It is hard to hold on to a greased pig.
The teenager leapt forward and got her hands on the pig. All she has to do now is stand up and hold the pig off of the ground for a count of five to win the prize. The greased pig wiggled and squirmed and slid out of her hands before she could get a firm grip on it.
Today you are like that greased pig.
You put on some new body lotion before you came to class. It smells really nice and makes your skin feel silky smooth and so soft, but there is a problem.
What is wrong with wearing body lotion
There are three problems that happen when you wear body lotion. One affects you, another affects your teacher and the third problem affects some of your classmates.
The three problems are:
- binding
- adjusting
- scents
Applying body lotion has an impact on you when you attempt to do a yoga pose.
1 — Binding
In some yoga poses you need to hold your arms or legs in position for several seconds or even minutes. The pose could require you to:
- Wrap your arm around your back and hold a foot
- Wrap your arms around your leg and your back and hold your hands behind your back
- Wrap your arms around your foot and hold your hands in front of you
Holding your hands or wrists while wrapping your arms around your body in some fashion is called binding. With body lotion in place everything is slippery and it is hard to hold on in the bind. Everything keeps sliding apart.
There are three problems with wearing body lotion:
- binding
- adjusting
- scents
You wrap your arms around your bent leg and attempt to hold your hands behind your back and two things will happen. First your arm will slide off of your leg and second your hands will keep sliding apart.
It is difficult for you to keep your arms in the right place and to hold on when you have body lotion on your arms and legs.
Not only does body lotion have an impact on you it also has an impact on your yoga teacher.
2 — Adjusting
Your yoga teacher helps you with your yoga pose by adjusting how you are doing it. They do this for two reasons; first they adjust how you do a yoga pose for your own safety and secondly they adjust you to help you go a little further into the pose.
If you have body lotion on, you will be like that greased pig that that teenager was trying to lift up, you will keep sliding out of your teacher’s grasp.
You wrap your arms around your bent leg and attempt to hold your hands behind your back. Your hands are almost touching. Your teacher attempts to close the gap for you and his hands keep sliding on your skin.
Because of the body lotion you are like that greased pig and your teacher can not get a hold of you to help you move further in the pose.
Body lotion has an impact on you and your teacher, but it does not end there. Your body lotion also has an impact on the people around you in class.
3 — Scents
Gradually your body heats up as you work on the various poses. When your body heats up during your yoga practice the body wash starts to evaporate and spread around the room.
Even the slightest scent will now be all over the room. While most people may find the scent pleasant there will be some people in class that find the scent objectionable.
There are some people in class that are sensitive to scents in some way. Some of them will find it difficult to breathe while others will suddenly lose all of their energy.
Summary
Body lotion may make your skin feel nice and silky but putting it on yourself is like greasing the pig for the county fair. It is fun to watch the teenagers trying to catch the greased pig but it is not much fun to try and do yoga poses when you have body lotion on. It will impact you, your teacher and your neighbours.
Next Step
Leave the body lotion off until after you finish your yoga practice.
Additional Reading
— To learn more about the use of scented products during yoga class read Why no scents makes good sense in yoga class.
