Content warning: Language and potentially triggering physical scenarios.

Sometimes I make lists.

To-do lists. Grocery lists. Honey-do lists. Wish lists. Travel lists. Playlists. Reading lists.

Today I made a list of some of the yoga adjustments I’ve loved and loathed. Enjoy!

List #1

Skillful, helpful and feel-good yoga adjustments that I asked for:

Lay backwards over my back in child’s pose.
Ground/stabilize my thighs in wide leg forward fold.
Ground/stabilize my thighs in virasana.
Standing behind me - hands off, their hip to my pelvis - in half moon.
Stabilize my pelvis in revolved triangle so I can rotate my spine.
Assist with a small towel around my pelvis as I dropped back to wheel and stood up again.
Firm but reasonable shoulder pressure in savasana.
Interesting arm pulling technique (upward) while in a supine spinal twist. It didn’t necessarily deepen the pose (which I appreciated) but my ribs, shoulder and wrist received a bit of stretchy-traction and it felt great.
Guide my pelvis up and back in downward dog - this is always a nice spine stretch for me.
Stabilize my grounded foot in visvamitrasana (the only time it’s felt OK for someone to step on my foot!)
Probably more that I have forgotten about…

List #2

Heavy-handed and risky yoga assists/adjustments that I never asked for and didn’t want but didn’t have the choice to say no until it was too late.

Forceful downward pressure on my shoulders - so much that one shoulder popped pretty loudly - in savasana. Very relaxing. 😏
Local “Master” teacher tried to fold me in half like a sandwich in paschimottanasana. I was nearly healed from a chronic hamstrings injury. Nailed the pose. Injury flared. So helpful. 😤
Clumsy leg grab as I was transitioning to chin stand. This one really pissed me off because it startled me, destabilized me, and my neck cracked because my whole body buckled. 🤬 This man was a lead trainer for a franchise. He was awful.
By the same “teacher”, a short while later - Uninvited and painful pressure into my extended lumbar spine by his FOOT as he leveraged my arms on the opposite direction while in camel pose. I yelled NO loudly and he laughed. He was also allegedly “certifying” teachers in his yoga adjustments method. 🤦🏼‍♀️
A famous and veteran teacher who grabbed my extended leg foot while I was practicing flying crow (an arm balance) at a festival. I didn’t know she was there until she had a hold of me. This startled me, and I face planted. There was NO acknowledgement from her about what happened, and she didn’t ask if I was ok before she flounced away. I really wanted to leave but I didn’t want to make a scene. 😒
Local celebrity (?) stepped both of his feet fully onto the bottoms of my feet while I was in child’s pose and it actually hurt really bad! His heels were pressing into my toes and toenails. The floor was concrete and my mat didn’t provide much protection from his body weight. The music was so loud so I’m sure he couldn’t hear me. 😩

Where the duck is the ahimsa?

I’ve been reading Matthew Remski’s book Practice and All is Coming. It’s been a heavy read.

My experiences pale in comparison to the testimony documented in Matthew’s book. Yet I can still recall each experience as clearly as the day it happened.

While I believe that some of these adjustments were done with good intentions, all of them were unnecessary, counter-productive, and they violated my practice. How I felt about these adjustments will always take priority of how the teacher intended them. Impact always matters more than intentions.

Unintentional harm is still harm.

Power dynamics make these situations even more confusing because there may be a level of trust between student and teacher, and they don’t impact every person the same way.

In many yoga spaces, consent to touch is often implied and rarely requested. In the majority of my negative experiences, the teacher was a stranger or an acquaintance. There was no long-term relationship built on trust and mutual respect. So to me, it felt like an assault.

Maybe I’ve never been intentionally “assaulted” during a yoga practice, but I’ve had rough and painful adjustments that caused harm and I wasn’t given the choice to opt-out.

If someone walking down the street did these things to me, they would be considered illegal physical assault of varying degrees. The practice of yoga is meant to be a safe place, a haven from suffering. This is not that.

Even if I’d authorized the adjustments in the second list, they were shitty adjustments by so-called educators who were on a power trip in the moment.

I’d like to think they’ve grown since then, in light of this book and victim accounts of abuses in their yoga communities, but I won’t hold my breath. In some circles, it seems to be a dirty secret that people only whisper about, if they talk about at all.

Some in the yoga community tend to justify their actions (or inactions) by hiding behind a rich, and sacred lineage veiled in mysticism, spirituality, and ancient wisdom - and the rest of us mere mortals just “don’t get it.”

They’re right, I don’t get it. But it’s more like - I don’t get why they think they can get away with it.

If you would like to read my 2019 post about hands-on adjustments in yoga, here it is. The first post was written in the pre-COVID era.

Once again I’d like to acknowledge the healing and therapeutic benefits of human touch. It’s vital to our species.

This is not that.