As part of an ongoing effort to confront the sexist demons within.....and also for a free lunch [on Mussolini], I, with a little trepidation, agreed to join friends of ours, Stalin and Kevy, for some Hot Yoga on Saturday morning. I mean how hard could it be?
Unfortunately, doing push-ups in slow motion and contorting my body in all sorts of ghastly positions -all given seemingly benign names like "down-ward facing dog" and "warrior one"- for an hour and a half in a heated 110 degree room proved rather difficult.
I should have known I was in over my head the moment I set foot inside the studio. As women disrobed down to tight pants and tank tops took the time out of their pre-Yoga rituals to shoot Kevy and I looks of wonder, shock, and awe, the writing was on the wall. So naturally we looked to each other for comfort and reassurance, coming usually in the form of brief laughter.
"It's alright dude, lunch is gonna be free!" Kevy offered more than once.
"That's right," I thought to myself. Make it through...."How long is this dude?" I wondered aloud as I placed my shoes and socks into a cubby.
"An hour and a half," he said through a sheepish grin.
Shit. That's really long.
As we stepped into the room that would soon bear witness to unspeakable crimes against humanity, Stalin and Mussolini were rolling out our mats for us. The irony that was lost on me at the time is crystal clear at this moment. The oppressive heat eveloped me at once and entirely. As we sat on our mats and took nervous little swigs of water, the two dictators shared a laugh at our expense. There would be no lunch. Kevy and I had unwittingly been led to our DOOOOM!
I did my best to keep up. The thing about oppressive heat is....when you engage in physical activity of any kind, it becomes even more oppressive.
"Upward facing dog into downward facing dog. Warrior 1, touch the sky, swan dive, sideways standing seagull. Warrior 2, turtle, knot, downward facing dog into swan. Fly away.....FLY........FIND YOUR CORE" the teacher gently muttered. It was all background noise to me, however, as I mimed those around me, my 'core' headed towards an overpowering white light.....and the afterlife.......I felt a peaceful warmth all around me. Strangely, this meant a significant drop in temperature.
Something flickered. I blinked. It was the light. The light flickered again.... and went away. My eyes readjusted to the relative darkness of Earth. Where was I? There I was..... at a yoga class taking place in an oven, deceptively painted and decorated to resemble a yoga studio. I was standing on one foot. My right hand held my right ankle behind me. My left hand extended upwards toward the very heaven from which I had moments ago returned. My gaze did the same. Confused, I turned to those around me. Everyone was doing the same thing. Sweat dripped from every orifice and every pore of my body. I had to get out of this oven. But how?
As my left leg began to tremble, I realized I could no longer fight it. I had to sit down and drink some H2O. As I put my water bottle back onto the ground beside my yoga mat, Kevy followed suit. Our peers, those who would undoubtedly share our fate, bravely trudged on; slowly moving from one pose to another in line with the instructor's gentle cadence. They too, were soaked in toil and tragedy [sweat] only they were stronger than we.
So Kevy and I sat there, repeatedly wiping our faces with towels, and taking sips of water, intermittently reassuring the instructor that we were ok and did not need to leave the room. Eventually, we even had enough strength to participate every so often, though never for too long.
Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The door to the other room (must have been a kitchen, right? Masquerading as the lobby of a yoga studio?) opened and breathable air rushed in. To my surprise, those around me did not rush toward the open door and possible survival. Among them, Mussolini and Stalin, sat simply gazing at the two of us, sporting ear to ear grins and flashes of hysterical laughter. As I stood up, I stumbled as a horrid head rush came over me. It was at this time the instructor commented on "the two novices" adding something about how we were not to be discouraged. I don't know, I wasn't really listening.
We had survived and it was almost lunch time.
4 comments:
Wow.
You guys are such wusses for two reasons:
1) you did couples yoga
2) you did couples yoga and lost
What the hell is going on over there? Okay, so you went to do yoga because your girlfriends offered to buy you lunch if you'd try it. That, I can understand. But you guys lost. I don't know if they were challenging you, saying things like, "it's harder than you think," and "I bet you can't last the whole time," but you guys are guys so you should know that everything is a contest. I would vomit from over exertion before admitting that yoga is hard. The way I see it is that you have to claim you were getting sick, then you secretly go to the gym and work out and stretch like crazy for a month, then start to make fun of yoga again. Next time when she dares you to try yoga you'll walk out at the end and be like, "Oh, is it over already? I thought you said they were going to heat that room up."
1) so what though?
2) it's not a war. i wasn't going to kill myself just to prove yoga isn't difficult. it's not something mussolini will hold over my head for the rest of my life. and it certainly doesn't bother me....beyond the fact that i'm still sore today.
claiborne's gotta be into that stuff right? you guys live in la la. try it. just try it. i guarantee you'll fail just as miserably as i did.
-seamus
Claiborne doesn't do yoga and has nothing but insulting things to say about working out in general, but I will try yoga and I will succeed in not being such a wuss.
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