yog-urht

When I first heard, years ago, that friends of mine were going to yoga, i giggled a little. I've thought of myself as a tomboy-jock for as long as i can remember. I've worn baseball caps since I could walk, was the first girl in my hometown to play little league baseball, 3-sport jock in high school and went to college on scholarship to throw a little white ball across a plate. I even kept playing after college in a work league filled with macho puerto-ricanos who would scream to the ump about everything i was doing wrong because they couldn't simply admit i threw too hard for them. So in my base jock brain, yoga made me giggle. Yoga is what girls did in their little tights - I used to think. In fact I teased a friend of mine and called it yogurt for all it's lack of strength, competitiveness and grrrrrrrr.

Oh the things we think when we're young, dumb and full of shite.

This morning, after a long absence from it, I dragged myself out of my Saturday morning laziness and rode down to the local bikram yoga studio. They had a cheap deal to get people like me off my ass - so I went. Bikram, among other things - is done in over 100 degree heat. I love this part, not because sweating makes me feel like a jock, but because it feels like I'm wringing all the weight and crap in my life out with each drop of sweat that hits the mat below me as I stretch and breath and think about n-o-t-h-i-n-g. In fact it's one of the few places my mind will, quite all on it's own, shut off...or rather, be still.

As I stood in front of the mirror (in the back row, of course), I found myself judging. My belly, white as snow, rippled just enough to piss me off, to hang ever so slightly over the edge of my snug yoga pants. I easily gained this while sitting and sitting and studying that first year of PA school as i crept into my late thirties - an though I've run and biked and joined a gym again...there it was, still staring back at me, dammit. All legs, my hips are just a little wider than I care for. I thought it made my head look tiny. And at this I started to laugh (inside) and shook my head, literally. Why do we do this to ourselves? Who gives a rip if I don't look 20 anymore? This isn't why I went, and I just smiled as let the judgement go, if not a little disgruntled that I had to go through that exercise at all.

As we began with breathing exercises and moved gently into the 26 poses, stretching this way and that, I could feel my body uncoil from the discomfort I've been feeling with all the new changes of my job and settling back into new york. Although I wasn't really thinking it, I know one of the reasons I go, is because I also believe that it just might keep me from turning into a 'C' in my old age. My shoulders already round forward and by the way I find it hard to sit up so long on the train each day, I know that my spine probably looks a little like a pea vine. I push and pull as each pose demands and the instructor explains in her rapid fire english curved beautifully with her native japanese accent.

A women in front of me is at least 20 years my senior and she is so immersed in the movements, it enhances the humility I feel while moving through this. Another, much younger and very petite woman is to her left and she has clearly been practicing bikram for some time now as she bends in ways I didn't think a person could, and with such fluidity. It was impressive to watch and at the same time, a great model for what the pose I was attempting, was supposed to look like. I spent a bit of time imagining that if I made this part of my life, I just might manage some of that myself.

And then with that thought floating in my center somewhere, as we were lying flat on our bellies, we were instructed to put our arms underneath us, completely save for our shoulders, palms facing down to the floor and then lift our legs. As I watched many other people do this pose, I felt the weight of my butt pressing down through my hips which then dug painfully into my forearms and for a moment thought "if i keep pushing like this, i'm gonna snap both my forearms and how fucking ridiculous will that be, bilateral arm fractures from yoga, seriously, i must be doing this wrong" and realized i was far from enlightenment. All the same, when i left the studio and stepped out into the warm winter sun I felt happy. yoga is good.