KALEY OLSON, KY Studio OWner:

Ahem. Thank you all for joining us. As most of you are aware, this week we changed our “yogetiquette” policies after hearing about another yoga studio’s “pose ban” going viral. Our yoga studio consultant coach — Nancy Nelson of “Studio Samadhi Consulting™ — suggested we get in on this bandwagon. So, between #8 -no scents allowed in class, from your cashEARTHA® essential oil cures to your tapas-induced stench and #10 -choose your own adventure flip cards (flip to “yes” if you are comfortable receiving instruction in this class -i.e., bring told what to do and how to do it) or “No” (if you prefer to be left alone to do whatever the f–k you want)–

we’ve added #9 :

The King and Queen Asanas — that is, for you simpleton newbies– Headstand and Shoulderstand –are henceforth banned on premises. There shall be no teaching of selfie-promoting inversion asanas, due to fears of common desk-sitting, Game of Thones-watching, automobile-riding and processed-food-consuming-folk paraplegic-ing themselves — particularly given that any claimed medical benefit from such postures is f–king nonsense!  Further, in my humble practice experience, there is no TT sufficient — not even EFG-YRRT-RCYT-√5,267° Teachers– to allow me to allow you plebeian teachers to assess who is worthy of these advanced and risky asanas in your run-of-the-mill open classes.

EXCEPTION: In a small group or private class, an EFG-YRRT-RCYT-√5,267° teacher may teach advanced and risky poses including headstand and shoudlerstand IF AND ONLY IF the participant passes my GMAT™ (Good on YOUR MAT) test and presents an X-Ray not more than three months old of his or her cervical and thoracic spines, as well as throat chakra, central channel, and lumbar facet joints, complete with note from his/or her medical provider, energy worker and blessing from a shamanic healer.

Frankly, I’ve been teaching other people how to teach these poses for years, but never practice them myself– not since my RADIANCE CRYSTAL ENERGY healer identified an axe lodged in my central channel years ago– so it’s a relief to take them off the table.

What I would love are some ideas about what else we could ban, so we don’t look like we’re copycatting that other studio. Yes, Janet?

JANET: I heartily agree. As resident certifiable EFG-YRRT-RCYT-√5,267° teacher, I believe we should also ban chatturanga. As you put it so well, Kaley, the vast majority of North Americans have sucky posture– whether sitting, sleeping, shitting, standing on their heads or issuing raging tirades at their employees — as well stupidity in their brains, including but not limited to restrictions in the ability to calculate mathematical angles formed by their elbows, little to zero awareness of their shoulder girdle loops and other deficiencies resulting from an un-Rumified life, etc. A lot of North Americans also suffer from chronic pains in the asses. If any of these common misalignments and/or signs of genetic inferiority are present, a pose which takes such crappy posture and pathetic genetic material and turns it horizontal– a la chatturanga–  is patently dangerous. And there are no medical benefits for this posture — aka shoulder-shredder, right?

KALEY: Consider it banned. Francesca?

FRANCesca: Please call me Govinda.

KALEY: (Sigh). Ok. Govinda.

GOVINDA: Thank you. I nominate uttitha hasta pandangustasana. Trying to balance on one leg, then fold over it, wave it around — all with poise and dispatch …. it brings up deep feelings of inadequacy…repressed memories from junior high cheerleading tryouts, Nutcracker auditions and gymnastic meets. (muffled sounds of crying or crocodile tears). I’m still trying to recover from the onslaught of painful adolescent angst this pose has brought up since Jayden whipped it out in class last week.

It seems only logical to extrapolate how everyone should feel about this pose from my own highly personal experience. Given that our teachers are not trained mental health professionals, Reiki masters or shamans, no one here is adequately trained to deal with the mental health crisis we are inviting. We have to ban it.  Oh– and hanumanasana and all splits too.  Talk about selfie-begging postures.

KALEY: This is a wonderful point, Fran– I mean, Govinda.

JAYDEN: if we start taking away parts of the practice because people are suffering… suffering that makes postures difficult, or causes people to experience negative mental mucking aroundings — then what are we doing here? Don’t we want this stuff — this adolescent angst as you say– to come up, so we can face, it work with it, and transform?

KALEY: Wake up and smell the cashEARTHA peppermint oil Jayden. We are trying to create a new paradigm based upon fear and the denial of personal evolution.

JANET: if we are talking “advanced and risky” we’ve got to take out fancy arm balances. But even Warrior 2– you know, we cannot exactly trust people to take care of their knees. Oh–I just heard that “They” say seated forward folds cause lower back injuries. And what about up dog? Can you say wrist pain whammy! That reminds me– hip openers. God bless you if you have any hyper-mobile ladies in your class– someone’s apt to pop a sacrum! I am so lucky my acupuncturist discovered that pole shoved so far up my ass that it had actually birfucated my sacroileacus.

Of course, you could just ban all hyper-mobile women from coming to class at all (except for me, of course).

KALEY: Good. Banned, banned, banned, banned.

DERRICK:  Kaley, as you know, I look really good with my shirt off in fancy arm balances. I have a lot of perfectly placed, bad-ass tattoos and lines formed by my abdominal muscles. Shiva — and my crossfit coach–  designed me demonstrate these postures and to take selfies in them — and my VIBRATIONAL ENERGY BLISS BALLIN’ consultant says these actions are, like, totally necessary for my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual beingness.

KALEY: You can teach handstand. I have not read any negative anecdotal blog science against that one.

DERRICK: Cool.

GOVINDA: Let’s ban yoga mats! As some famous female yoga lady in a bikini on some viral internet share recently said Rumi said: “You are the universe in ecstatic motion” and I agree. We are all EVERY mat and ONE mat.

KALEY: I’ll have to think about that.

JAYDEN: So what’s left? Handstand and child’s pose?

SALLY: Um, my bootybumping-ga and piyoZUMbox classes are still good, right?

KALEY: yes, yes and yes. Meeting adjourned.

JANET: see you later at Crossfit! and then at extreme ripped insanity workout, ok?

KALEY: totally!

* any confusion of the acronym for King St Yoga “KY” with the um, sensitive product of the same letters is purely unintentional.

PS, please check out Kristen Krash for a serious and enlightening look at pose-banning.