two bad dreams

There’s an exciting new way of being a jerk that I want to talk about.

Jenn is currently watching a great reality TV show that I really enjoy listening to every morning. It’s called Love Island, and on it a girl was talking with a guy that she liked about something he did or didn’t do that she was mad about. Normally, one would say “I’m mad that you did this,” but this girl phrased her displeasure in the form of a question that the guy could self reflect on: “do you think you could have handled that better?” or something like that.

On one hand, I like this approach because it does encourage someone to look at themselves and recognize their mistakes. That can work a whole lot better than screaming “YOU ALWAYS ______ AND IT FUCKING PISSES ME OFF” at someone. But on the other hand, this guy didn’t really bite and said something dumb (wow, shocking) like “uhhh maybe?” Then the girl was annoyed because her approach wasn’t working, and she became visibly vexed with the guy and said something scintillating like “um hello, like, say something real, bae.”

I guess it depends on where the ‘tell someone you’re mad but in the form of a question’ approach comes from. If someone is legit chill when they do it, it’s fine. I’ve heard it done fine other times. But I find it’s really easy for people to come off as condescending, manipulative, and passive aggressive when they do it. Because of that, I think I’m more a fan of the good ol’ boneheaded direct approach.

That said, I’ll definitely keep the manipulative approach in my back pocket for when I really want to piss someone off.

things i don’t like about yoga

Let me preface this post by saying that I do lots of yoga, probably an average of four or five times a week. It’s been a great benefit to me. But that’s not what I want to write about. No, the masses don’t hound me and clamour for more of my feelgood stories — what the masses crave is blood, and blood they shall have.

Let the slaughter begin.

First, I hate how people obliquely recommend yoga — any yoga — to remedy any problem. I’ve had back problems for eight years now and you can’t imagine how many people have said, “you should try yoga.” Even my dumbass family doctor made this dumbass, generalized recommendation. But my GP and everyone else failed to mention what style of yoga to try (because there are countless variations), which specific poses would help with my issues, and how they would do so. In hindsight, that really bugs me because my problem was recurring low back strains and disc bulging and herniation, and I now know that not all yoga is focused on strengthening and stretching the low back; far from it, actually.

But being at my wit’s end with sorting my back issues out and not knowing the first thing about yoga at the time, I tried. I tried it along with videos on youtube, and that was perfectly useless (more on that later). I went to a few different classes, and some were useless and in others I wound up injuring myself further (more on that later too). After hurting myself doing something that a bunch of people had said would help me, I gave up on yoga for a while. It was only by dumb luck that I met a yoga instructor who completely sympathized with my yoga injury plight, who taught me a yoga routine that acknowledged and worked within my physical limitations. But I don’t want to get all cheerful yet, there’s still a lot of bitching to be done — my first point is that saying, “yoga will help with your fucked up back,” is as grossly generalized as saying, “it’s important to eat things when you are low on sodium and potassium.” What kind of things should you eat though, you know? So I find that kind of generalized statement fucking stupid, and coming from a medical professional, it’s especially egregious. I still hold this grudge against my dipshit doc.

Doctors can be just as stupid as anyone else. The problem is they have a certificate that makes them think that’s not possible.

Second, learning to do yoga from a youtube video is useless. Without someone there to watch you while you’re learning and to correct your poses and transitions, I think most people are going to do them wrong or poorly, see virtually zero benefit, and possibly even injure themselves. That’s terrible.

That leads me to my third point. Most yoga classes I’ve been to haven’t been much better than the youtube videos — there’s someone at the front of the group who we’re all trying to copy, and that’s about it. They rarely come around and correct people who are having trouble, whether they are straining, doing poses poorly, or just plain lost. So wtf are beginners paying $10-$15 a session for? If I’m not going to receive any one-on-one instruction, I may as well stay at home and injure myself for free.

“This online yoga stuff is great.”

I found that most yoga instructors would make a ‘cover my ass’ statement at the start of each class, like “listen to your body, only you know what feels good” — as if that’s all people need to hear in order to do good yoga with solid, safe technique for the next 60-90 minutes. Bullshit. That’s not enough. Especially when people are learning, they need constant and clear reminders, like, “don’t worry about getting your heals on the floor just yet, just straighten your legs until you feel a light stretch in your hamstrings, and then stay there.” Beginners need this kind of instruction for every pose. I believe anything less is insufficient and neglectful.

Do you want to know what I recommend to people like myself who want to try yoga as a therapy for rehabilitating an injury? Here it is: find a yoga instructor who isn’t some hippie dippy idiot, someone with some legit medical training or background like physiotherapy or massage therapy, someone who understands anatomy and physiology. That way, they will actually have an idea of what muscles are involved in your problem, and be able to come up with routines that focus on you and your needs. See this person one on one for a while so that they can watch you as you work through the routines they give you and make sure you’re doing them correctly. Continue doing this until you see substantial improvement. Talk to your instructor about when both you and they feel you are ready to try a group yoga class to start stretching and strengthening the rest of your body as well, and see if they can recommend an instructor who is more focused on watching the class instead of being wrapped up in their own poses. That’s what I recommend.

When done right, I think yoga is fantastic. My problem with it is that too many people are doing it wrong, and teaching others to do it wrong too.

Suck my dick, yoga sycophants.