Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places

Or, How I got kicked out of a yoga group…

If you have considered marketing yourself or a product (either information or a tangible item) you may have encountered this common marketing recommendation. “Join and participate in groups relevant to your niche.”

That of course, targets Facebook, Linkedin, and other types of social media groups.
I, always game to try new things, jumped in with gusto. How could I have known I was setting myself up for heartbreak?

I checked Facebook for “yoga groups,” and found a couple and submitted to join. One particular “closed group” claimed to be only for yoga teachers and those doing a ‘teacher training.”

BTW, I’m still not entirely sure how you filter people for these qualifications, but…

I soon got my “acceptance” into the group and had a look. I was a little confused by what I found. Most of the posts seemed rather… ummm “unworthy?” That is to say not particularly relevant to a skilled yoga teacher.

There were comments on some threads that were, frankly, bewildering in their very passionate, or expertly condescending, statements of completely incorrect portent.

I especially liked the comments by “alpha” male types whom, I could only assume, had decided, later in life, to do a teacher training and had brought, to their comments, the egotistic expert, authoritative tone that probably, serves them well in their middle management “real” jobs.
(I love that last, textbook, run-on sentence.)

So, I did what any clever internet detective would do. I clicked on their little icon to check their personal page or profile. What I found was that most of them had no reference to being a yoga teacher – No comments on their teaching schedule, no tags or posts from students. Nothing.

It appeared that most of this “socially correct” but not particularly accurate information was being posted by people who weren’t actually “teaching” yoga.

Enter the infamous St. Patty’s Day post. If you haven’t seen it, you can find the IG version here.

It was, I thought, a wonderfully irreverent little ditty poking fun at the whole obsession with branding and marketing that exists in yoga, and most other things as well, these days.

So, I’ve got that sucker up there on Faceslap, and I’m thinking, this would be a cool thing to “share” with my new yoga groups. And, off my shares went.

Awhile later I go to check on the posts. I look at my little “groups” list on my Facebutt page, and the above mentioned, group isn’t there.

I type in the name and go to the page to find out that My post has been deleted and I have been “removed” from the group!!

That group moderator must just sit around all day waiting to nail rowdy troublemakers such as myself. In a perfect world, it would be interesting to compare that person’s expertise and qualifications in yoga and teaching yoga to my own, but that is not the nature of “virtual” information.

Well, needless to say, I wasn’t really “heartbroken” as may have been implied earlier.
I had managed to be kicked out of a yoga teachers group without even trying! All I had to do was be myself.

I was actually quite excited that I had been ejected from this example of whatever “yoga” has become in this funky, lame, troll/expert world of the internet.
So, how do I feel that the authenticity of my yoga has become so alien to what is now being extolled as yoga?

Well, I believe in karma.  I think that we as individuals and as groups are getting precisely what we have brought to, and upon ourselves.

If this is “modern” yoga, then so be it. The people are getting exactly what they deserve.
I will keep presenting old school, authentic yoga practices and opinions to my audience…
Even if “Authentic” has become the new “underground.”

If you are a teacher, student or simply an amused reader, please comment below, and let me know how you feel about my adventure or the state of “yoga” today.

I would love to hear from you! Also if you think your friends or associates would enjoy it, please share.