1. Arriving late for class not only compromises your experience, it also disturbs everyone else. Class has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Honor your teacher and fellow classmates and arrive on time.

2. Yoga is about connecting to our hands, heart and head. Turn your cell phone off. Put your pager on vibration mode if you must have it on at all.

3. Yoga is about connecting to the earth and sky. Keep the floor clean and leave your shoes, food and drink outside.

4. Yoga is an inward journey. Keep casual conversation during class to a minimum.

5. Yoga is about creating lines of energy and moving energy in the body. Jewelry holds energy and generally blocks the free flow of energy through our limbs. Please remove your wristwatch and any large pieces of jewelry prior to class.

6. Though people often stop and drink water in aerobic classes, stopping for water during a yoga class is more often than not an indication that you have gotten close to your “edge” and are now turning away from it. I have seen hundreds of people able to withstand heavy perspiration without stopping to drink any water. Yoga is about burning up toxins and drinking water only dampens your flame while breaking your concentration.

7. Yoga is about uniting the body, breath and mind. Ideally, we breathe through the nose, with the tongue and jaw relaxed, during our yoga practice. Chewing gum tenses the jaw and mouth. Yoga is about breathing, not eating and chewing. Please, no gum chewing in class.

8. Yoga is about creating awareness. Your mat will have your own odour and footprints on it. For health reasons, and for vibrational reasons, please bring your own mat to yoga class. It is your magic carpet; make it fly.