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I tried Yoga for the first time.
Well, really it’s the third time but I don’t count the continuing education class I took at my High School where there were 100 attendees and I couldn’t see the teacher so I ended up just bullshitting with my sister. I also don’t count the time I took a Bikram Yoga class cause my primary focus throughout that hour and a half of torture was not to throw up or pass out.
So yes, this was my first Yoga class.
I was very nervous to take this class, and I guess it was apparent because as I was walking out the door my seven year old said “Mom, I really don’t think you should go, you can’t put your leg behind your head”, that being true I had to prove him wrong. I couldn’t possibly back out now I had to show my seven year old that we must do things that make us uncomfortable, that challenge ourselves right?
The class was at my gym so I wasn’t certain what the make-up of the students (we are yoga students, right?) would be; I really wanted the class to be comprised of a bunch of newbie’s, you know just like me giving yoga “a go”, there’s nothing worse than taking a class being the only clueless boob.
When I entered the studio I quickly found a spot in the back. I sandwiched myself between another clueless boob and an older woman who has been practicing yoga for three months. How did I know this? Well, after setting up my mat, taking off my shoes, and trying to sit in a suitable position, I had a lot of nervous energy and had to let everyone around me know that I had no idea what I was doing. I mean, I probably didn’t need to say a thing because there was a sign and a blinking arrow over my head saying “she never did yoga” as I sifted from sitting “Indian” style, to laying down, to sitting on my knees, to sitting with my legs stretched out in front of me, all were uncomfortable, all had me in a complete state of panic; I couldn’t stop muttering things to myself that I had to pretend that I was talking to them or I’d be put on the first train to crazy town.
After I nervously assaulted my yoga counter parts with my jibber jabbering I surveyed the room and found five young babes all in their twenties, all friends, all looking to limber up for a great night out; a few older women who looked like they knew what they were doing, at least three men who were line-backers, a surfer dude who strolled in so cavalierly you’d think he just hopped off a plane from Hawaii and had to get all Zen before setting foot on Long Island, and then there was yoga aficionado, the beauty of the class, right in front of me. Yoga aficionado had the mat, the outfit, and the cream, yes the cream, and the flexibility of a seven year old Russian gymnast.
I was fixated on the yoga aficionado. And the cream. I kept asking myself why cream? Is there cream involved? Do we need to lube up?
Even though I was very distracted by yoga aficionado, when the instructor entered the studio, I was in awe; she was everything I pictured a yoga instructor to be: calm, cool, collective and cute. She was soft spoken, spiritual and dare I say sexy? She started the class with very clear instructions: “much like trees in the forest we are all unique; it takes years to master some yoga positions, please listen to your body.”
And that’s what I did for 55 minutes. I listened to my body. I bent in positions I never bent in, I tried the down-ward facing dog, the downward facing dog with an extended leg, I tried to release my negative thoughts as so instructed, I tried to remember that I was a different tree from the young broads that flipped into these positions with ease, I tried to listen to my breathing except I noticed I wasn’t breathing at all and almost passed out. I did a few tree poses, a chair or two, some sort of hop into a plank into a position that God knows I could not do because I swear this instructor doubled as a trapeze artist when she
