When a yogi*ni leaves mid-practice
Three times people have left my class mid-practice. Might sound like a lot but it actually represents less than 0.4% of all the classes I’ve taught so far, and yet… I can remember exactly how I felt. The first time felt like a big bang in me. The second time less. By the third, I had started to rewire the narrative I was telling myself in that moment.
I want to share these three moments with you now, without sugarcoating it. Because I think newly graduated yoga teacher will face this at some point. I’d rather you read this now and maybe journal about it afterwards on how you could handle such situations rather than being alone on your mat after class, replaying everything you said, wondering if your sequence was wrong, if you are simply not cut out for this. Spoiler: the reason they left was probably not about you.
The first time, it happened while I was subbing.
I was subbing in a studio where I also just started teaching a weekly practice. Subbing in new spaces or for a teacher for the first time usually comes with an extra level of nerves. There are surely regulars and they carrying habits and expectations built around someone else.
The first time a person walked away mid-practice happened like this to me; the practitioner came in, unrolled their mat and immediately started fidgeting. There was a restlessness to them before we had begun. The shala was full. And I was about to teach a traditional Hatha practice, longer holds, stillness, no flow to speak of.
About twenty minutes in, they rolled up thier mat, told me they weren’t feeling well (or feeling it?). No further explanation. And inside I was melting “Oh no no no, is my sequence inadequate? Is the whole group not into my teaching and that person was just the only one brave enough to leave? Did I just jeopardize my weekly class and people won’t come to my weekly?”. Spiraling thoughts, yet, I kept teaching. But every doubt I’d managed to push down before class came straight back up.
What I didn’t do: stop the class. Make it a moment by talking about it or why that person left. What I did do: bring the group into a slightly longer hold, accompany them to the door, check that person was okay, offer water, tell that they can take a breather and come back later (they didn’t). After that I took the other practitioners out of the pose and keep going. The rest of the class seemed to feel fine. And I think that matters, because the other students saw me handle it with calm and professionalism. And calm is contagious.
Few weeks later, I saw that practitioner again and we didn’t talk about that moment. They came for a vinyasa practice and said that she likes flowy classes. Looking back: maybe it was partly about the mismatch. Flowy versus holds, their expectations versus my practice. But I can’t know for sure. And that’s ok. Mismatch in what we teach vs what practitioners expect is not failure per se. It is just the reality of subbing, of the fact that no teacher on any given day can be everything every body in the room needs.
The second time, a regular walked out of my weekly class.
The second time was in one of my own regular weekly classes, which already felt different. I knew this student, they knew me. There was a “foundation”. About fifteen minutes in, the person stood up and whispered on the way out that their stomach wasn’t right. I did the same thing as the first time. Held the group in a pose, checked in gently, offered water, offered to wipe their mat. And this time, the internal spiral was shorter.
The following week, that practitioner was back on the mat. I didn’t bring up the week before but they did. They came over before class and apologised, explaining they had genuinely thought they could practice but realised quickly that the body had different plans. I felt grateful for that conversation. Not relieved, not vindicated, just really happy that we talked about it openly, that they came back, and moved by the fact that they felt safe enough in the room to listen to themselves and act accordingly.
That is, when I think about it, exactly what we are trying to teach. They didn’t force it but left after listening to their needs. If that is someone leaving your class, I will take it.
The third time a new person left my weekly practice.
Actually when I say new, I mean to my practice, but a regular to the studio I am teaching in. It was a senior student who had taken a back-to-back class that day. They had already been on the mat for an hour before we started our 75min practice.
