Growing up, if we needed to be somewhere fifteen minutes away by 5 pm, doubtless that my father would be buckled up by 3:30. "In case there's traffic." Sitting outside said destination at 3:45, we'd have to kill time in any number of ways. While this might have caused many unused childhood hours, it also instilled in me a particular sense of time, or better put, impatience with lateness.
In his book A Life Worth Breathing, yoga teacher Max Strom calls constant lateness an "inconsiderate" habit. "To control your time is to control your life force," he writes, noting that people who are consistently late are often unreliable in other ways. It is a way of stealing time, as well as announcing to the person left in waiting that your time is simply not as important as their own.
Every day I witness lateness as a yoga instructor. Some classes and locations are worse than others. For the most part, I've become more understanding over the years. Things happen: subways are awry, you get caught up at work, childcare is late. Students entering a yoga class are usually trying to find calm, so no need to add further stress.
Only sometimes it does disrupt a class in motion, which is inconsiderate. It's one thing if there is plenty of room and the student enters quietly; quite another in a packed room in which a new space has to be carved out. Since an instructor is also practicing yoga in his or her attitude, I weigh all aspects before allowing late entry. Sometimes it's simply too crowded; others, it's simply a minor inconvenience causing no great harm. But sometimes yesterday happens.
I should have been tipped off first thing in the morning. My 7:30 am class was especially packed, and three students came in late. Two entered at the same time. One picked up a mat, went to a spot where space could be made, and placed it down while the students were resting in child's pose. When they went to down dog, she asked for room. The other tried to place her mat on a weird angle right against the door. I told her that was not a spot and to ask other students to make room.
This is something I often do. Yoga in America today is dependent upon community, and I find it odd that people are afraid to talk to one another. If you approach two students about creating space and they have a problem with it, that's their problem, and their practice needs to deepen. Granted, yoga real estate in New York City is like any other, and people fight tenaciously for it. This is why I have students ask one another to move, instead of doing it myself. Problem solving is something we can all practice; communicating with others is a trait everyone needs to cultivate. Instead of abiding, she put her mat away and stormed out in a huff.
The third student tried to enter over ten minutes late, which I do not allow. My warm-up is always 10-15 minutes long. I don't let students begin practicing more challenging postures right away, especially if the class has been flowing. Again, it's disruptive to what we have created, and no matter how seasoned a student may be the chance for injury greatly increases without proper preparation. Being a regular student of mine and seeing how crowded it was, she understood and returned this morning.
My 10 am class was also a fiasco, more crowded than usual, but without any real drama. Next I arrived at my lunchtime class, which was much smaller than usual, perhaps to counterbalance the morning--ten students in a room that can accommodate fifty. So space was not an issue when one woman attempted to enter my class thirty minutes in. It's an hour-long class.
Not recognizing her, I told her that the class was halfway over and she could not begin now. In six years of teaching, I remember only one instance that a student tried to enter so late. I also recall her laughing about it, and apologizing for trying. That was not the case yesterday. The woman shot me an evil stare, picked up the mat, went to the back of the studio and threw it against the wall. As she walked to the door, I quietly asked "Really? That's how you act?" She stared at me and stuck out her tongue without sticking it out (you know the face) and rushed out.
We need to work on these things. This morning I was approached by someone asking for money. It's hard giving in New York, where you get asked numerous times a day. I told him I was sorry, at which time his friendly demeanor changed as he started mimicking my apology with a sneer. I don't know what it's like to face the constant disappointments of living the streets, but I do know that if someone is paying hundreds of dollars a month to go to a health club and they act in the same manner--all smiles until they realize they're not going to get what they want when they want it--well that's just plain sad.
At the end of class, I stopped to discuss a pose with a student. When I went to the back to get my bag and put away the mat, it had been put back--someone in class rolled it up upon seeing it lying there. It's unfortunate that these things happen due to personal expectations of how the world should accommodate our every whim. Yet it's reassuring that others selflessly clean up the messes left behind. We can only hope for more of this attitude, especially in the yoga community.