Tammy,

I went to today’s yoga class with the intention of watching the teacher carefully so I could perfect my poses.  When we walked into the studio I looked for the spot right in front of the teacher.  Shucks, taken.  I placed my mat right behind an old guy.  I put my water bottle and towel in place near my mat and dropped my flip flops and keys off at the back of the studio.  I was ready to really learn.  Why was I so attached to getting the poses “right?” I don’t know.  Usually I just have fun and laugh about any weirdness I create.

Class started.  In mountain pose the teacher told us to lean back toward the rear window.  Next, we got into downward dog position.  I tried to look at the teacher’s every last detail.  The guy in front of me partially blocked my view of the teacher.  I tried to look around him but accidentally caught a view of his runner’s shorts.  They rode up his butt, exposing me to the pasty white part of his upper thighs.  I quickly looked to the ground and held the dog pose for a few seconds.  Meanwhile everybody else had already moved on to the next yoga position.  What will happen when we do headstands?  I don’t usually do the pose; instead I watch other students so I can see how to safely attempt the maneuver.  This guy’s junk might spelunk and I would be left with more than my eyes should see.  What do I do?  I’ve got to think quickly.  I’ve already seen more than I should.  How do I avoid the impending eye raping?  Doesn’t the teacher realize what’s going on?  Wait.  She could be trying to avoid her own visual assault.  I made the decision to lay down in savasana for the rest of the class, with my eyes closed of course.

I wonder if I went to the wrong yoga class.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

This week I took three yoga classes.  Is that too much?

I’m afraid if I practice yoga too much I may become severely depressed if I can’t get the poses right.  I wonder what kind of side effects the yoga Prozac presents.

I might start dreaming about doing yoga outdoors and end up severely crashing my head on the ground during tripod pose.  What’s wrong with a little yoga brain damage, right?

Or I might exit a restaurant after a couple of drinks and a good meal and look up and see a half moon in the sky.   I might then bend over and put one arm on the ground, the other hand in the air,  and put one leg in the air, spontaneously doing the half moon pose.  I then might fall over and pass out with undetermined injuries.  After witnessing such a display, I don’t think my friends  and other onlookers will be trying yoga any time soon.

What do you think?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

In the past couple of weeks I’ve had a couple of peculiar yoga classes.

In the first one, the teacher told us to get into child’s pose.  I complied and then she promptly sat on my bum.

In the other class, the teacher had us do a pose I’ve never heard of and I can’t remember the name.  We were told to lie on our backs and cross our legs at the knees.  Our legs were supposed to go out to the sides.  The teacher came over and pushed my knees into my body.

Each time I had the most amazing feeling.  It was like someone was hugging those parts of my body.  It wasn’t sexual, just comforting beyond belief.  There was no vibe with the teacher, just nirvana for me.

They say yoga is supposed to feel good.  Well, these were the first instances that I’ve ever felt such a truly euphoric feeling in any part of my body during a yoga class.  Is this the feeling you’re supposed to get in yoga?  If it is, I might be like a crack addict trying to chase after those first couple of highs for the rest of my life.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I know yogis are not supposed to hate on anything but there are a few poses I find less than desirable.

First there is half standing forward bend.  I bet I look like the hunchback of Notre Dame when doing this pose.  I don’t think any teacher has corrected this pose of mine because they think I might have leprosy and be contagious.

Full Boat pose is another undesirable.  I feel as if I am having Parkinson shakes when in this position and that I’m doing permanent damage to my back.

Dragonfly is not a fave either.  Most women in yoga classes ace this pose and can put their elbows on the ground.  Me, I can’t get my torso to lean forward at all.  I feel like a wax statue waiting to be sent to a taxidermist with my torso leaning backwards.

Do you have any poses not on your preferred list?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I thought I’d let you know which are my favorite yoga poses, even though I am not an expert at any of them.

First there is the rarely done frog pose.  With legs out wide you feel helpless and get the feeling you taste like chicken.

Pigeon pose produces a pain like no other in the it bands.  That fits with me as some say I am happy being miserable.

How about flipping the dog?  I can’t visually figure it out, don’t know the Sanskrit name for it, nor have I ever seen a real canine behave like this.   Well,  there’s go yoga getting hypocritical.

What are your favorite poses to teach and for you to practice?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Last night I went to a beach yoga class.

I guess beach yoga puts a lot of things in perspective.  Yoga is there for us to laugh at ourselves.  We go to a place of nature and try to act naturally.  We put our body into a pose to resemble a tree.  The wind comes along and we lose our balance and like leaves, part of us comes falling down.  Unlike normal life, we laugh at our little tree disintegration.  We look at the horizon for a point to focus on and see a cruise ship; we start dreaming about cocktails, midnight buffets, and candlelit dinners.  Then we laugh that the cruise is only in our head.  Or we try to make it into airplane pose, a variation of Warrior III pose, and we lose our balance and fall to a crash landing.  Fortunately we can laugh at this.

The teacher tells us to do the the isosceles triangle pose, or was that the rotating triangle pose?  My head is spinning.  When we miss the crow pose and end up on our head in tripod pose with sand in our hair, who really cares?  How about side plank pose which is also called vasisthasana?  Say vasisthasana three times and if you aren’t laughing, well, take two ujjayi breaths and try the xanax pose.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

As you know, I normally keep my eyes closed in yoga class.  That way I won’t feel any pressure to compare myself to my classmates.  Okay, I admit it: the real reason is that I don’t want to see the scary looks other people have when they’re looking at my poses.

At an outdoor yoga class the other day, the instructor told us to be conscious of our surroundings and that we’re trying to get back to nature.  I believe we were in Warrior II pose and then we went into side angle pose.  My arm was resting on my quad and I looked up to see the palm trees and the sky.  The other arm was trying to reach over my head toward the front of the class.  When my gaze came downward I saw the woman next to me.  One of her arms was over her head, successfully reaching forward, and the other arm was resting on her thigh.  However, at the end of the thigh-resting arm I noticed something different.  The woman had the index finger touching touching her thumb, making a circle.   I think in yoga terms you call this a mudra.  The other three fingers were all pointing in the same direction.   My eyes then gazed a little beyond the woman and I saw her shadow.  The silhouette looked like her body was in perfect alignment and yet relaxed, at peace.  I had never seen a yoga shadow before and this reflection looked like a piece of art.  The woman was in a moment of bliss and I was struggling to keep my body in this position.  Adding insult to injury, the woman was giving herself the okay sign with her hand.

After class I was thinking that I should tell this woman how beautiful her shadow looked.  I thought twice about this as I remembered that we did the same side angle pose on the other side and she must have seen my attempt.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

You will recall I was at your yin a/k/a “happy hips” yoga class three weeks in a row.

Last night I was part of a private yoga class with my girlfriend; there was no teacher.  There was a little mood music, though I don’t know if it was technically yoga music.  We were trying out the yoga pose where you touch hips together.  Out of the blue something happened to me that I had never experienced before.  I felt a different sensation and a popping noise.  It jarred me a little and I wondered if something was wrong.  I thought I had crossed all bridges if you know what I mean.  I figured out that my hip bone had cracked, like when you crack your knuckles.

Is this the goal of the happy hips yoga class and does this sensation occur only at happy times?  I think you gave out yoga homework in the last of these classes but was this what you were talking about?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I went to a Halloween party.

There were a few new topical costumes.  Osama Bin Laden was there and that of course brought the Navy Seals (though some of these guys must have been on a 2 week pass as they had quite the stomachs).  Justin Bieber was the favorite for men in their 30’s as they hoped to score with much younger girls.  Amy Winehouse look-alikes seemed to be accompanied by the return of the Kurt Cobain guys.

As I walked around the main room of the party, I saw something in the corner.  It was dark, with blood-red splotches, and looked like a large, strewn out, rag doll.  Immediately I thought of a gruesome opening crime scene from Law & Order:  Special Victims Unit.   I went over to the thing and heard what sounded like loud, troubled, breathing.  Then I heard the words, half dragonfly.  My brain said ‘what’s that?’  The person’s head popped up and I noticed a scarring on the forehead and fake blood oozing out of the neck and cheek.  Finally the woman said, “I’m a yoga teacher and the pose is half dragonfly.”  I didn’t know what pose she was talking about.  She said, “Please, either get down and do what I’m doing or let me practice in peace.”  I decided to try it.  Without warming up I was tight but felt stretched out.  We stayed like this for a while.  We were moving to do the other side of the body when I noticed lots of people had suddenly crowded around us wondering what was going on.  Maybe they expected some sort of Caligula show.  I got freaked.  I quickly thanked the ghoulish yoga teacher and exited; leaving my pride and strange party activity on the floor.  Is there any possibility the people with camera phones at the party don’t know how to upload anything to Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter?

Tammy,

In class you instructed us to do a variation of uttanasana.  We leaned over and hugged our bended knees.  I felt wobbly and visualized that I was a Norwegian long jump skier preparing for a run at an Olympic gold medal.  Fortunately I had been training my whole life for this moment.  NOT!  I never even tried this sport before.  What do the announcers always say?  Bendze knees, arms back, and start believing in the afterlife?

Gary Kahn