Yoga (level: intermediate/highly competitive)

Yoga (level: intermediate/highly competitive)

January 22, 2007, 11:32 pm
Filed under: Uncategorized

It’s a New Year (sort of) (shhhhh – don’t jinx it) Resolution type of a thing.

Yoga classes.

Although, I’m not new to yoga. Oh no.

‘So, has anyone here done yoga before?’

[Enthusiastic show of hands.]

Me: ‘Yes, a few years ago. But I’m not sure what type!’ [I hoped it was the type that Madonna does, but that’s not what I asked when I signed up.]

Teacher B is sooooooooooo, well, y’know: Zen.

He’s lithe and well-toned and perpetually calm. You just know he eats nuts and berries for breakfast and raw salads for lunch and has never been on a form of transport that requires the burning of fossil fuels. I aspire to be the female version of him (and therefore slightly amend my NYR of simply ‘do yoga’ to ’emulate B in every way possible’).

‘Now, as you exhale, we’re going to get ourselves into [indistinct as the room is quite echoey but it sounds very much like: athasanathasana], OK?’

No-one bats an eyelid. They simply swivel one foot outwards and tip gently to the right, as instructed.

Except, it isn’t B’s right. It’s his left, but because he faces us, he has had to get used to telling us to go right when for him it’s left. Gosh, he’s clever. I would have a great deal of trouble with this, as I can barely tell my left from my right even without standing in front of eleven lycra-clad thirtysomethings.

‘Let’s now try [hathamathafluxcapacitor??] – do grab a block if you feel you need one…’

I toss my block pointedly to one side and look around to see who is doing the same. Only one other woman! (I rock!)

I bend forward and do the ‘extra’ stretch suggested by B. B comes round to inspect and, much to my disappointment, tugs my stomach inwards and tells me to straighten my arms. (I suck!)

But I recover from this setback quickly…before we move into the [yengarsanalanahatha] pose. I truly suck at this but thankfully, so does virtually everyone else and it’s not long before we are all lying prostrate on the floor, our legs and arms quivering.

Then comes the best bit. The bit we have all been waiting for. The bit when we just lie down on the mat and B turns the lights off. (Sadly, this bit only lasts about three minutes and comes right at the end of the class.) Whilst I am lying in the obscurity – opening one eye every few seconds to look at the clock – I am visualising myself on a yoga holiday. One of those ones where everyone gets up at 5am to do headstands on the beach before eating a breakfast of nuts and berries followed by a two hour long session of breathing through alternate nostrils whilst chanting in the lotus position followed by a raw salad lunch and then some sun salutations and a large glass of spring water before an early bed.

I curse the ugliness of my perpetual desire to compete and resolve to shed all grudges I am holding against my nearest and dearest.

As B is doing his little praying/nodding pose thing, everyone leaps up enthusiastically to put away their mats and blocks. Except some people, it turns out, have now got their own mats! What is this? I struggle to imagine B suggesting that people buy their own mats, living life – as he does – as lightly as a feather. What is wrong with using the communal mats, huh?

I stride out of the room (resolving to buy my own mat), get home and scoff two chocolate chip cookies in a bid to calm down.

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