First Yoga High

Nov 18th, 2011 by Gary Kahn in Yoga Bliss

Tammy,

I went to your class today and I have never laughed so much in a yoga class; not at you, but at yoga and with you.

There is no Super Bowl for yoga; it is a non-competitive activity (except perhaps in India).   If yoga isn’t going to help American adults get somewhere, why do we practice yoga?  You don’t serve beer and the incense you burn is not magic mushrooms.  In the “studio” you create a freedom for us to laugh at ourselves when we can do a pose well, and for us to laugh even more when we don’t even come close to the attempted pose.  So yoga teacher of 14 years and inciter of laughter, what is the feeling I had today in your class?

On the way out of your class, I got in my car and it seemed like I traveled a couple of miles on autopilot.   Inexplicably I had a hankering for some potato chips.  Then I heard a siren.  I looked in front of me, nothing.  To the left, nothing.  To the right, nothing.  Yep, you guessed it.  Right behind me I saw the cherry tops flashing.  I pulled over and the cop said to me, “do you know why I stopped you?”  The words that passed my lips:  “Actually officer, I have no idea.”  He then put his whole head inside my car, looked me straight in the eyes and said:  “Are you high?”  Quickly I realized the cost of my first yoga high:  $15 for the studio and $85 for running a red light with a cop right behind me.

Gary Kahn

No Comments