Teachers Outside of Class

My yoga teacher friend invited me to a literary/comedy event a weeks ago. It ended up being even trendier than I expected; I saw Megan Amram, Sugar from Survivor, Moby, and enough unconventional hats to fill a Hipster Haberdashery.

However, none of those encounters are as notable as one we had with my friend’s yoga student. (Except for maybe Moby - he didn’t wash his hands after using the bathroom. True story.) My friend went ahead and said hello to her student, which really flustered her. “Oh my god! What are you doing here?” the student said. “I can’t believe I ran into my teacher here, it’s so weird seeing you outside of the studio.”

It was reminiscent of when I ran into one of my high school students at the grocery store. At first he tried to hide from me, but then he wanted to see what was in my basket, in what I believe was an attempt for him to see evidence of my humanity outside of being a teacher. (He eats!) I know when I was little, I bought into that thought that teachers did nothing but teach and slept under their desks at night. (For the record, I have napped under my desk before.)

But this encounter was hilarious because here was a grown-up, maybe a couple of years younger than my friend, looking at my friend in the same manner. She was barely able to comprehend seeing her yoga instructor in another context; she might as well have asked “Shouldn’t you be in the lotus position right now?”

Believe it or not, yoga teachers are people, too.