Mom Farts In Yoga Class And Lives To Tell The Tale

The unthinkable happened in yoga class, and it’s hilarious

Do you find yourself uttering, “this shit only happens to me” more often than you’d like to admit? Do hilariously embarrassing moments follow you around like the plague? Then sit right down and listen to this mom’s tale of her first yoga class gone wrong. She’s your sister.

You cannot make this kind of hilarity up.

Laura Mazza, the Australian writer behind the blog Mum on the Run, is recovering from something many of us moms are all too familiar with — diastasis recti, more commonly known as a separation of the abdominal muscles that can happen after pregnancy. “Having kids separated my abdominal wall like Moses parting the Red Sea,” Mazza writes. “Yeah it’s not good and my stomach kinda points out like a cone. So you know, I am trying to get fitter and fix it so it was suggested by a physio to try yoga.”

So, she obliged. “I put on a pair of yoga pants, because for someone who has never done yoga, really, I seem to own a lot of yoga pants,” she admits. “I got the pair that looked less “Ball-y” from sleeping in and yanked them up nice and high and got a clean top.” I know what you’re thinking; this woman is all of us.

She found a yoga class. She went. And this happened.

First came the realization that she’d have to take off her socks and expose her hairy toes. Damn the forgotten grooming! It’s happened to the best of us. She describes feeling slightly left out amongst the sea of toned bodies who seemed to all know each other. But she slowly eases into the class and begins to feel like she knows what she’s doing, until she gets to downward dog and her folded-over guts remind her she has IBS.

Yup. She farts. It’s a silent one, but “then we move to some position where my heads between my legs, and the smell hits me like a punch to the nose.”

“I’m thinking, do I leave? Do I leave the country? Is this happening?? IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? Not only do I look like a slob but now I stink too.”

Whatever. It’s silent, she doesn’t have to claim it, so she gathers the strength to move on — like a true hero. “I gather my resolve and say you know what? Whatever. Everyone farts and I can’t help it,” she writes. “I continue attempting these ridiculous positions and suck in my core. Fitness here we come.” YES, girl. You’re a warrior.

Then the goddamn yoga instructor comes and ruins everything. Look yoga instructors, those of us who don’t do yoga regularly don’t love it when you come over to our clumsy bodies and try to contort them around. Can you knock that shit off? The yoga instructor comes over to Laura and all chill goes out the window: “The teacher then came around and pushed everyone down lower… I thought oh good, gonna get a nice crack in my back again. I hold in my butthole nice and tight to make sure no farts escape again.” Spoiler alert: she didn’t hold tight enough.

“She comes over… pushes my back down… And buuuuuuuuuurrppppfffffff. The loudest trumpet comes out of my ass. I froze and thought oh my god. Oh my god. OH MY GOD. Sweet baby Jesus. What just happened. I’m dreaming. Surely. I’m in a nightmare,” she writes.

I mean really, there is nothing left to do at this point but gather your belongings and leave. It’s okay to admit defeat, and live to downward dog another day.

“I turn around just as I’m closing the door And look up embarrassed to see everyone on their knees wide eyed staring at me in shock,” Laura writes. “Guru ashram yoga teacher looks at me, bows her head and joins her hands together and says ‘namaste.'”

OF COURSE SHE DOES.

As for Laura, she’s sworn off yoga and ended her day eating a sundae and crying at McDonald’s — as she should. And as for the viral nature of such a “sensitive” story going around? “I feel like I’ll be known as the fart lady so I’ll have to wear a disguise and shave my toes,” she tells Scary Mommy. Well, if she can regularly remember to shave her toes she’s already got us beat.

Namaste, Laura. Namaste.