Yoga - Filipino Style

The other day a friend of mine asked if I wanted to join her at her yoga class. I usually try to squeeze in my yoga at home but lately, I was slacking so I agreed. I needed to get back on track so I grabbed my stuff and went to the club.

I arrived early and went to the exercise room where the Filipino instructor greeted me with a very rude "Yes?" I'd seen her before around the club and she had a snobbish air about her.

"I'm here for the yoga class," I said.

"Have you ever taken yoga? This is a very advanced class." She said with her snotty attitude while standing at the door of the yoga class not letting me go through.

I took a deep breath. I was here to take a yoga and was not going to start it off by telling her that her attitude sucked so I patiently answered "Yes, I've taken yoga before."

She wasn't too pleased and continued "Are you a member?"

"Yes, I am a member." I replied wanting to tell her "Lady, are you gonna let me in or what but refrained from causing a scene. It's yoga for heaven's sake. The whole point of the damn thing is to calm our nerves!

"Oh, ok, grab a matt and you can place your matt there," she replied with her unfriendly tone as she pointed to an area in the exercise room. Seeing her attitude, I figured it must be a full class which I later found out that it wasn't!

"We will start the breathing now," she told me. I wondered if we should wait for the rest of the class but seeing that the women was so assertive, I followed her instructions.

Two minutes later, a forty something year old Kuwaiti man walks in with his shorts and T-shirt and grabs a matt. I am impressed! Not every day that you'd see a Kuwaiti man interested in yoga (or let's say men in general for that matter!) so I admire his courage from far and smile to myself.

"Please, no noise!" she snaps at him.

He takes his matt and drops it on his space which makes a loud thud.

Irritated, the bitchy Filipino turns to him and tells him "Shhhh! Please no noise"

By then my friend and another lady have shown up and the session has begun.

A whole half an hour has past when suddenly I notice that the Kuwaiti guy has stopped and is now sitting on his matt. "What is he doing?" I think to myself.

The instructor finally notices to so she asks him "Why have you stopped?"

....and that, my dear friends is when all hell broke loose!

"You have favoritism!" he yelled. "People walked in after me and you didn't tell them to be quite. You are rude. I always come to your class and I am always here on time but look how you treat me! I am going to complain to your Management," the man had literally exploded and was on a role!

The Filipino, now in shock, replies "But sir, I didn't say anything, I just say be quite please."

"No! You were rude! I don't know if she will be a witness but she saw how rude you were to me," he says pointing at me.

At which point, I begin to take deeper breaths. This was not my way of relaxing. I've had a stressful week and last thing I wanna be is a witness to any of this crap.

After watching him yell and yell and yell with the bitchy Filipino pleading that she is innocent, I finally getting bored with the whole thing and say "7'alas, enta 9a7 bass 9alee 3a nabee, ma 9ar shay!".

The man by then is at the door and is embarrassed to look at me so he huffs and puffs and finally leaves swearing that he's going to complain to the Management.

The Filipino instructor mumbles to herself "walla those Kuwaitis...."

The class is obviously over and I definitely don't want to argue that she shouldn't say that. I grab my stuff to leave. "Please, wait," the Filipino instructor's attitude has suddenly changed, she looks innocently at me and sweetly asks "Was I rude to him?"

I tell her "Yes my dear, you were very rude!"

I naturally wanted to add that she was also very rude to me which is why the whole thing happened in the first place 'coz that's Karma baby. Works every time and I love it! But then again, I didn't need to say anything, she was shitting bricks as it is and that was enough to keep me satisfied.

I plan to go there next week but I wonder if she's still gonna be working there and if her faithful student will return.

One thing is for sure, this is one Yoga instructor that needs to understand the true history of yoga. It's not just about positions and breathing, it's actually about good intentions, karma and the cleansing of the souls and she had one soul that truly needed some clorox cleansing, if you know what I mean!

The good news is whenever I do end up deciding to go to that class and she still has a job, I do believe she is going to be so nice to me, don't you think?