In light of the new Bikram documentary on Netflix, I feel that it is my duty to share this story. I promised that I would never tell this story (out of shame); however, the more that I learn about sexual predators and the nature of how they operate, the more that I come to understand how little it has to do with the prey and more with the person who does the preying.This is a contradiction to what I had known before this incident happened to me.
Every and any industry is filled with predators; my story is one of a mentor that I had when I wanted to become a yoga teacher. As I start to write these words, I can feel a gulp in my throat and my eyes heat up as I get emotional but I promised to tell this story- no matter how difficult it is and the backlash that I will receive for doing so.
Approximately 7 years ago, I became a yoga teacher and I had been assigned different teachers to be my mentors during the process. It was an intense time in my life. Prior to my decision to become a yoga teacher, I was a waitress and had discovered the benefits of a consistent hot yoga practice. I was dead-set on becoming a yoga teacher and the person who asked me was one of my teachers, I looked up to him.
Although I have never believed in admiring any one person, I was passionate about the way that he taught, what he had to offer and his authenticity to the practice. As a practitioner, I was definitely influenced by him. One day, after class, he approached me and asked me if I was going to become a teacher because he believed in me. Words cannot describe how I felt when he said that to me. But, if I had to choose one, I would choose flattered.
By sheer coincidence, I ended up taking his class often after that. The studio that he taught at (and I practiced at) didn’t have a schedule so every class you took, you were surprised by who was teaching you. I had always (and still have) been fond of this idea because I became detached from who was teaching and focused on my practice.
As a result of our coinciding schedules, I would take his class 3-4 times a week and noticed that he would place extra effort and energy on me during class. On one of my birthdays, he wished me happy birthday and put his hand down my bra while I was in savasana (dead-corpse pose).I was in utter and complete shock. I started crying. I cried for the rest of class because one of my biggest fears had come true: an older man who was mentoring me only did so because of what I looked like as opposed to truly believing in me, my strength as a practitioner and my potential as a teacher.
I contemplated not going through with the teacher-training but I had already put down my non-refundable deposit. For days, I would think about it and become heartbroken and upset about this teacher. Even though, he did this to me, I went back to practice. I told myself that there were other teachers that I could learn from. I decided to do what most women do regularly, I shut off a part of my self-worth/esteem and I decided to continue to practice there and go through with the teacher-training.
I made a decision to set some boundaries, like not speaking to him, focus on the yoga when he was teaching and distance myself for making any solid connections with male teachers and practitioners. In retrospect, what I had to do was unfair and unjust but I felt so isolated in my decision-making. I knew that if I told my friends and family, they would wonder about my sanity and question why I was so obsessed with this yoga studio? Honestly, I did wonder about my sanity but I saw the big picture of being a teacher more than this issue with my mentor.
My plan to distance myself from him failed. My 23 year-old self didn’t understand that predators thrive off of attention and notice when their prey is not falling into their trap anymore. So, they usually try to breakdown the boundaries that you create when you distance yourself from them. One day, I was in a backbend on the floor and he placed his genitals in front of my face. I looked away from them. He pretended to give me an adjustment (still while I was in this backbend) but instead, pushed my head to look at them. I was so flustered and frozen that I broke down crying again. I proceeded to act like nothing had happened and after class, he came up to me while I was putting on my shoes and asked me why I was crying. I became enraged and stormed out.
I was stubborn about my plan of becoming a teacher that I decided to ignore what he was doing and keep my conversations with him minimal. This time, my plan worked until I was about to graduate from my teacher-training and I was assigned him as the teacher that I was meant to teach with, in order to pass graduation. To this day, I am not sure if this was purposeful or by accident. However, my nerves were out of control when I found out that I would be co-teaching my pre-graduation class with him.
Before I graduated from teacher-training, I was meant to give dialogue to a full class with a teacher and he was the teacher that I was meant to teach the class with. I found out just before I was meant to teach the class. I decided to breathe and get through it. Before we started, we were meant to have a ‘pow wow’ where we spoke about what I would teach and how he would interject. He said that I should teach the class and if he thinks that I am doing ‘badly’, he will start teaching. He told me that he had faith in me and that I would do great.
As the class commenced, I taught the first two postures and when I was in mid-sentence, he cut me off. He abruptly interrupted me and told me that he would take it from there. For the rest of the class, he acted like I wasn’t there and I had to stand in the class and not say a word. I felt mortified and had to leave so halfway throughout class, I left and lied to the front desk. I said that I had a headache and had to leave. It seemed like she knew what was going on and wanted to be on my side. In a nutshell, she implied knowing about his character and encouraged me to finish because I had spent so much money on becoming a teacher. I listened to her and went back in. I sat in a corner and I held back my tears till the class was done .
After it was done, I wrote a long e-mail to the teacher-trainer co-ordinator about what happened and she called me. I didn’t fill her in about how I had felt inappropriate behaviour from my mentor but I let her know what had happened when I was meant to teach the class. The conversation ended with her basically telling me that I need to work on my self confidence, let go of my issues with men and learn how to deal with males who will push my boundaries. After I got off the phone, I clearly knew that I couldn’t trust them.
I proceeded to teach for them and take my mentor issue into my own hands. The following time that he came up to me and touched me during class, I went up to him after class and I told him to never touch me again because it made me feel uncomfortable. He responded to me with shock and tried to make it seem like it was me who had the issue. However, at that point, I was so fed up with him that I didn’t care what he thought of me and what would happen to me after that.
As a result of this encounter, I made a promise to myself that I would always speak up if I felt compromised or violated. If not for me, then for the other women and girls who are behind me because it could happen to them, too.
This experience taught me that some people are messengers and nobody deserves to be idolized. He is human. He was a big piece of my path to becoming a teacher but I did the work, I literally fought against obstacles to become a teacher and no one can take that from me- not even the person who claims that they are the reason why I became a teacher in the first place.
Everyone is a teacher. Sometimes, our best teachers are people who are examples of how we shouldn’t behave and that it is up to every single one of us to hold one another accountable when respect, kindness and morality is being threatened.
