We Are In a World of Stink

Here’s the thing about political correctness: you are going to like some changes, and you are going to dislike others. This is never truer than in yoga.

Everyone is talking about the recent news of unwanted touches in yoga. But this is not a new story. In fact, recent news is mostly about old news, events that happened in Ashtanga and Iyengar yoga years if not decades ago.

I don’t want to discount real and horrible instances where women, and some men, were psychologically seduced into accepting disgusting touches in yoga. There were occasions of genitals against genitals, fingers in a vagina and on one’s coccyx, or tailbone. Frankly, these days when I want someone to find their tailbone, I ask them to do it themselves. It’s not that hard.

I want to come clean: I was trained to put my finger on a student’s coccyx, and I probably have done it once or twice to students I know very well. But it’s not something I do any longer. To anyone.

And therein lies the problem. This assist is very powerful. It teaches the student how to lift up in an inversion using their own internal alignment and core. It was one of the ways I found my handstand. And it’s gone baby, gone – as it should be.

The young man who put his finger on my coccyx to lift me up was like me, also a student and newer to yoga. He may have accidentally slipped and put his finger, accidentally, where the sun don’t shine. And that may have happened to me as well when I was learning.

The difference between then and now is this: then, when a bad touch happened we both giggled nervously and said we were sorry and probably horrified. Now, it ends up as a #metoo hashtag and lives are ruined.

YOU WILL NEVER KNOW UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE WHICH STUDENT WILL FORGIVE YOU FOR AN ACCIDENTAL TOUCH, AND WHICH ONE WILL RUIN YOUR LIFE.

Sorry for yelling, but I needed to make that point in a way in which you hear it. Losing your job, your reputation, your livelihood, and perhaps your loved ones is a very high price to pay for bringing someone up into a handstand with a weird assist.

We live a new world of political correctness, which lately has gotten a bad rap. Not to blow my own horn (too much), but I saw it coming. Several years ago, I was raked over the coals – by my fellow yoga teachers and liberal friends – for not being liberal enough.

I was criticized for being white, privileged and not that in love with the certain people matter movement. I’m not saying that certain people don’t matter. I was saying I saw a backlash coming and sadly, I was right. I begged my liberal friends to tone it down, and what I got was bad reviews all over my books that I’m a racist who doesn’t recognize her privilege.

(Just for the record, I get it. I just don’t want to contribute to the problem right now of being more enlightened than the rest of youse guys).

President Obama said the more-liberal-than-thou and more-enlightened-and-correct people are the ones who brought us to this place today, which is a pile of stink. You know who is our worst enemy? Us. Apparently, attacking and shaming each other was not the way to a greater wholeness in society. Who knew?

Um.  

I digress, but with a purpose. Here’s the thing: we are in a new place, in a new world with hashtags and Twitter, and overall it was important that we get here. Sexual, emotional and physical abuse cannot be buried in the closets of our consciousness. We have to stamp it out. And if that means that we lose some assists along the way, then so be it. It is for a greater good, and this time I am 100% on board with it.

Michelle Marchildon is the Yogi Muse. She’s the author of four books on yoga including the Theme Weaver series of books for yoga teachers. You can find her at www.MichelleMarchildon.com