With the completion of classes 8 and 9, I bring to you post #9. I realize that I have not had many kind words to say about yoga recently, so this entry will be a redeeming post for those of you worried that I will continue my downward spiral into anger and regret. Or maybe it's that I've hit my yoga rock bottom and the only way to go from here is up?
During a recent work trip to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, I had the pleasure of dining at 'The Quiet Pint' with my friend and colleague Mike. Mike, who has also been following this blog, started doing yoga with his fiancee at roughly the same time that I did. While we were stuffing our faces with 'Pint Burgers' and microbrews, we chatted about some of the yoga (or maybe more appropriate, Bro-ga) trials and tribulations we had experienced.
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Side Bar: As if we don't have enough meat-within-meat food combinations in life (we don't), I present to you 'The Pint Burger'. The Pint Burger, at first glance, is just a regular ol' burger; nothing terribly fancy on the outside, just a bun, cheese, and normal burger accoutrements. But wait! Take one bite, and you'll soon discover that nestled cozily in the burger's womb is a good-sized portion of BBQ shredded pork. Bam - sneaky meat explosion in your face! I highly recommend it (especially with the pomme frites and a few pints of the local NC brews), and was glad that I could be the two-meat burger enabler for Mike as well.
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Not surprisingly, we had both shared very similar experiences: lack of flexibility, frequent correction of posture by instructors, keen awareness of toenail length unsuitable for yoga, etc. It was good to know I wasn't the only one experiencing this. Sometimes when I take a moment away from my attempt at yoga to look around the studio, it seems like everyone else knows exactly what the hell they're doing, and in a much more graceful way than myself. I certainly appreciated having the reminder that everyone approaches yoga at their own level; if there are 20 students in a class, then that's 20 different levels of practice. I can be OK with that.
My goal for class 8 was to complete the $5 community class at Blissful Monkey. Without Applejack, Electronic Catchphrase, or some other ill-advised Friday night endeavor to get in the way, I knew I would finally make the class on Saturday afternoon. I was quite happy, since my goal was to avoid paying full retail price ($15) for as long as I could, and $5 seemed to be much closer to my ideal yoga price point. As I was walking to the class, I had way too much time to think, and my earlier fears of being the only one in the class resurfaced. Who would spend an hour in a yoga studio during an unseasonably warm winter Saturday, I thought. In a spontaneous panic move, I decided to 'stake out' the class from across the street, to make sure at least a few yogis entered. In hindsight, it's really hard to inconspicuously stake out a yoga studio while toting a bright blue yoga mat. Also, my method of surveiling involved acting like I was checking my phone, which most likely made me look like I was snapping phone pics of the studio. I guess if this whole international education career falls through, I can always swing by the CIA to pick up a job application. Just as I was about to bail, 7 or 8 people showed up within a few minutes, which was exactly what I needed.
So Community Yoga was great. Rebecca - the instructor - was goofy and sarcastically self-deprecating, exactly the qualities I love in anyone. And it was only an hour, compared to the 90 minutes that every other session had been. The class was almost exclusively comprised of upper-middle-aged folks, with myself and one other female being the exception. The practice was also tailored for beginners, with an emphasis on poses that met the current 'class vibe'. Saturday's apparently seemed to be a more mellow vibe. The best part - instead of the generic Enya new-age garbage that had been the soundtrack for most of my other classes, Rebecca somehow found a way to travel back in time and steal my music playlist from 1998-02: mellower songs by Sting, Paul Simon, Jamiroquai, and MMW were all featured over the course of an hour. Who can't do yoga to that? At one point, after a somewhat lengthy combination of 'flowing' poses that featured lots of upper body, Rebecca said, 'Ok, give yourselves a little break, and stretch out your arms and neck. Visualize taking out aaaalllll the muscles and tendons, and uh, other things that doctors know about, and replace it with jello.' This is the kind of instruction I can get behind! No more descending buttocks, thank you. I wish every class from the start had this tone, level of difficulty and length! I will be back.
Class 9 was completed last night, which was my third Laughably Gentle Yoga For CPR Dummies & the Unconscious. This was also a great experience. I think that since this was my third class with Bec, she made a point to let me know every single time I was tarnishing yoga's good name with a horribly incorrect pose. This singling out would have been devastating to my yoga ego if it had occurred during my first or second overall class, but I was actually grateful for it now; I really appreciated that she took the time and effort to help me out, and perhaps Bec could sense that I was more receptive to instruction (or not completely yoga-inept).
About 1/3 of the way through the class, I became keenly aware of a horrible stench. After giving my neighbors a passing sniff, I arrived at the conclusion that the smell was coming from one of three possible sources: my feet, my mesh pants, or my mat. I had briefly noticed it during Saturday's Community Yoga, but had dismissed it as just a strange yoga studio smell. It was community yoga, after all - who knows what the cat would drag in. This time, the smell was far stronger, like if you could somehow ferment corn chips (I know, bad thought). I was now looking forward to poses throughout the evening that involved a closer proximity to the mat, so that I could do some sleuth-work to crack this funky odor case. As the class went on, and my nose ended up unbearably close to the odor, I was able to eliminate my mesh pants (had washed them earlier in the week) and my feet (definitely sweaty, but not smelly). On a positive note, I learned why people spray down their mats after yoga. Some smells you just can't unsmell. Teachable moments...
Anyway, I'm not sure if these two positive classes were a turning point in my yoga practice, or simply just really good classes. Probably impossible to tell, since yoga is as much mental as physical, and both are subject to the peaks and valleys of self-discovery and experience. The feeling of accomplishment and achievement when the 9th class was over was almost worth the $15 admission.
One more class!
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