So, after a month’s absence, I got back on the yoga stick yesterday morning. A studio opened up down the street from my house a few months ago, and I kept promising myself I’d try it. I don’t really like driving to exercise; it feels weird somehow.
I hauled myself out of bed at a quarter to six and walked down the street. The birds were tweetling and the traffic fumes weren’t too nasty yet. “Ah, this could be good,” I thought to myself. I was the first one there and signed in, and positioned my mat in the back, so as not to wave my noob butt in everyone’s face.
First, the class started with some chanting, and with some heart-ball visualization. “Picture your heart, or your heart chakra, in a ball that you hold in your hands outside of your chest.” With all the external organ talk, all I could picture was Mortal Kombat. “FINISH HIM!” As it turns out, this is not appropriate to shout in six a.m. yoga.
The class I usually go to does not feature chanting. I felt a little cheated, because the chant wasn’t translated until after we were done doing it. I realized that she could have been making us say, “OH, luscious boogers how I love to eat boogers I wish I had a jaunty hat made from boogers.” As it was, the translation was pretty corny, and I don’t know if I could get behind the sentiments. Tricked! There should be a teleprompter in the back so you can see the translation before you commit to it.
As soon as we started, I realized that the class was different than what I was used to. Halfway though, the teacher said, “Okay, now we’re going to do shoulder stands!” What? Shit! I have been going to old lady yoga, where people are getting bendier, but not licking the backs of their knees.
Before I knew it, I had some padding under my shoulders and was making my way up the wall with my feet. I didn’t detach from the wall like everyone else around me, though. It’s cool. I can be the sucky slow kid who makes everyone feel better. I can be the self-esteem booster.
Then something unsettling happened. My organs, which are not really used to being upside down, started…shifting upwards. Where they do not belong. I could actually feel my uterus moving. I started getting a little lightheaded, partly because your breathing is a little constricted from having your neck bent at that angle, and partly because I had that freaky mortal realization where you go, “Oh, man, I’m just a big bag of guts here.”
THEN I started looking at my crotch, which is normally something I enjoy, but not as much as usual yesterday. Was it getting closer? Was it feinting at me every so often? What if it fell on me? Could I punch myself in the face with my own crotch? I imagined myself unconscious with a public bone-shaped shiner. I came down, grateful that I hadn’t peed myself or anything.
“You know,” Companion said, “after a while all those little internal muscles tighten up and you don’t get that feeling anymore.”
“I don’t know if I want that,” I said. “And then chanting. Did I tell you about the chanting? I think it was Sanskrit or Esperanto or something.”
He sighed. “I think you are showing your Midwestern roots here, my friend.” DAAAMIT!
At the end I talked to the instructor. I told her that I had been doing an offshoot of vinyasa, and that vinyasa was really different than what I expected.
“Oh,” she said, laughing, “this is hatha style. This is a special week and we’ll go back to a vinyasa class at the end of the month.”
Oh I see. My bads. Well, I’ll go back anyway. I liked the walk. And it felt good, once the om-ing stopped and the moving started. Plus, it’s right next door to good coffee, so I can immediately replace all the toxins and calories I lose in yoga. I believe in balance.
I would so freak out if I felt my internal organs moving around.
I would fall right over and take out several people.
Congratulations on your poise and grace.
Was it kind of like when your stomach goes into your throat when riding a roller coaster? Cuz that might be fun.
that is fucking awesome :)
It was kind of fun in a perverse way.
oh i pictured a fist coming outta your pumba!
Ha ha ha ha
“Could I punch myself in the face with my own crotch?”
I really want to ask someone that question tomorrow and just look at their face after I say it. That’s really all it’ll take to make it a good day.
You are hands down my favorite blogher find.
Thanks! PLEASE report the results of your experiment and a link to the flickr stream. This’ll be better than “First Goatse!”
“Could I punch myself in the face with my own crotch?”
I almost pissed myself when I read that. Seriously. I’ve been skipping out from my exercise program for the past month because everyone there is soooo fucking peppy. It’s 100% insanity. I could go in there with leaches sucking to my body and they’d be like, ” OH! Where’ve you been? Are you ready to get back on track with the program? Huh? *smile* What…are those leaches on you? I like them…those are pretty! You are so ahead of the trends! We should all get leaches…with our names tattooed on them..in cursive..or maybe calligraphy..*more fake smiles*!!!”
So, I would almost opt for my vagina punching me in the face at yoga.
I want to hear more about the chant! Please tell us which one is was!
My old yoga class had two different chants and the instructor would “surprise us” by randomly picking one without telling us in advance which chant it would be. I hate surprises. And I also hated one of those chants.
Such a good post. Made me laugh out loud!
That was such a lame comment that I had to come back and amend it. (I blame 2 nights of insomnia due to the sudafed I have to take for a sinus infection.)
I’m forcing myself to eat a bowl of cereal before going out into the big scary city even though I don’t feel like it due to the aforementioned sudafed (no wonder those meth freaks are so skinny). I added dried cranberries to the high fiber twig mix we have but still the cereal has no flavor whatsoever. And there’s something about the crunchy grit of the cranberry seeds, combined with the slight paranoia I get from sudafed, that is making me ask myself with every tasteless, crunchy mouthful: “Am I chewing a mouthful of ants? Srsly. Am I so out of it that I just poured myself a bowl of arachnid infested cereal and am eating it anyway?”
And who better to share this morning wonder than with I, Asshole? Thanks, I, Asshole!
HA!
See, this is why I swim laps. No freaky organ movement, and no chanting.
The first time I did pilates, the teacher instructed us, while lying on our backs, to focus on our “power source” and ” arch up and shine our flashlights to the ceiling.” That kicked the ass of every chant I’d ever felt kind of weird about.
Personally, I think the freaky organ movement’s the best part.
This post made me laugh outloud. I hate any yoga pose that requires organs to be above your face. Especially plow, cause all I can think of is how my double chin must look pressed up against my neck as i’m about to be suffocated by my own stomach flub while simultaneously trying not to fart.
On a side note, I realize i’m commenting a little late on this post here, but I’ve been out of town (or OOT of town as my canadian fiance would say) and am just now doing my blog catching up.