Yoga story, the sequel

Okay, now that I have calmly and reflectively introduced yoga as a topic, perhaps I can get down to business on this little pop phenomenon. Starting with:

Challenge #1:
How not to scream at your 20-something teacher from Vancouver to shut up as he/she wallows in the treacle of his/her own burbling idiocy.

Having reflected on this now countless times as I sat (stood? leaned? arced?) in downward dog, mumbling voodoo curses under my breath, I can suggest two classes of verbal yoga offense (VYO).

The first and most common (as in, running stream starting when you enter the room) is Semantic. While examples are as numerous as they are egregious, here are a few favorites: exhale your breath, lower down your arms, make your feet parallel - like the number 11, paint your nose across the ceiling. You may think those minor transgressions, and in isolation perhaps they are (not).

But they frequently precede the second class of offense, which is far more grave: faux spiritual twattle from a 26-year old. This starts with congratulating everybody for having the wisdom, and having made the sacrifice, to come to the class. Right. It then moves on to searching deeply within ourselves to "set an intention for the class", whatever that might mean. Notwithstanding the fact that this intention "can be anything at all," it is meant to have some deep significance. Usually the significance manifests itself by the teacher using its mention as an excuse to rattle off some self-satisfied pabulum about our collective presence in his/her class making the world a better, kinder, safer place. Which he/she really seems to believe. At which point I begin to fantasize about strangling the twit with my towel, which would quiet the room and disprove the twattle-thesis in one go. There is something cleansing about the thought, and I move into plank pose at relative peace.

Ok, I feel better. .. And they're nice people. And they mean well. Shame they're so stupid and self-satisfied.