So after a few months of going to Iyengar Yoga classes, I could kinda spread my toes. I took great pride in that. There was a whole lot that I couldn’t do, like any kind of forward fold. All those years of running made my hamstrings tight as a drum. I was always so eager to get into that pose at the end of class where you just lie on your back–savasana (corpse pose), but I came to realize in my blissed out haze, that the teacher was talking to me in her new age modulated voice. She would enumerate in her slow, whispery, creepy, new- age voice all the things that I couldn’t do. Like, ” Don’t let it bother you that your tight hamstrings wouldn’t allow you to touch your toes, you will get there some decade. First you must learn to spread your toes though.” No joke! I would lie there and will her to shut the fuck up. This happened week after week.
After the 8 week beginners yoga session was over, I looked on the schedule and found another yoga teacher. Still, I am grateful for my first yoga teacher. I told her that years later when I ran into her at an Iyengar Yoga workshop of senior teacher Manouso Manos.
Disillusioned With Iyengar Yoga 