Finding my wierdos
The stupid haunted loft, Keighley - 2025
I fucking love wierdos. Ever since I was a kid, I have surrounded myself with them. The ones who don’t quite sit neatly in the rows. The ones with the wonky edges. The ones who take the normal, make a paper plane out of it and throw it into the wind.
I’ve always been a magnet for them, those misfits, the ones who laugh too loud, cry at daft things, stay up late talking shit, and talk in endless loops. I think it's because they’re like me; they always seem to go left when everyone else marches mindlessly right. Over the years, they’ve filled my life with colour, chaos and friendship, and I genuinely wouldn’t have it any other way.
If I'm being honest, I didn’t think yoga teacher training was where I would find my next batch of weirdos. That’s never been my weird, I mean, I've always loved yoga, but the holistic community has always been something I've never quite managed to gel with. Too many things under one umbrella, like when you go to one of those all-you-can-eat buffets and someone puts the sushi next to a curry. I don’t get how Yoga, and ancient Indian practice, could be mixed up with the relatively new Japanese art of Reiki. Angels with pentagrams, ghosts and past life regressions? This is not to say that I don’t believe in any of these things individually, I just don’t see how they go together, still don’t. But there, in that stupid haunted loft in Keighley, I found more of my people.
The group is kinda exactly as I would expect it would be, I'm the only guy there, everyone talks about past lives, tarot readings, shamans and giving Reiki to their dog. I thought this would make my eyes roll or leave me desperately trying to figure out how it all connects, but I just don't care, I find it endearing - they’re all just so genuinely wonderful. No one is trying to be better than anyone else; the vibe is very authentic and curious. It’s just a gathering of people who, for their reasons, stumbled into this room on a mission to become something a little different or understand life a little more.
Last January, I read a book called “Super-Communicators”, which taught me how to be like I am in groups of people. I've always been naturally very outgoing, but it taught me about the importance of invitations and group lead connections. It's been wonderful to put that into action during this course and to be able to see its effects in action. I don’t know how SJ’s groups normally work, but we’re gelling as a group really hard. We’ve started doing yoga things together on mass. Me and Julia went and got beat up by a mental yoga teacher from likely, nothing brings people together like suffering. Me and Sophie and going to Heather Yoga to a foundational Vinyasa class for a few weeks, and im pretty sure about 4 of us are going to some kind of arial silks workshop where we’re going to dangle about like a set of old testicles for a laugh. We’re group learning. We’re seeking out new experiences and taking each other along for the ride. I can't imagine a better learning environment for me; it's not something I have experienced before, but it's something I'll do my very best to foster in learning and social environments in the future.
I am, and always have been a sucker for authentic people, the ones who can laugh at themselves and not take everything too seriously. Authentic people are the only thing that matters. I meet so many people hiding behind strange egos that I can’t quite understand. There are so many people in this world that I never feel like I have met properly, as they never seem to show themselves to you. Constantly dodging behind shadows and barricading themselves behind fake armour plating, so much so that you never seem to know them, and I lose interest in people like that very quickly.
The truth is: finding your weirdos is less about luck and more about letting yourself be seen. It’s dropping the polished version of yourself and trusting that somewhere, someone is waiting to meet you, the real you. Everyone in that room did that, and I know I have been lucky enough to meet six real, authentic people.
I don’t know where this yoga road will lead us all. Maybe we’ll all teach in studios or community halls, and some of us might never teach at all. Maybe some of us will teach workshops together, or maybe we'll go for coffee, or maybe we’ll never see each other again. But I know I'm grateful for them all. For showing up and for making something that could have been difficult into something truly enjoyable.
In a world that constantly asks us to conform, to tidy ourselves up and to try and make fucking sense to everyone else - being surrounded by people who make you feel right to be yourself is a kind of rebellion. A rebellion I needed at this very serious point in my life.
So here’s to the weirdos. The Misfits. The singers. The vegans. The people willing to butcher Sanskrit. The musicians. The people who do Reiki on their dogs.
Here’s a reminder to myself that people are not defined by their interests or even, to a certain extent, their actions, but their ability to be themselves, *whatever* that may look like.
I am the universe, surrounding myself with the people I need.