January's (and part of February's) task complete - 10 yoga classes are done!
For number 10, I went back to Blissful Monkey's $5 Community Yoga class on Saturday afternoon. A new instructor, but the same result as before - great class! I was able make my way through the entire hour successfully completing most of the poses. It seems like the shorter (and less expensive) the yoga class, the more I enjoy it. More important, I think the target demographic of this class is 'homeless people who wander into the studio for warmth', and so I have a greater level of expertise than the people with whom I take the class.
This is how I felt when I walked out:
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| Don't you, forget about completing the yoga challenge! |
Some observations I've made about yoga -and myself - throughout this whole process:
1. Despite what almost everyone has been happy to advise me prior to starting this challenge, I am no more flexible now than I was when I started a month ago. Further to that, I think you can only marginally improve flexibility if your body type prevents your from getting into 50%+ of the poses to begin with. Having a stocky frame, wide shoulders and shorter arms and legs just makes some poses physically impossible. It's hard to improve what you cannot even do...
2. ...and that's OK. If I've learned anything from yoga (aside from 'keep your toenails clipped at all times') it's that yoga is an individual, non-competitive practice. No one in any of my classes (except perhaps me, at the onset) was ever trying to best or 'out-pose' anyone else. It's impossible to do so most of the time anyway, as many of the poses leave you panting face down on the mat in a puddle of sweat, unable to see your neighbor. If I were to sum it up, I'd say that the ideal goal of yoga is to attain a mental and physical balance while maintaining a level of difficulty that is both comfortable and fitness level-appropriate to each individual yogi. While this 'everyone gets a trophy' mentality has always been counterintuitive to my competitive sensibilities, I have learned to be OK with it. I would be especially OK with it if, like after most youth athletic competitions, the yoga instructor took the whole class out to get ice cream after.
One of the articles that I wish I had discovered prior to beginning this challenge was Yoga Travel Tree's 'How to Start Doing Yoga If You're A Newbie'. It certainly would have helped manage my expectations from the onset, instead of during these post-challenge musings. (I highly recommend it for anyone considering a dip into yoga)
3. Yoga is a self-selecting process. From my observations of the 10-20% of individuals who broke through the 'New Year's resolution short attention span' wall and continued with yoga after the first couple classes, almost all of them demonstrated a high level of yoga aptitude (flexible, good balance, etc). I think the better one is with an activity (and conversely, the less negative resistance one faces when trying a new activity), the more likely one is to enjoy it and continue. I will readily admit that I would have quit around class three if I hadn't set the goal of ten classes.
4. Enya must thank the heavens each and every day that yoga has exploded with popularity. Her New Age sound is THE soundtrack to most of the classes I've taken - with a little sitar thrown in. It's so monotonous that I find myself focusing on it and getting annoyed. I think I'd be more relaxed and calm listening to a 'rain on metal roof' sound effect, or even listening to Ben Stein read a speech.
5. While I don't like the standard yoga price points, I can certainly understand it. After considering the cost of classroom space, the instructor's time and the intimate size of each class, $15 seems quite reasonable. Given this cost and the individual nature of yoga, I wasn't surprised when I Googled 'Yoga Online' and found about 15,000 entries. In retrospect, I probably should have tried one of these University of Phoenix yoga classes to compare to the in-person experience. Maybe I'd have an associate's degree in yoga right now, with a minor in TV/VCR repair.
That being said, I can't see myself paying more than $5 for a yoga class in the future. I would, however, spend a little extra money on a gym membership that included yoga classes.
6. Men and yoga. I think maybe an average of 15-20% of my classmates were male, although that skewed a bit higher in the very intro classes. I'm not completely sure why we don't represent well in yoga, although I do have some theories:
a) I think most men have a more narrow view on exercise, and generally seek out more aggressive, competitive, and goal-oriented opportunities.
b) I don't think men put as high a premium on maintaining a healthy mental/physical balance.
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| cat yoga! |
c) A more subtle theory, and may likely influence a) and b): If you Google 'yoga', 90% of the results contain images of one or more females doing yoga, while 75% of these images look like either a fabric softener or feminine hygiene commercial. Not exactly great marketing imagery if a goal is to appeal equally to both sexes. Even going through the pictures on local yoga studio websites reveals a strong female bias. (During my 'research', I also found one lone adorable picture of a cat doing yoga. Apparently there are lots of cat photos and videos on the interwebs?)
To shift how yoga may be perceived from a 'female-only' activity, I think it is important to approach the marketing from a different perspective: what do males value through physical and mental health activities, and how would yoga help a male to achieve those goals? I think if the messaging to males changed, we'd notice the barriers to 'bro-ga' drop faster than the ceilings and walls in the Sochi Olympic Village.
That is, if increasing the number of male participants in a yoga class is even a good thing. We tend to break things, make a disproportionate amount of messes, and make everything smell worse. No doubt, Enya would soon get replaced with Pantera and Nine Inch Nails.
7. Beginner classes come in all shapes and sizes. While this variation frustrated my ability to evaluate how I'm faring through comparison, I just needed to remind myself that it's non-competitive, and successful yoga isn't about establishing benchmarks. I do wish that Blissful Monkey offered more than two beginner classes a week - I think they'd be able to attract many more students. And selfishly, I would have finished this challenge sooner.
8. Yoga instructors also come in many different instruction styles. If there are any yoga instructors out there reading this, take heed: please explain a yoga maneuver in full before the yogis start doing it, not during! Other than that, all of the instructors I've had have been very helpful, calm, and focused on the needs of the class. It's even possible that I've gotten slightly less terrible at listening.
9. Don't forget to spray and wipe down your mat - I can't stress this enough. Otherwise, horribly noxious smells will eventually overwhelm you, probably between classes 7 and 8. Through this cleaning process, I've discovered that I really, really like the smell of mat spray - it's like a combination between Windex and Skittles. Had I discovered it a month ago, I'd be spraying down my mat 5 or 6 times a class, just to get a few huffs in to stop the shakes. Definitely should be in the running for the next car air freshener or a Yankee Candle.
10. Except for the last class, I found myself performing yoga more than I was experiencing it. I'm not sure if this is normal (perhaps for yoga newbies?), but I think I spent a large portion of each class either watching the instructor or watching other yogis. I rarely focused on myself, and I almost never focused on breathing unless the instructor explicitly called attention to it. Looking inward - is that a thing? Certainly didn't do any of that, either. I have a hard time shutting my brain down, and I think it would take at least 100 yoga classes to block at least a few of my thoughts out. Perhaps it takes a certain personality to accomplish this. Like the audience volunteers at a hypnosis show who can get hypnotized and act like chickens on a stage. I couldn't allow myself to do that, either.
While I'm glad that I experienced yoga and am especially proud of myself for making it to the finish line, I'm not sure I'll be going much farther with my practice. First, the cost of yoga is prohibitive - now that I've relocated to Jamaica Plain (rent's gone up 30%), I have very little disposable income that I can put towards exercise, outside of a gym membership. I also found that on a few days when I needed to do yoga to meet this goal, I really wanted to go running instead. This is telling.
As I mentioned earlier, I believe that people who are good at yoga really end up liking it because it is an activity with which they can be successful. I think if I was more flexible, I would really enjoy the benefits from it. As it stands, I am not, and I don't have a strong desire to continue - although I may do an occasional $5 when it conveniently fits into my schedule.
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Next Week...
Look for Challenge #2: Cooking D-List Celebrity recipes! I have 10 amazing/bizarre/horrifying cookbooks on their way, each guaranteeing to be more unusual than the last. Let me know if you want to help! There will be good food, great pics, and a few adult beverages. You just need to make it down to Jamaica Plain...
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