SIGNS THAT YOUR YOGA TEACHER IS NOT REALLY “PRESENT”

• She’s late to class, and she keeps glancing at the clock.
• While giving you an adjustment in downward-facing dog, you realize that she is making a to-do list on your sacrum.
• Halfway through the class, she says it’s time to go to the wall; when you get to the wall, she says she has to pee and rushes out.
• While you’re in the classroom waiting for her to come back, you hear her yelling at the girl who works the front desk: “Where the fuck is my Lake Placid mug? That Lake Placid mug is not public property. It is for my use only.” Then, you hear the sound of a number of mugs breaking.
• She returns to the classroom muttering to herself, and wrapping gauze around one hand which is now bleeding. She throws a couple fake punches, which seem to be aimed directly at the Buddha on the altar at the front of the room.
• She says, “Let’s put some music on,” and the next thing you know the room is shaking with the tremendous sound of an oddly familiar female voice shrieking Cat Stevens covers. You realize that it is your teacher’s voice. She mutters something about how it says in the Tao Te Ching that you have to grab opportunities for exposure whenever they come.
• She gathers the class in tadasana, mountain pose, at the front of the mat. She asks everyone to be quiet for a moment. Then, dramatically, she goes to the windows of the studio and throws back the curtains. She gestures to the city outside. “You remember what happened here?” she demands. “You remember what happened here on September 11, 2001?” Everyone is silent. “Yeah,” she says. “That’s fucking karma, bitches.”