for the back. I much preferred him on everyone else’s pedestal.

Leaving class a woman commented to me that poor Lance will never live down his fart. She is probably right.

There but the grace of God go I.