Yoga Trauma

The Times is all over it.

This will be a short emergency Substack. I just wanted to draw your attention to an alarming recent occurrence in New York City, which I found out about from a story in the Sunday New York Times.

What happened was — prepare to be horrified — a woman took a sip of water during a yoga class. Yes. According to the Times story, which is not a brief story, and which I am not making up, this resulted in a "firestorm."

You really owe it to yourself to read the full story, but I'll attempt to summarize it:

In January a woman named Roma Abdesselam went to a yoga class on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Yoga is of course an ancient spiritual discipline, invented in India, that allows you go to Trader Joe's in extremely revealing pants.

According to the Times, this particular class was "Bikram style, meaning that practitioners would be expected to move through a carefully prescribed sequence of 26 yoga postures, directed by an instructor." This takes place in a hot room, but "practitioners are often encouraged to refrain from drinking water until about half an hour in, usually once they reach eagle pose."

But according to the Times, Abdesselam took a sip of water BEFORE the class reached eagle pose. If you can even imagine. This led to the traumatic confrontation that is the heart of the story:

The instructor, a longtime Bikram practitioner named Irena, took notice and reminded the students not to drink water until they were cued to do so. Ms. Abdesselam, who said she did not remember that rule being explained at the start of the session, became frustrated and left early with her fiancé, who was also in attendance. They didn’t say a word to Irena.

In a normal world, it might have ended there. But we do not live in a "normal world." We live, unfortunately, in THIS world, and in THIS world, Roma Abdesselam — Do I even need to tell you this? — is a TikTok influencer with 650,000 followers.

Once she was safely outside on the streets of New York, Abdesselam made a TikTok video, telling her followers: "And the instructor bullies me — calls me out in front of everyone — and is like, ‘It’s not time to drink water, I’ll let you know when you can drink water, you drink water when I want you to drink water.’”

The video has so far been viewed by two million people, and it goes without saying many of them have strong views on this issue.

The Times says that the instructor, Irena, "maintains that she did explain the instructions at the start of class, contrary to Ms. Abdesselam’s recollection. She also said she didn’t 'command' her pupil not to drink water but instead asked to 'please try to refrain' until the appointed time."

As if THAT'S going to satisfy TikTok.

The day after Abdesselam released her video, the studio, Bode NYC, posted its own TikTok video, stating “not only is drinking water allowed it is encouraged!!”

Then one of the founders of the studio released a video stating, in part, that "the situation that occurred the other night... does not in any way align with our standards, code of conduct or guidelines."

I assume it goes without saying that Irena is no longer employed at Bode NYC.

There is much, MUCH more in the Times story on the fallout from Roma Abdesselam's traumatic trauma, and yoga hydration in general, including (of course) expert commentary from a college professor. The only thing missing — and frankly, as a longtime Times reader, I was disappointed — is a scientist connecting this issue to Global Climate Change.

As I say, you really should read the whole thing yourself. Make sure you have a drink handy.

And now let’s find out what you beloved and totally sane paying subscribers think: