One thing I hate about yoga: sanctimonious instructors. You know what I'm talking about: always a tremendously precious tone of voice, which manages simultaneously to avoid disturbing any nearby rabbits and to condescend to us poor creatures who spend time in chairs, or—heaven forbid—with computers. These instructors, even when teaching beginners, manage to give every instruction as if it were something we, the class, already failed to do, because we're such mundane nine-to-five nitwits. We don't even live on a higher plane! These classes take forever to get started, because she's thinking about precisely the right way to communicate the full and sacred import of what we're about to experience—that is, if we manage to devote ourselves several hours a day to practice and avoid any other activities that might be construed as fun.

Two-thirds of all the yoga instructors I've known carry themselves with this attitude. It's tolerable, but unpleasant, and it doesn't help the work, in my opinion. For my part, it puts bitterness in my mouth. Just get on with the class: push us, but don't ask us to fit your mold. Focus on the practice of yoga, not the philosophical freight that you carry with it; that stuff can find its expression in the way you teach without stomping everyone's good spirit.

In the recent New Yorker profile of George Clooney, there's a nice little quote about how he deals with fans: graciously. He says, "You've got to offer these people a path back to their lives." The same goes for yoga: it's a profound practice—fine; it's not just a bunch of stretches, nor simply a matter of turning up—fine. But, O Instructor, you've got to offer us a path into it, from our lives, and back again.