The Yoga Class by Rebecca Erpf
I was five minutes from starting the class when he arrived. I was positioning my yoga mat, and the singing bowl, and going over in my head the scenes I was going to use for meditation (probably the blue pond turning into a ball of energy story, I hadn’t used that one in a while) when he came stumbling through the curtain door, still wearing his ratty Teva sandals (which was taboo in the yoga tradition-shoes were always shed outside the door), and stomped into the dimly lit room, full mostly of my regular students and a few less familiar faces whom I had seen before in other instructors’ classes. When he arrived, the man was already sweating, which was not a good sign, since that night was planned to be a Vinyasa Flow class, one of my favorites, based on a series of poses strung together by smooth flowing transitions. There were no rests in the “Flow” classes, so on the website and class list I had purposely included INTERMEDIATE/ADVANCED ONLY next to the class times.
Sitting cross-legged on my mat, trying to calm my mind before beginning, I watched as the man fumbled through the basket of free mats, wiping the beads of sweat forming on his forehead every few seconds with the back of his hand. The whole class, twelve of us in all that night, swiveled our heads to look at him as he made a big production of shaking out the blue and red striped rubber mat he had chosen, making loud flapping sounds and blowing out one of the candles that was placed along the wall in the process.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, not looking up at anyone in particular. His outfit was all wrong as well—loose fitting athletic shorts and a baggy t-shirt. I cringed as I imagined helping him during the shoulder stand series that would come about halfway through the ninety minute class. I could just picture his t-shirt sliding down over his round belly as I braced his ankles, helping him catch his balance.
“Ok, let’s start in a standing position, mountain pose,” I said as soon as the man was close enough to settled as I imagined he would ever be. The class all stood in unison, placing their hands next to their sides, eyes trained straight ahead. As I glimpsed the man’s outturned toes and slumped back, my mind raced back to the training retreat I had attended the year before in San Diego, where I was taught all of the most dangerous positions for beginners, and how to best avoid injury for newer students.
I started out easy—forward bend, lunge, Downward Dog, Plank, Upward Dog. I did the vinyasa series a few times, seeing out of the corner of my eye a few wobbles and loud sighs from the man, but for the most part the room stayed comfortably quiet, the music and our breath forming a hum that over time I had learned to let carry me away into another world completely. I narrated the pranyamic breathing method for the class, inhale deeply from the stomach, hold, exhale completely, hold.
It was once we started the Warrior poses that he started coughing. One sharp cough during the Inverted Triangle shook my concentration, during his ten second phlegm filled fit during Warrior II, I had to stop talking for a few seconds to regroup. I tried to pull from my inner strength, tried to focus only on my words and the flow of the movement, tried to imagine what a professional athlete must have to do to block out a noisy crowd of spectators.
The coughing continued as the man clumsily followed along with each change of position. I almost hoped he would step out of the room, but I knew how much a body leaving could disrupt the energy of a class, no matter how disruptive that body may be.
“Now from prayer position, lower your hands to the mat and move into Plank,” I continued, concentrating on keeping my voice at its usual mid-level meditative hum.
“Excuse me?” The man’s abrasive voice, still scratchy from his coughing fit, pierced through my concentration and I could feel it come torpedoing through the heavy hanging energy of the room. “How far apart should the feet be during Plank? Shoulder width? Is that right?” I swooped out of my pose and walked over to him, trying to step gently so as to not shake the wood floor. As I approached him I nodded.
“Just hold in Plank for a few seconds,” I said to the class. “Yes, sir,” I lowered my voice to answer him, placing my hand in the center of his back, feeling the soft hollow ridge of flesh where the bones of his spine should have protruded, if he hadn’t been so doughy. “Just continue focusing on your breathing and allow yourself to sink into each pose. No need to push too far, just allow the poses to do the work for you,” I recited my usual beginner script, praying that he would relax and start to let the quiet energy of the room surround and lead him.
Once I returned to my spot at the front of the room, I paused for a second, trying to remember where I was in the series. I couldn’t remember, so I just returned to the sun salutations, trying to up the tempo so they took us a little farther beyond the warm-up we had just completed. When I finally regained my focus, I flowed right into the standing poses: Tree, Dancing Shiva, Awkward, Eagle. I was successfully blocking out the rattled breathing of the man and fully melting into the rhythmic beats of the Enya CD playing from the speakers, when I heard a heavy thump from his general direction. He had fallen out of Eagle, the pose where we balance on one foot with the other foot raised and resting on the opposite leg’s inner thigh, our hands placed in prayer position. Looking back, I saw his hand fumbling awkwardly at the edge of his neighbor’s mat as he lifted himself back up onto his knees and then heaved back up to a standing position. I saw out of the corner of my eye a few of the other students falling out of the pose as well, losing their balance as they turned toward the scene at the center of the room.
I felt the sweat dripping from my forehead and trickling down my back as I eyed the caterpillar speed of the minute hand on the clock, 7:17, thirteen minutes left to fill. I felt the collective need of the class for an extra long Sarvasana, our rest pose which always comes at the very end of each class, so I began the move into it about five minutes earlier than usual.
“Now turn over on your backs into Corpse pose for our final Sarvasana, close your eyes and allow your palms to fall open at your sides. Relax the muscles of your face, and of your chest. And then…” I closed my eyes as well, allowing myself to sink into full relaxation, letting the words of the meditation flow from my lips of their own will, focusing on the buzz that always formed at the center of my stomach during final rest, only to be released during our final chant. My meditation story lasted its usual five minutes, the room remaining blissfully quiet throughout, and then I allowed myself to settle into the quiet as well, feeling the arms of nurtured energy wrap themselves around me.
I was fully engulfed in an alternate plane of meditation when he spoke again.
“Are we done here?” he said, his words completely filling the vulnerable expanses of the room. It felt as if all of our energy was sucked back in to the center, sucked up into the unexpected rumble of his words. My head shot up.
“Excuse me, sir? Is there a problem?” I asked.
“Well, I was just wondering if,” he chuckled then. “I was hopin’ you hadn’t fallen asleep? It’s just we’ve been laying down for going on fifteen minutes…” his voice trailed off, perhaps sensing the general growing discomfort of the room.
The buzzing in my stomach had turned to a full blown churning. Confrontation was something I had avoided my entire life, perhaps one of the leading reasons I was so drawn to yoga when I first discovered it in my early twenties, fresh out of a turbulent relationship and newly graduated from college with no clue as to where my life should go from there.
I cleared my throat and lifted up onto my elbows, turning my head to look at the man behind me. “Yes, sir,” I said, in my softest, lets all just stay calm here voice. “Corpse Pose is our final rest pose, a time to sink fully into a final meditation.” I turned my attention to the rest of the class, some of them raised up on their elbows as well. “Just allow yourselves to lower back into Sarvasana, and recapture that center one final time. And then slowly bring your awareness back to the room, listen to the sounds. Begin to feel the earth beneath your back body, wiggle your fingers and toes.” I continued my closing words, took the requisite thirty second pause, and then roused the class completely out of the disjointed meditation from which we had already been sprung.
After our final bow and Namaste, skipping the “om” chant completely for lack of time, I rose and rolled my mat, moving then to the rear of the room to say goodbye to all of my regulars and chat a bit perhaps with some of the newer students, as I usually did at the end of my tougher Vinyasa classes. I kept an eye on the man, fumbling for a while with his mat before bunching it into a loose roll and shoving it back into the bin with a few rough pokes. I thought for a second he might leave without saying anything to me. He had obviously not enjoyed the class, or gotten anything out of it. And there was no way he had missed the heavy energy of the room. I had never led a class with such dark and murky energy. My muscles yearned for the usual loose jelly feeling, my joints screamed with stiffness as opposed to their usual post class laxity.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw him approaching, and I tried to politely avoid his eyes so as to make it easier for him to leave without addressing me. I didn’t want to prompt him in any way into voicing what could only be his sorely disappointed opinion of the night. With a jump, I felt his hand upon my arm. Turning to look into his face, I was more than a little surprised to be confronted with a wide bright smile.
“Thank you so much,” he sighed. “I don’t think I have ever felt this relaxed,” he continued. “My name is Ray, by the way.”
“Stephanie,” I heard myself reply, allowing him to take my hand in his.
“That was really great,” he said, more smiles. “Thank you so much for sticking with me there, this is my first class. I’m a fireman down in Apex and one of my buddies, Evan White, has been to your classes once or twice and told me I needed to come see you!” (I had never heard of Evan White, but couldn’t help feeling flattered nonetheless.)
With my hand still clasped in Ray’s, my mind continued to reel. He cleared his throat, the phlegm from earlier still rattling faintly. “I’d like to talk to you about those multiple class packets?” he said. “I would really like to plan on coming back once or twice a week. How much do those packs get you? Ten visits?” I nodded, then led him to the desk at the front of the studio. After selling him a ten class package, not without a little hesitation, I watched him walk away down the stairwell, the last student to leave, all the others slipping out with sly looks of disgust or amusement in my direction on their way out, gesturing at the broad sweating back of the man whose hands were clasped around my own.
Looking after him as he made his way out of the building, I heard Ray begin to cough again, the hollow crack of it echoing back up the stairs and filling the studio with its own strange, unexpected energy.
