Featured on Medium: Breaking Wind and Pride

So I farted in yoga. I did it, it happened. Anyone who has ever done yoga has feared this moment. I’d even bet that anyone who’s even thought about trying yoga has thought about it, and feared it.

It happened just this morning. It was ten minutes into class, and we had just finished doing a couple small abdominal twists. Classical music was softly playing in the background. My cute yoga teacher gently directed us to move into a push up position, and then, with no warning, it happened.

Loudly.

It came on so suddenly and unexpectedly that I had no way to respond. It just happened and class kept right on going. I think I would have preferred it if the whole class bust out laughing, but no one busted out laughing.

Except, for me.

A bout of barely audible giggles came out of me; but after that ‘presentation’ everyone was probably listening more closely, “What’s the next move the farting chick is going to make?” I can only hope that everyone in the room had the following thought process:

“Oh my god. That’s so embarrassing. I would die. I would just die. I would just walk out. Why is she still here? Well, I mean she can’t leave really. Oh I don’t know what I would do. Poor dear.”

Likely, it was more, “Ew!” and then nothing.

So I sort of giggled, then did this small silent shake-laugh while still holding the position, and the yoga instructor is talking about something I had lost track of (for obvious reasons), and then his voice shook in a laugh-like way, so I looked up, and we made smiling eye contact.

Now, my yoga teacher is pretty cute – and he has a terrifyingly perfect bod. I say ‘bod’ because he’s the type of guy who takes one, full, slow, beautiful minute going down from a handstand, to lying on his stomach. And then he’ll smile at you after. It’s ridiculous.

One morning he started a conversation with me about what it’s like for him to go out with his gay roommate… considering he’s straight. So, strategically or not, he clearly let me know that even though he’s a shirtless yoga instructor who sings and reads poems in class, he’s into chicks.

Fucking Los Angeles.

Anyway, a few days before Thanksgiving he told me that he wouldn’t be teaching the day after Thanksgiving. I said that’s for the best because I’m sure everyone would be gassy, and he joked that he’d tell everyone to do twists, and

I joked that he shouldn’t because they might fart! It was all fun, and funny, and silly.

We’ve continued our silly banter since then, and this morning at the very beginning of “the class” he asked the room if anyone had any injuries and no one said anything, so he goes, “I’m not talking mental, Sarah, haHAH!” It was super cute.

And then I fucking farted.

The worst part was that I felt like I had to hold in another one the entire rest of class. My mother told me that I should have just gotten up and left to relieve myself, then come back in. But then everyone would know that the fart chick just had to go leave the room to take care of some more nasty fart girl business, and if they weren’t 100% sure it was me before, then they definitely wouldn’t have any doubts. A minute later the girl next to me made a squeaky noise with her foot on her mat. Oh my god!

Okay, if anyone brings it up, I can totally blame it on the girl next to me with the fart-sounding mat! But then the sound of my shameful trumpeting played over in my head, and the sounds are just too different. It would never work. There was an older lady on my left, I thought maybe I could blame her, but she just seemed too put together to be the farter – matching yoga tops and bottoms, neat hair. I, on the other hand, was on day two of curly hair, that had since evolved from cute-messy to frizzy-messy in the heated yoga room. Between the two of us, with profiling alone I would lose.

So there it was, I farted, I was the clear farter. I tried to keep my eyes closed as long as I could throughout the class, worried that if I made eye contact with the cute yoga instructor I’d get scared and let out another one. Fart once in a yoga class, it’s really, really bad. But twice? I’d need to avoid cute yoga instructor forever. So I kept my eyes closed, my head down, and my ass tight.

A lady shouldn’t speak that way, you say. Yoga is a pretty, lovely, way of life. There are flows, there’s inner peace, but sometimes, there’s fucking farts, and it could happen to you.

It happened to me.

Originally published on Medium.