French Yoga

My Tibetan, Nepali yoga instructor reminds me of my high school French teacher. Though I believe in reincarnation, and I think Mazur must be dead – given his age ten years ago and the health issues he faced – the yoga teacher cannot be Mazur in a new body; their lives certainly overlapped. But definitely doppelgangers.

Mazur – as I remember it, he didn’t think us people until our senior year and called on us exclusively by our last names until then, so we responded in like – was just under six feet tall, with dark hair, which he wore in a short pony tail, an medium complexion, and round face. He alternated between two pairs of large-framed, thick-lensed glasses – one for reading, the other for distance, so he was always hunting for one or the other. He claimed to have a daughter of elementary school age, which was fuel for the fires of gossip for every incoming class – how did a man who appeared to be in his sixties have a daughter that young? He drove a red caravan in which he passed my bus stop on his way to school, although not reliably enough that I could call off class before setting foot in the corridor. He boasted about picking up road kill and cooking it for dinner due to having Native American heritage, which added to his mystique, but also the oddity.

My yoga teacher, whose name I do not know, has a similar facial structure, build, and height to the Frenchman, but has a darker complexion. He is probably in his mid-sixties, but everyone looks older than their stated age due to living in Nepal. Despite living in Nepal and teaching yoga, he dresses like Mazur as well: button-down shirt, dress slacks, and dress shoes. Even while teaching yoga. His one concession to his work is sometimes removing the shoes. The yogi, too, has a nontraditional hairstyle – it appears he has a bird’s nest stuck to the back of his head covered in hair. He owns a cosmetology school/ salon and yoga studio with his sister, who is a dour, middle-aged woman who rarely smiles.

Though the yogi doesn’t bark at me in French and Mazur never attempted to teach yoga, the similarities between the men are sure. I suppose I could ask at our next session if he has a brother in the United States, but I think the similarities are due to there being only so many personalities to go ‘round so they get duplicated. The physical similarities aren’t required, though they help in this case, as I may never understand most of either man’s utterances. It is only necessary is to have similar personality energies.