So, you bought a yoga mat from Amazon (strap and all). It arrives and collects dust in your closet for roughly three weeks until you finally decide to actually attend a yoga class. Browsing the Internet for available yoga classes at your local gym, you come across about four different types of yoga, with three out of the four being a little harder to pronounce. You decide to go to power yoga while you self-consciously stretch and shake your flabby mom-arm fat. With your sleepy eyes halfway open, you bitterly proceed to morning yoga class. (Yeah, you aren’t much of a morning person.)
Upon walking in, you unroll your mat, sit down, and take off your shoes. Internal Monologue: Where the hell do I get that big wooden block that everyone has next to them and why the hell do I need it? As class commences, you start off with some rhythmic breathing. You promptly think to yourself, I can handle this. You move on to some rudimentary poses that seem to be common knowledge to everyone in the room. Once you become an expert on downward dog and child’s pose, the instructor starts to speak gibberish, and suddenly everyone begins contorting into some very unique poses. Is this a cult? Who knows, but from looking side to side you can react and mimic some poses so you don’t appear completely clueless.
The main goal is to avoid embarrassment and feign some yoga skills (and to not slip out a fart, let’s not forget.) As you echo the moves of the people around you, you start to breathe heavily and completely forget the whole idea of linking each step to an inhale or an exhale, seeing as you become short of breath just walking up a flight of stairs. Don’t worry, that part might need some practice. The instructor proceeds to show the class some advanced alternatives to different moves. For a scrawny boy who has never even done a cartwheel, seeing people stand on their heads might elicit some intimidation, so you stick to the poses meant for the basic levels.
Finally, the instructor utters the sweet words “And now, we’re going to lay on our backs and have two minutes of complete relaxation.” My type of yoga. The objective for this segment is not to doze off. She begins to soothe you with inspirational proverbs that instantly make you want to have a kickass day. As the yoga class concludes, everyone assumes the criss-cross-apple-sauce position (very professional yoga stuff we’re talking about) and connects their two hands for the closing ‘namaste.’ Now, the closest thing you know about ‘namaste’ is what you’ve seen from pop culture, so you bring your hands together and subtly mumble ‘namaste’ in hopes of using it correctly. As you roll up your mat and walk out of class, you think “Did I pull my groin?” Of course not, it’s just all of that positive energy.
Namaste all you fellow yogis.
