Lady with the red pants: When yoga is humiliating

Originally posted on Recovering Yoga Novemeber 2010, and later on my Medium account.

I was once called Lady with the Red Pants by a strict yoga teacher with whom I’d been practicing yoga for 6 years.

humiliation from across the room

She called out to me from across the room with this name to give me a simple instruction. I, an avid student in her class for all those years, surely felt that I deserved more respect than this.

True, it wasn’t exactly her nature to speak to her students and thereby get to know their names. And although I knew this, and never myself attempted to introduce myself or speak to her—ever, in fact—I still felt angry at this label she gave to me. I did know for sure that I was a dedicated yogini, attending her classes regularly, and considered myself a personally powerful person, so at the time I took this comment with a grain of salt. I laughed to myself.

Sometimes I tell this story to others. But just today, I decided that I have given this imagery (and emotion) of that situation in my past too much real estate in my brain! For, the pants themselves tell the story whenever I see them. I never wear them anymore, yet I still keep them. I tell myself that I definitely have to be in the mood to wear them.

the story my pants tell

It is not just a quick story that these pants tell in my mind…

They speak of a sort of humiliation. I ask myself now: Is it me who has chosen all this time to continue to let myself be humiliated by leaving the pants in my closet, stacked up with all the other yoga pants?

So, now that I have decided to do something about the pants, I wonder to myself what exactly? Should I 1) drop them in the Goodwill van on my next trip out, 2) give them to my daughter, who loves to wear loud colors, 3) have a ceremony and burn them in the fireplace?

transformation first; words channelled through pants

I put the pants on. I am wearing them now to give them the chance to voice their last words to me, channeling through the keys on my computer. They say to me,

Go to her class again soon and definitely wear the pants. Only then will you know what to do with them.

Hmm…. First, I have decided to transform them, so to speak, and get some more juice out of them. They are red, after all. They are the color of my life force, color of anger, color of vitality, color of fire. And, how could I forget, they are the color of love. Maybe Venus (the planet of love) passing through Scorpio (the sign of intense emotions), according to my favorite astrologist, is making me come to terms with this now… I wonder if I should thank my astrologist for lifting this weight off my shoulders (whose name I will leave out of this article, as I’m sure he doesn’t want to be associated with my red pants).

Go to her class again soon and definitely wear the pants. Only then will you know what to do with them.

© 2010 R.E.L. Copywriting

Comments

[robin ellen lucas]

5 thoughts on “lady with the red pants”

Tom Lee
September 13, 2010 at 10:18 am

Thanks for sharing the story Robin. When I did my Bikram teacher training in my previous life, I was called out by Bikram (who I secretly referred to as Indian guy with NO hair) repeatedly as “Asian guy with the short hair”. It annoyed me. I would have much preferred if he just ignored me completely for 9 weeks.

robin ellen lucas
September 13, 2010 at 4:08 pm

:) thanks, tom, for your comment… so you can relate… just writing this has transformed my yoga career with her in my mind :) good luck to you too. see you soon.

robin ellen lucas
September 14, 2010 at 7:16 pm

Update: I’ve decided that the pants make a great home-practice outfit. They bring some life to my little practice in front of my fireplace. It makes my home yoga into a sort of spiritual/psyche container. These pants are alive… as they speak many stories from the past :)


robin ellen lucas
September 14, 2010 at 8:09 pm

…there were some good times too…

robin
September 5, 2011 at 9:11 am

donating them today. i stood in line behind the teacher who gave me this name, and then came home to my daughter (who had no recollection of this) handing them to me saying “i don’t want these anymore”. hmmmm