Huh?

I was waiting for my yoga class to begin today, and in comes a substitute instructor. The regular yoga instructor conducts the class in high German which means I probably understand about 70% of what she says. Every now and then she blurts out something to me in English, I look around the room, and I see that I'm doing something different than the rest of the class. Anyway...the substitute instructor conducted the class in Swiss-German. Comprehension percentage dropped from about 70% to about 20%.
Zum Beispiel (for example):
Inhale in high German is einatmen. Exhale in high German is ausatmen.
In Swiss-German they are (and I'm writing these phonetically): ee-shnoofe and o-shnoofe
I mean....COME ON!!! They're not even close.
I managed, however, to make it through the class by keeping a close eye on the instructor and the rest of the class. At the end of the class, during the relaxation section, he went to each person and performed some kind of bizarre pressure point thing. I'm not really sure what he did on the other people, but on me he pushed down on my shoulders with incredible force, then he pulled my hands one at a time while sliding his other hand down my arm from the shoulder to the hand, and finally he did some crazy thing which I can only describe as pretending my spine was a keyboard and playing it like a piano. It was strange, but I did actually feel pretty refreshed after he did it. I hope he didn't mind that my shirt was SOAKED with sweat since I had used the eliptical trainer before the class.
After the class was over, I told him in German that I enjoyed the class. He started speaking to me in English. As it turns out, the guy has lived in Switzerland for many years, but he's originally from Cleveland.