There it was again. A long audible sigh from my neighbour. She is happiest when the people around her and the teacher are paying attention to her. She has found that sighing works really well. It is quite distracting for the people around her.Aesop wrote about the pitfalls of drawing attention to yourself in one of his stories.
The Fighting Cocks and the Eagle
Two game Cocks were fiercely fighting for the mastery of the farmyard. One at last put the other to flight. The vanquished Cock skulked away and hid himself in a quiet corner, while the conqueror, flying up to a high wall, flapped his wings and crowed exultingly with all his might. An Eagle sailing through the air pounced upon him and carried him off in his talons. The vanquished Cock immediately came out of his corner, and ruled henceforth with undisputed mastery.
Moral: Pride goes before destruction.
Drawing attention to yourself will bring you bad karma.
There are yoga poses that are named for roosters and eagles, but there are no actual fighting cocks or eagles in yoga class.
So what does this story have to do with you and your yoga practice?
The cock that won the fight drew attention to himself and disaster happened when the eagle came by.
Drawing attention to yourself
You can draw attention to yourself in many ways during a yoga class.
- Talking to your neighbours.
- Complaining about or celebrating a pose
- Moaning, and groaning as you work on a pose
- Fussing with your clothes or hair
There is no end to the ways that you can draw attention to yourself in yoga class.
There are bad consequences to drawing attention to yourself.
- distract others
- distract your teacher
- attract bad karma
The first one, distract others, is the most obvious consequence.
Distract others
Talking to others while you are working on a pose distracts both yourself and your neighbours from focusing on the yoga pose.
This lack of focus results in you missing the feedback from your body and going further into a pose than is wise.
Injuring yourself in a yoga pose is not the kind of attention that you want.
Your neighbours are not the only ones to be distracted by your attention seeking tactics.
Distract your teacher
Your attention seeking antics causes your teacher to become distracted as well.
They will miss giving one of your class mates and adjustment or an alternate pose that will prevent them from injuring themselves.
Distracting your teacher and those around results in you attracting bad Karma if you continue down this path for an extended period of time
Bad Karma
The more you distract people the more bad karma you start to attract.
The more you seek attention, the more the people around seek to avoid you and ignore you.
Your attempt to gain more attention is resulting in the opposite affect.
What should you do?
- Talk after class
- Talk to your teacher
- Praise your neighbour’s success
Talk after class
Talk to your neighbours after class. You will have much more time to carry on a conversation without the distraction of working on yoga poses at the same time. Your neighbours and your teacher will be much happier as well.
Talk to your yoga teacher
If you are having a problem with a yoga pose, ask your teacher right away but keep it brief and to the point.
During yoga class is the wrong time to talk about a great insight you had about your yoga practice. You can talk to your teacher after class about it.
Praise your neighbour’s success
Praising individual about their success after class is over will attract good karma. Praising others will make them feel good about themselves and good about you as well.
Summary
It is very distracting to be near someone in a yoga class who craves attention.
They start talking, or grunting or make such a production out of each posture that everyone looks over at them.
Yoga is supposed to be a pleasant, harmonic experience between you and your body.
Next Step
If you notice someone in class drawing attention to themselves, tell them the story about the fighting cocks and the eagle.
Then you can suggest somethings that they can do differently.
Additional Reading
For more about attracting attention read Why moaning groaning and humming during class will bring you bad karma.
The article Why you should talk to your yoga teacher gives you more insight about when you should talk to your teacher.
For another Aesop fable that applies to your yoga practice read Why you should follow the sun’s approach to achieve your yoga goals safely.
