Getting involved with my yoga student

Im a yoga teacher training and try to be a leader in the community. Slowly, I noticed him taking coy glances at me. He started asking many more questions and making more direct eye contact. When he looked at me, his gaze would soften. He began to hang around after class to tidy up the studio, but I could feel it was just to be near me. Most of the time, we would say nothing at all. When I approached him, I could feel myself getting warm. Could he?

On the first day, when most other students went, he lingered behind. With no one around, I caught us in a blasphemous moment: he flirted with me and I flirted back! I caught myself, excused myself, and like an ashamed child, told my co-teacher. Later in the day, he asked me to go for lunch with him.

that same evening we ended up at a restaurant together with another two girls from our class. I liked his demeanor with me. After the dinner the girls left and I decided to go to the park to look at stars for a few moments. He asked if he could join me. I obliged.

We laid so close to each other. But I made sure we did not touch.

I was afraid—I could feel his every cell, his excitement and his joy. He told me that he had mounting feelings for me. He also expressed that he wanted to respect me and this space and he would not make any physical or sexual moves without my explicit permission. I responded that I also felt something for him but could not identify the feelings. I shared that it was confusing for me and also that I felt it completely inappropriate to explore them at the time. I shared how inappropriate I felt my feelings were. We spoke slowly, in turn, and for a long time.

From this conversation, agreed that we would not touch unnecessarily. We agreed not to hug or hold hands and even to avoid being alone together until the class ended. It felt safe. It felt better. It felt liberating.

After the class ended, we waited a few weeks before spending alone time together. For me, there needed to be a distinct physical separation of spaces to cut the line between student and teacher. He then contacted me and asked if I would want to go on a nature hike with him. I agreed We had to both be in neutral spaces where we were just a woman and a man who were attracted to each other. On the hike, we kissed, cuddled, and were alone together. Sex was definitely still out of the question, however.

We took a week apart and then met up for dinner. This continued. After a month of waiting, we finally got to explore being together. It started with a simple snuggle in a hammock, holding hands, and a hug.

When we kissed, it was surreal. Our physical connection was even more intense than I could’ve imagined.

A few days later, we went together on a trip. Finally, we crossed an imaginary line that had been set up years earlier. For some reason, being in a different country put me in a different mindset. It was like the stamp on my passport flattened the illusion between student and teacher, and suddenly, we were just humans traveling together. He was patient and kind and on our last days together, we had sex. It was beautiful.

Was this ok for us to do?