10 Things I Will Never Do In Yoga.

Competition, Wanderlust and porn: Here are a few of my not-so-favorite things about yoga.

Ten things I will never do in yoga:

• A yoga competition. It’s supposed to be “non-competitive.” Besides, I will probably kick your ass.
• Ignore the teacher, and especially close my eyes and make the finger mudra while the teacher is talking. Puhleeese. Can you imagine if your kids did that while you were talking? Or your partner? “Um, I can’t hear you, because I’m uber-meditating.”
• Go from down dog to handstand, to forward fold and press back up to handstand and then float to Chaturanga, Plank Pose. Okay, maybe not never, but certainly not now. And certainly not in a Level One Beginner Class. I don’t need that much attention.
• Yoga Porn. You know what it is, where someone is doing a one-armed handstand on a cliff or in a river. It's hard enough against a wall. However, if I looked as good as the girl in her underwear for Equinox, then I would absolutely do yoga in my skivvies.
• Glorify the whole lying broken on a bathroom floor thing. I must have read at least 200 blogs that begin with someone being broken somewhere.  In fact, that did happen to me, and it was much better when I stood up and brushed myself off.
• Lose my sense of humor on the mat. Or anywhere else. And especially not in the really hard poses. I will laugh my way to enlightenment, or I will quit.
• Turn down a cupcake because it isn’t gluten free.  Or a drink.
• Attend a festival called “Wander” and “Lust” because I’m married and generally very happy at home. Unless they pay me a lot of money. As Cindy Lauper says, money changes everything.
• Start a class with meditation because I think that is cruel and unusual punishment. If more yogis actually read the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, they would understand that the whole purpose of practicing is to get to the seated meditation, and not the other way around.
• And never, again, will I put my trust in a “guru.” That also goes for being part of a cult, worshipping pagan rituals and hanging out with lots of Wiccans who are apparently having sex in covens and not inviting me. At least I hope I don’t. But really, who knows? I didn’t know about any of that stuff in the first place in Anusara Yoga because I was too busy being non-competitive in yoga with my handstand just in case, you know, I needed to kick anybody’s ass.

Michelle Berman Marchildon is an award-winning journalist, a former corporate executive and a survivor of 50+ years of life. She’s the author of “Finding More on the Mat,” a yoga memoir, and a Columnist for Elephant Journal.  She teaches the style of yoga formerly known as Anusara-Inspired, and Power-Vinyasa Yoga in Denver, Co. She is NOT an Ambassador for Lululemon, and has been promised she will never be one.