Yoga in Singapore

I 've done yoga in several different countries--the US, Australia, Mexico, Nepal, and now Singapore. My experience of yoga instruction in the US, Australia, and Mexico is fairly similar. Since the first place I ever did yoga was in the US, that's my default for "normal" yoga practice. Put yourself into new poses, often flowing from one pose to another. Push yourself, but respect your body's boundaries. Instructors' levels of intensity has differed, but I never felt unsafe.

In Nepal, I went to a few different yoga centers, again, with different types of instructors. A few of my instructors were from India, and theirs was a somewhat more rote yoga, a little pushier and less comfortable, and with some of them, I felt a disconnect between what they were pushing me to do and what my body could actually do. I recall ending several sessions upset. But I was also introduced to new kinds of yoga that I'd never tried before. Yoga nidra. An absolute dream yoga where you're laying down the whole time, listening to the instructor point out different things to pay attention to. More like a meditation, it's hard to stay awake, making this practice very relaxing and enjoyable. 

I was also introduced to daily chanting/singing yoga, which was both awkward and heartening. It made me feel like I was back at church, singing with a congregation. There's something powerful about being with a group of people, saying/singing the same words, and I liked the fact that this chanting, though the words were foreign to me, were positive, blessings being put out into the world. What better way to start the day. 

My female instructor in Nepal was a wise woman whose yoga practice was spiritual, life-consuming, and full of depth. She was a goddess-type who always wore white and was somehow otherworldly yet personable, and I sometimes feared that she could see into my soul when she looked into my eyes. Her yoga was also a bit uncomfortable for me, but in a spiritual sense. It was more profound, or with the potential to be more profound, than I expected.

Fast forward to my first yoga class in Singapore. This class was headed by a female instructor who was very energetic with an exacting practice. She and her young(er than me) students had excellent flexibility, whereas I was returning to yoga after about three years and a pandemic, so needless to say my range of motion had taken a hit. This instructor pushed her students into the "correct" postures, which often resulted in tense, wincing faces. She did the same with me, even when I shook my head at her, said, "No," and, "Please don't." I very nearly walked out of her class but was afraid of looking like that big, angry white woman. It was my worst yoga class ever. I got home and cried because I felt so angry and violated. By a woman! What woman keeps pushing you when you say "no"? I get that it's just yoga, but it made me feel very unsafe.

After taking a few months off from yoga (in what was probably another lockdown that saw yoga classes canceled anyway), I made a fairly blind and perhaps ill-advised move. I made a year-long commitment to a gym whose focus is on yoga. Sounds right up my alley. But I only went to one class before diving head-first into their contract, and despite the complaining I'll be doing below, I don't regret it. It ticks a number of boxes:

• The price is good. The price of one month at this gym is less than four yoga classes anywhere else. Except I can go to as many yoga classes as I want, and of course to get my money's worth, I try to make sure I go to at least two classes a week. 
• The schedule. There are yoga classes every day throughout the day, so pretty much any time I want to go, there's a class I can jump into.
• The variety. There's hatha yoga, warm yoga, hot yoga, vinyasa, stretch, wall rope, yin, and a wide variety of yoga types. Even yoga nidra on a Sunday night. 
• The location. It's a 7-minute walk from home, which is the closest I've ever lived to my gym. Convenience is key. 

Maybe I should have just paid more for yoga classes with western teachers at the helm. It would certainly save me a lot of grief, but I see this as character-building. I'm in Singapore, so I should see how Singaporeans do yoga. I moved to Singapore because I wanted to experience a different culture, and I won't be doing that by going to a predominantly white gym. And this gym is definitely a Singaporean gym. I've seen less than a handful of white people in the months since I joined and the teachers are from Chinese and Indian backgrounds, so they approach it from an eastern perspective. Yoga is from India, so what I'm learning is technically closer to its source of origin. Just because my experience of it often feels bad doesn't mean it's wrong. Well. There are parts of it that I don't think are right, but I'll get there.

Here's my experience--yoga here is painful. All of the classes I go to say they cater for beginner to advanced students (I never sign up for anything that doesn't say beginner). Yet all of these classes have remarkably advanced poses that I've never seen done in any of my previous classes. Or rarely. The splits is a regular pose in my classes. Head stands. Back bends. And this (inverted locust pose): 

(Photo source)

Who does that kind of an effing pose?? Ok, so these classes have advanced poses. That's not a problem. Except. While they may (may!) provide an indication of a modification, the modification is usually only down to an intermediate level. Then the teachers hone in on the weakest class members and tell you what you're doing wrong and what to do better. If there was any doubt of my current level of yoga fitness, it's receded to a very beginner level and I can comfortably say I'm one of the worst students in class. As if that wasn't enough, I'm the only white student in the class so I stick out and am often a point of focus for the teachers. I don't like people looking at me, and I always vie for a spot in the back of the classroom. The focus I receive from the instructors feels distressing. It may be that this attention is meant to be helpful, and on one occasion I've felt that other members of the class would have preferred to be the recipients of it. My lens is influenced by my perspective and experiences, so it certainly doesn't equal intention. 

What's most uncomfortable, though is that there's no real engagement in the fact that everyone's body is different, with different levels of plasticity and limitations. When instructors are doling out criticisms, they're not paying attention to whether your body  allows you to do the pose. Worse, like my first yoga instructor here in Singapore, they come around and physically push or pull your body to make it conform to the pose. I regularly have to shake my head at teachers when they come to push my body, and say, "My body does not do that." There's a total lack of realization that not all bodies can perform these poses.

Asking people to do these poses, then forcefully pushing them when their bodies can't reach the full expression of the pose, is dangerous. Layer on top of that teachers who say things like, "If you're too scared..." It's infuriating. And frankly, dangerous. 

Here's the other character-building part for me. Going to these classes is an exercise in self-advocacy and in doing other than instructed. I was a good student that wanted to be liked by teachers, so my first inclination is to do as instructed. While this helped me get good grades in school, this quality doesn't necessarily translate in the real world. I've found it to be an uncomfortable, if necessary, thing for me to learn. Going to the doctor and using my voice to get the right treatments. Arguing for incorrect bills to be changed. Interviewing for jobs, negotiating for my salary. Driving, walking, biking. Navigating life in general requires self advocacy, and it's still something I struggle with. 

Being in a class in a country where I'm an immigrant--an outsider--and where I want to be respectful of social norms, yet where I feel vulnerable--it's a line I'm learning to walk. I don't want to be that white lady. I don't want to act like (or worse, to actually think that) the world revolves around me and that I know best. But I am an expert on the limits of my body, and will be vocal about that. I've had conversations with a few teachers to ask them to provide more beginner modifications and to let them know that these poses are outside the physical limits of my body. And to let them know that their undivided attention doesn't feel good to me. 

While I thought I was signing up to improve my yoga, I may have actually signed up to level-up my self advocacy. Who knew. As my backbone grows stronger, I do hope it grows more flexible as well.