Yoga Kicks Ass

Yeah, mine.

Last night, after a shameful absence of many months due to, well, laziness, I got off my keister and actually used one of the 20 class passes that have been sitting in my little bowl for at least half the length of the brit/fed-ex marriage.

It was invigorating. It was refreshing. It was rejuvenating.

It was nauseating. Literally. I almost barfed.

Now, this was no Madonna/Esther yoga-work-camp-I-must-keep-up-with-the-20-year-olds regime, but this ain’t your grandma’s yoga class either. Ashtanga flow, people. I was sweating.

I have a love/hate relationship with yoga. With all organized physical activity, actually, but especially with yoga. Because if you get to know me at all, you’d think, I bet she does yoga. You know, I eat tempeh; I have a naturopath; I own hemp clothing. Clearly, yoga is right up my alley. Except my alley is really just a one-way, dead end road to the couch.

Even when I wasn’t a tired mother, it took a lot to get me to the gym or the yoga studio. Much like my crafting aspirations, I have high hopes when it comes to exercise. I join gyms, I get cute workout gear, I tell everybody of my plans. And I go twice and make excuses and hockey season begins, and that’s that. The problem is, in those days I was partying and going out dancing and couldn’t conceive of turning 30 and I hadn’t built a baby. In other words, I was young and skinny. Now, not so much.

There were two times in my life when getting me to yoga was not a motivational endeavour even tony robbins would have given up on – in Israel, and post-natal. In Israel, going to yoga was so easy that really, I would have been a loser not to go. I was on a Kibbutz, where everything is about 3 minutes from anything else, and the yoga studio was right next to the dining room. Yoga, then food. No-brainer. Plus, we did our yoga class in a bomb shelter. That is a huge statement on how people who live in a war zone deal with war. But that’s a post for another day. Let’s keep things light.

So, this one time, when I was doing yoga in a bomb shelter in Israel, I farted as I was in a shoulder stand. Pretty loud. Nice. There was an old guy next to me, and I pray that everybody just blamed him. (btw – people fart all the time in yoga class, as you are doing all sorts of good, healthy things to your digestive track. if you are going to do yoga, make sure your studio has good ventilation.)

And post-natal yoga, well, that was more of a survival tactic; a reason to get out of the house and show off my cute newborn with all the other desperate new moms showing off their cute newborns. It’s almost mean that you are not allowed to do post-natal yoga once your baby is mobile. Talk about rejection.

Well, I’m not in Israel anymore, and I’m probably closer to prenatal yoga again than a mom & baby class, but off to the studio I go. Where I stretch and strain and sweat and swear and seriously wonder when this is going to finally end, because holy fuck, what is this, a 5-hour class? But of course I glimpse at my neighbour’s watch and see that it has been about 25 minutes, and we have over an hour to go. WTF?! Oh wait, no time to ponder how time has entered some backwards flux, because –

– and exhale, up, and inhale, step back and spread those fingers and lift that pelvis and turn your tummy into a ladle (a ladle? My tummy is more like an ice cream scoop. With a scoop of ice heavenly hash in it. a double scoop.), and exhale, right foot forward and hands to the sky and lift your left foot and bring your right hand back and recite the second verse of the The Highwayman and heels back! Now breathe…

Aaah, isn’t this relaxing?

Ok, I must admit that even though I seriously miss on some of the choreography, and there is no way my body will ever agree to contort into the fish pose, I actually do feel pretty good by the end of the class. Motivated enough to walk home and stop along the way for a falafel, which effectively cancels out all the good I may have just done to my body. But, yummy.

Guess I’d better go back next week?