What’s that name of that cartoon gorilla that wears a hat? You know the one. He has a sidekick, he’s a little slow and has flower sticking out the side of his hat. Whatever his name is, this week I know what it’s like to be him. All arms hanging lower than legs, backside out and feeling just the slightest bit out of my element. This week, I went to Yoga class.
After my visit to the Chinese rice man and the calling of my aching bones and muscles after any kind of exercise I decided that maybe yoga wasn’t a bad decision. So I did what any woman in the 21st century does when she doesn’t know something. I googled it. Did you know there were forty-seven entries for Yoga Classes in my area? On further investigation and ruling out full blown gym memberships there were really only two. The Yoga Stop and Lyndal. The Yoga Stop wanted to charge me $20 for the casual privilege while Lyndal only wanted $15. As usual I went for the option that meant I could add a little more to the weekly shoe/food budget. (It does depend what week it is where that $5 goes… At the moment – it’s all about food.)
Armed with my $15 and an email that outlined ALL of the things I had to bring I headed early to the neighbouring high school. With a brand new purple mat, that I unwrapped from the plastic in the car, the blanket, pillow, towel, socks, waterbottle and jumper I was requested to bring, it felt more like I was going to school camp than an hour and a quarter yoga class. I pulled up in the staff carpark and waited patiently for the old duck in the camry to try and reverse park twice. With her headlights off and a crooked swing she was parked between some semblance of the lines and I sighed hoping she was heading to tennis. Afterall, if she couldn’t park her car between the lines, what hope did she have getting the angle of the downward dog right?
She bailed out of the car with her mat and slip on sneakers and I knew I was in trouble. I immediately decided that I had signed up for seniors yoga by mistake and that I was about to spend my night with blue rinse and bob brigade. We both entered the hall with the appropriate amount of old people small chat and while I signed in, she plonked a bottle of home made honey beside the midriff baring middle aged woman sprawled at my feet on the floor. I skimmed the sign in sheet below me and thought twice about signing my real name. ‘Fuck it’ I muttered. That’s the motto, lady. Just give it a go.
By the time I’d unpacked my backpack and rolled out my mat the hall had started fill. In the front row were the pre-requisite oldies, including my old duck, all lined up in perfect symmetry. Slightly to the left and behind them was an overweight middle aged woman who looked like she’d done this before but still struggled throwing her body around in public. On the far right was a woman about my age, who, age appropriately, ignored me and then behind her a younger one still. Directly behind me, arriving late in the middle of the first fairy breathing exercise was another awkward middle aged woman and in the far back corner, the guru herself. She looked like she’d had lentils for dinner, had done this for a thousand years and wouldn’t care if a sneaky fart escaped during her cat stretches.
I steeled myself for what was about to come and sat and waited. Floating off into space and thinking about all of the washing, marking, dishes, lists I should be making, I lost track of the other women in the room for less than twenty seconds. I look up to find everyone in the room on their back with their eyes closed and almost sleeping. Freaking out, I moved quickly to follow suit hoping I wasn’t far behind and that no one had noticed. My mat slipped on the polished floor and my mat let out a giant sticking squeak noise that echoed through the room. The ‘Oh Fuck’ sigh went straight into the mat below my face and I concentrated very hard, in quiet, hoping no one was looking at me.
It was then the woman with bare midriff began to speak. Slowly and deliberately she told me to close my eyes and breathe. It was everything I was dreading yoga would be. A wrinkly skinned hippy woman telling me to be at one with my feelings and stop thinking. In the dead silence I could feel an attack of the giggles beginning to build and if I was with any of my ‘girls’ I don’t think I would have been able to stop it. I scolded myself repeatedly on the inside but couldn’t help the stupid grin that kept sliding across my face. I tried really hard to listen to the breathing part and concentrate while she talked about my body and it’s feelings and did my best to hold on.
I looked around the room hoping to find a friend who wore the same cheshire grin and yet all I could see were women, flat on their backs looking like they were fast asleep. With no response from anyone, the giggles died down and I started the first move. Within minutes my farce was forgotten. I was spending so much time concentrating on keeping my abs in while moving only one vertebrae at a time that I’d forgotten all about the giggles. The oldies in front of me threw their foot and hands in front of them and arched easily from the floor to their feet. All of a sudden, the old ducks had moves. While I started to spring a sweat for holding my downward dog just that little bit longer, they moved from praying cobras to child positions with ease and grace. I am pretty sure that the lady behind me had no such view.
I stumbled and wobbled and squeezed and puffed. I jumped and jerked all in the while hoping to God that I just didn’t fart from over squeezing. I put myself upside down and pushed my left side to my right, I was a windmill, a cat, a sphinx and a cobra. Well, I was my version of such things but mostly I was jelly. I relished the feeling of my aches and pains from the gym stretching out and feeling my hips click back into a place they hadn’t been in months. I loved pushing up and down like a cat and rolling my body to the floor for a little nap at the end. I put my body into new and old positions and some that I’d never been in with my clothes on, but nonetheless, I forgot all about the old ladies in front and spent a full hour and a quarter concentrating on telling my body what to do.
Sometimes it listened and sometimes it didn’t. However Lyndal was impressed. She said I had the hang of it and I would get better if I practiced and kept coming. She said I looked comfortable in the early positions. She didn’t say the same when I thought my calf muscles were going to fly off when I started doing the walking dog.
I figure I’ll go again. I figure I’ll pay for a whole seven week course. I figure I’ll be nicer to the old duck who downward dogs like a pro and maybe in seven weeks I’ll get myself a jar of honey and a few less wobbly bits.
life in big frilly knickers 