TEACHER
Take a nice, lean slice of beef. Season it lightly with some dried species of your choice and maybe a little oregano. Let it rest in room temperature for at least one hour before cooking. Melt a little coconut oil on high fire in a skillet, and throw the meat on for exactly one minute. Careful with the sizzle. Turn the meat over and fry for another minute. If you followed all the steps carefully, you should have a nice charcoaled burn on both sides of the steak now. Take the skillet off the fire and leave the steak in there for a little while, waiting for it to seal and the juices to caramelise together with the oil. Now tuck into this sexy piece of meat, so chewy outside and still pink and juicy on the inside. Yum.
So why am I telling you this? Because last Wednesday I went vegan, that’s why. Since then, my mind has decided to manifest its displeasure with this decision by randomly shuffling the most carnivorous recipes in my head every few minutes or so. It’s like a sudden block of commercials in the middle of a tense TV show. Like a punch in the face when you’re having an eye exam. You get the picture. It is driving me insane. No, not the veganism, the constant reminders of all the bloody, meaty stuff I used to love.
Well, I guess all changes in life come with a price tag. When I put my name down for the 200-hour yoga teacher training, I somehow did not factor my diet in as important. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s standing out for all the wrong reasons, so who would have thought that I would be there as the only guy among fourteen ladies. The only non-vegan guy, too. What do vegans, Jehova’s witnesses and cross fit people have in common? They won’t shut up about it. Add that to all the overheard lunch time conversations between the ladies, about how “light and centred they feel”, how it “improves their practice” and “saves the planet”, I felt compelled to at least give it a try. I know, I’m such a Libra.
I entered into a whole new world of weird foods. Vegan toona, Seitan (sounds dangerously close to Satan if you ask me), tofu dogs, etc. Can’t make this stuff up. I have to say, though, I do feel lighter and sort of more lucid and concentrated after these few days, even if it is just because I am never full to the point of satiation. Maybe it actually can be a sustainable way of living. Who knows what will happen if I can make it stick? I will do my best to stay for the long haul.
My practice has dramatically improved during the course as well and I felt I finally belonged in the group with the rest. Hey, now I could even chip in to their conversations about diet! I was starting to believe that maybe I actually had the personality to carry a room full of people during a yoga class. That was always my biggest worry. I mean, how could people follow me if even I didn’t know where I was going? I never liked the spotlight on me too much and was always jealous of people who exuded confidence and threaded so confidently through life.
I remember when I was a child, we went to a pond in the park with my parents to feed the ducks. I noticed a boy standing aside and looking at us. I approached him with my bread cubes and gave him some. He looked me dead in the eye, took them all and ate them. See, why can’t I be like that? That’s so badass and what a powerful statement that was! Luckily, the inviting atmosphere during the teacher training made me believe in my interpersonal skills a lot more.
So here’s me, covering Brenda’s Tuesday vinyasa class, scared like a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. She has somehow convinced me to do it with a promise of her fingerlicking carrot cake, all for me. Her sequencing does not look that complicated either, so I thought to myself – how bad can it be? Having said that, usually things happen a little too fast for me during a vinyasa class. You have to demonstrate all the multiple transitions yourself, keep an eye on the people, hoping nobody falls on their face, and still carry the energy of the room with your instruction. You guessed it – slightly overbearing for me. Ashtanga is my thing – the power, predictability and adherence to routine always makes me feel like home. Things that can go wrong are limited to minimum.
The vibe in the room is lively today, though. I don’t recognise anyone and I can feel my voice being shaky, especially after my lousy attempt to crack a joke after the opening pranayama breathing fell so painfully flat. I was almost waiting for a spaced-out clap… clap… clap… from somewhere in the back of the room. “Whatever, just keep it going,” I tell myself. My mind is seeking consolation in recalling the recipe for Parma-wrapped pork tenderloin as I give out routine instructions while pacing around the class.
First, lay down the Prosciutto strips overlapping slightly but in a neat row on a parchment sheet. Place the pork on top of it and brush it all over with honey Dijon sauce. Don’t be shy. Heat up the oven to about…
What the fuck?!
I was just making a large skip so as not to step onto a corner of somebody’s mat when I heard a sound as if someone was slowly letting the air out of a balloon. Then I realised it was actually me who made that noise and I also knew what it was. Yeah. I farted mid-skip in a yoga class. Fun fact: it is not possible to act dignified in two situations – when your leg falls asleep or when you fart. I don’t make the rules, that’s just the way it is. There goes my oatmeal latte and fucking cauliflower gnocchi for lunch.
Ok, what do I do? I hear the first disbelieving guffaws and I know I need to start doing something now. I can hear myself talking although it seems like it is coming out of a speaker somewhere close by. “Yoga is about giving yourself away to your practice, to welcome distractions, yet never let them take over”. I bought myself some time, but I know it’s like accidentally meeting your dentist when you walk around WallMart eating cotton candy or when you wave back to someone you saw waving at you through the glass from across the street, only to realise they were actually washing the window. Things will get awkward no matter what.
Well, well, well, looks like I have a silent back up though. The muscly guy who could not even follow the sequence properly seems to be directing the attention away from me to the gorgeous girl with curly hair on a mat right in front of me. Male solidarity? I don’t even want to know, no questions asked. Thank you, brother. The people in the class are slowly recovering and starting to listen to me again. The curly hair is not taking it well though. She’s blushing like crazy and looks like she’s about to bail from here. My sincere apologies, girl. Literally any other situation and I would have done anything to stop you, but you have to cover me on this one. Sorry.
Yep, there she goes, getting up from her mat and blowing a kiss to my secret sidekick. So check this out: the guy grabs the kiss mid-air, lifts himself up to pretend-throw it out of the window and… Oh, now I see. Dude, is this why you were sticking to the floor like a maniac and not following the pose sequence?
The guy had a raging boner. Obviously, unbefuckinglivable. You heard me – a full-blown erection in the middle of a yoga class. Brenda, screw your carrot cake. I have just farted on a student, meanwhile the only other guy in the room got hard. If I ever recover from this, I should probably switch to pilates.
If you think the whole thing ends with a complete meltdown and me trying to somehow hobble with the class to the end without anything else happening, then you’re wrong. These two weirdos ran out of the room, everyone else laughed their asses off and we cruised through the rest of the class. The energy in the room was bouncing off the walls once the awkward tension was released. Today I still smile at the thought that the “hard“guy must have fancied me. Why else would you try to blame a gorgeous girl for my literal demonstration of wind removing pose? I would have much preferred the curly hair, but it is somehow flattering nonetheless.
That class was a game changer for me. Sometimes, after you have been through a little public embarrassment people warm up to you and the whole equation changes. Sometimes, all you need is a little tragedy to see how human we all are and how we are more alike than we are different. Sometimes I tell the story to other teachers, especially the freshers, simply to break the ice and maybe give them an easier start than mine. Someone once said that if you want others to do the best they can for themselves when they have done the best they can for you is the purest meaning of altruism. That’s all I ever wanted my classes to be. Every single one of them brings me so much satisfaction. I believe that you can only become truly proficient at something you love anyway. If them’s the breaks, I am definitely on the right track.
I don’t mind going to the pond anymore. Now I am the one eating the bread cubes though.