Sweatiquette

3 things to never do at the yoga studio

Whenever I get to November and realise that I ate all the damn pies, all winter, I hit the yoga studio. Hard. And not just any yoga, Bikram. The sweaty kind. 41 degrees Celsius. 90 minutes. All out sweat. It’s wonderful. But there are a few things that are not so wonderful, and they all boil down to the same thing – people not observing yoga etiquette. Or sweatiquette as I like to call it. So here three things to please never do at the yoga studio.

Number 1.

Don’t shower for 18 minutes when there’s a line of sweaty, bedraggled women queuing up, clutching their towels, feeling like they’ve just been run over by a bus on their way back down from the highest peak on Kilimanjaro.

Everybody’s tired. Everybody’s disgustingly sweaty. We all want to wash the perspiration off, cool down under the water and get home to our rye vita and cottage cheese, ok, Sarah? Don’t be whipping out your razor and shaving cream and proceeding to shave every inch of your legs at snail’s pace when some of us are dying out here. Do your full body oil exfoliation “because I have such dry skin” AT HOME, Melissa.

Oh, and Liz? We know you have really really really long hair and that you need to condition it – we’ve heard your replies to the grumbles and mumbles coming from the death queue. But that’s a 'you' problem. You made the decision to channel your inner Rapunzel, not us. And yet, here we are, red-faced zombies standing on quivering legs, aching, dying, waiting for the sweet, sweet relief that only cold water can bring, while you wait out your 10-minute conditioning time by slathering and lathering all manner of shower products on your body like it’s a 5-star spa and you’ve booked into the Presidential Suite.

What irritates me the most is not even the waiting, or the fact that the longer I wait the harder I have to fight the urge to curl myself into a foetal ball on the cold floor in front of the basin and nap a bit. It’s not even the lack of consideration or the fact that you are so blasé about it. What really bothers me, is that I see myself as a peace-loving, non-judgemental, kind, and compassionate person, with not a vindictive bone in my body, and your behaviour brings out a version of me that I don’t like. Specifically, the version that thinks about sneaking back into the change rooms just before the class starts to check your bag for your brand of conditioner, and then popping into Clicks after class (if I make it on time after waiting 18 minutes for a shower!) to buy that very same conditioner, along with a bottle of the strongest, fastest acting, low odour hair removal cream I can find, taking them both home, replacing the conditioner with the hair removal cream, taking it back to yoga the next day, sneaking back into the change rooms just before the class starts to replace your conditioner with mine, and then enjoying the anticipation, while I’m in the line for the showers, of the inevitable horror-filled scream as Rapunzel becomes Kojak.

I don’t want to be that version of me, so just stop it.

Number 2.

If you’re a big sweater – and I don’t just mean you sweat quite a lot – I mean, a prolific world-class sweater, for the love of God, man, don’t allow your sweat to encroach on anyone else’s personal space.

All you need to do is bring an extra towel (or four) with you and create an absorbent wall around your yoga mat. Please. Asseblief tog.

I am not sure if you are aware of this, Craig, but within 17 minutes of class, your sweat starts to pool on the floor on either side of your mat. About 25 minutes in, the pools turn into slow and steady streams moving menacingly in the direction of the mats of the people on either side of you, eventually reaching their mats, quietly pooling on the sides of their mats, before slithering onto their mats so that by the time the standing sequence is over and we’re “on the floor” there’s a pool of your sweat on at least two other people’s mats. What do you think happens when the teacher says: “Now turn onto your bellies, arms by your sides and kiss the mat”?

Someone could drown like that, Craig. Imagine. “Oh, how did Sarah die?” “It’s the weirdest thing. She was at a bikram class, and…”

It's not okay, so just stop it.

Number 3

I can’t believe I actually have to say this, but say it I must. Please, pretty, pretty please, don’t blow your nose in the shower.

The only thing worse than standing in the line for the showers and hearing someone in one of them hold one nostril closed with her finger and blow out of the other nostril, is being in the shower next door when you hear it. First of all, I don’t want anyone to think it’s me! (Yes, I know, it’s just ego, bla ba bla… but still. I don’t.) And secondly, most importantly, your snot washes into the little gutter that runs the length of all three showers and I don’t want to see that coming past me. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to think about it.

What are you doing, girl? Do you have testicles? Is your name Kevin or Chad or hammer or bulldog? No?

Then just stop it.  

There are other things that irritate me, like people who take phone calls in the change room, or that guy who rubs eucalyptus all over himself before class so that we all feel like we’re in a Scandinavian sauna inhaling his eucalyptus sweat for 90 minutes, but the three I listed above are just the worst.

It all boils down to the same thing – a lack of awareness and consideration for other people. I tell myself – ‘they’re not sociopaths; they probably just don’t know.’

So if you recognise yourself in any of these misdemeanours, please just stop it. And if you relate, because you too have fallen victim to one of these crimes, feel free to share this post – to the offending party’s feed, to your yoga studio’s Facebook page. Hey, print it out and stick it up in the change rooms for all I care. Let’s get word out there, please, so that I don’t have to waste money on hair removal cream. That shit’s expensive.

P.S. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.