So, now, I always tell my massage therapist, hair stylist, etc, any specific preference beforehand. I tell them in a way that I think will be welcomed so they know they are doing a great job for me and they can take pride in helping me achieve my goal…in peace and quiet!

Another important thing is to adjust my own perspective on the relationship. If I am paying, I am the boss. I remind myself that my doctor might have 20 years of education, but they took those 20 years of education for the opportunity to have someone pay them for your time. They aren’t my boss. They’re just a person hanging out a shingle. If they have a horrible bedside manner, I’ll pass. I’m the customer/client and I’ll take my mind/body/wallet elsewhere, thanks!

My wife is supremely in the camp of conflict avoidance. We talk about it all the time and I get to see how she feels about confronting anyone or allowing them to be uncomfortable even by omission. It’s difficult when you feel responsible for other’s feelings, even when it’s not your responsibility. Then I hear about it, after the fact, and I learn and grow from it by gaining that insight and wisdom of that window into another person. Clearly there are a lot of people who feel that way.

Like you, she would not have said anything to the instructor, but simply gone somewhere else. If someone doesn’t want to have that conflict, I don’t think they should. It’s not the client/customer’s job to teach the teacher. You’re going there to relieve stress, not build it up more and have to live with the aftermath of that confrontation running through your head. (“Have I offended the teacher? Are they hating me now? Gosh, I’m REALLY not relaxed now!”) And then that narrative of the conflict follows you around for the rest of the day/week.

Besides, if the instructor isn’t capable of reading you, they aren’t ready to teach you. If they can’t stop talking, how are they going to know you’re breathing properly? At that point, I realize this person isn’t going to help me and I wouldn’t come here even for free.

I think that thinking about myself as the empowered person in the relationship and setting up my expectations up front helps to avoid the messy situations that always follow confrontations, like the inevitable movie plot, only now, I can change the script for the ending I want to see.

My biggest problem is restaurants which features waiters who want to bond with me in an effort to drum up tips. When I tell them I would like to eat in peace, thanks, they get nasty and offended. I had to leave that particular restauant as the corporate policy was to chat up patrons.

I now go to a much quieter asian place…and now that I have become a regular, the wait staff is wanting to get to know me better. These efforts are now ruining my experience.

This may sound petty, but I hate going to the pay at the cash register and have the manager try to pump me for information, asking me about my personal life…or if I read a newspaper for lunch, what i found interested in the news. Now that he knows I follow news, he tries to get my opinion on current events. Nothing against the guy but I am there to eat and leave. I find it draining to have to have this conversation and to be subjected to his efforts, which to me, seem like he is pulling on me…even trying to get up the courage to ask for a date. Constant chattyness and wanting to engage despite my disinterest.

Today I took to going into the restaurant as a complete slob (messy hair, no make up, slovenly, glasses instead of contacts) …and he didn’t want to chat with me then…in fact, he took my money, pleasantly and allowed me to leave without trying to intercept and babble at me. Is this what i have to resort to? Be a slob to get peace? Well presented, and somehow I become someone he wants to know better….

Its nice to know that others share my desire for a little peace.

Basically, he got involved with one of his students and left his wife for her; they got married last year. Had I known that his yoga ball kit, which is fantastic for dealing with neck and back tightness and sciatica, had a video featuring his new bride, I wouldn’t have bought it. As a denizen of a long-term marriage to someone who has been known to have some very minor boundary blurring, I find this whole notion that only the blonde, willowy former model who’s in your Friday night yoga class is your true soulmate and it’s OK to toss your wife for her kind of distasteful. Sort of interferes with the zen of the practice.

As for teachers and instructors – my fiddle teacher used to leave slightly early, so I started putting a small bedside clock on the table we practise next to. Now, if anything, we run over.

I think this subtle approach could work for those in Kate’s situation. Perhaps asking the instructor what time it is would remind her a) you are paying for her time, b) whatever she still has to fit into the lesson.

It does make sense, ’cause during my first session, I didn’t feel it–at least until the next day. My second session was THE BEST EVAR, because I had a totally all-business, non-chatty instructor who worked some sort of magic that got me feeling it right away. I don’t even know what she did so right–if she explained it differently, just picked the right exercises for me, put exactly the right amount of tension on the machines, or what. Or maybe I was just ABLE TO CONCENTRATE because she wasn’t yammering. Whatever it was, it was a world of difference from the first session–I felt my core muscles working the whole damn time. (So naturally, she hardly ever teaches there, and trying to set up a regular schedule with her would be nearly impossible.) Next two sessions with different instructors, I had a better idea of what it felt like to engage the right muscles, but the magic wasn’t there anymore. And one of those was the chatty Cathy. Sigh.

Thanks for the advice, rhiain and everyone.

Then at the end of class just say something like, “I think being able to focus more really helped, I feel like I got an awesome workout.” Pilates teachers (I’m assuming this is what this was) are always stressing about making sure you FEEL it, since when you first start out the weird muscles you’re using might not be toned enough for you to feel what you should, if that makes sense. If you can tell her that her shutting up let that happen, she should be all for it.

Anyway, I’m training to be a pilates instructor, and Kate, THANKS for this! I taught middle school a few years back, and I still have that chatter-to-fill-silence training in there somewhere to help those awkward kids be less awkward. I promise not to let it bleed over into pilates.

That being said, I think the posters above who have recommended saying something are probably right–the teacher’s probably doing it because it’s just part of her schtick, but I doubt she’d continue if she knew it were hurting your practice.

It surprises me it happens in yoga; pilates, not so much. My experience it that most people start with yoga, since it’s more accessible, and if they like it in general but want something more high-energy, try pilates. Pilates instructors can be crazy high-energy, just like aerobics instructors. It can be so frustrating when you’re trying to focus inward and they’re treating class like a show about How Damn Cheerful They Are. Argh.