Tammy,

So I arrive in your class one day.  There is a guy there and he says he’s happy that another guy (me) will be in the class.  I don’t think much about it.  The guy then rattles off a whole bunch of maladies and how he is affected by them.  I quickly decide that I will place my mat as far from his mat as possible.  After a class wherein you had us try a bunch of different poses, in what seemed like slow motion, I heard the guy complaining about even more physical issues. 

I definitely avoided the guy on the way out.  I found myself thinking this guy was tremendously annoying.  Fortunately these thoughts did not come up during class.  He made it clear he was into women; so why was he happy when the room became more filled with testosterone?   Wouldn’t his odds with women be greater if there was less competition?  I don’t know what this guy was all about.  Why did he brag about his aches and pains?  Are women impressed by that?  Maybe I’m out of touch with picking up women but I still think they like masculine guys that appear to have their act together.  I don’t know.  Are women attracted to men who have negative game and claim insecurity as a strength?  Wow!  What cardboard box am I living in?  I guess I better get to a yoga class and start crying.  Wait a second.  What’s this blog all about? 

Hold on.  Maybe the real question is:  should I care about this dude and/or let him bother me?  After all, in class I didn’t think about him.  Am I judging the malingerer?  In yoga the aim appears to be voiding yourself of judgment.  Does yoga promote helping a fellow man or letting him/her be?  I’m probably not properly qualified to help the guy but I could tell him that women are rarely ever turned on by verbal self-mutilation.  As a teacher, do you try to loosen him up and tell him to take it easy or let him be and hope he figures things out?

Did you say this yoga thing is supposed to be relaxing and freeing of the mind?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I was on my way to the beach recently.  Being that we are in South Florida and it was the holiday season, a lot of tourists from cold weather states had the same idea.  The traffic was heavy but not quite reaching LA Freeway levels.  Rather than inch my way forward at every stop, several times I allowed cars from side streets to move in front of me in line.

This is not like me.   Normally I ignore them.  After all, I am from the Northeast.    In the past, I would occasionally make up a story about how drivers on side streets are late for an important meeting or how they are going to the doctor for an urgent medical problem.  Not letting them cut in would bring a smile to my face.  After all, I plan ahead and so should they.  Do I go as far as road rage?  Nope.  I learn from my elders. You see, I have an octogenarian neighbor who got three months in jail for brandishing a gun at another vehicle.

Why did these out-of-body experiences occur?  Are you rubbing Zoloft into my system when you message my head during shivasana?  Is the shoulder stand calming my nervous system (pun intended).  Have I been sweating so much in your yoga class that my aggressive impulses are transforming into good kharma?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I signed up for a class which was going to be held right next to the Intracoastal Waterway.  I was psyched as it had promise to be euphoric.

Upon arrival, I parked in the lot near where I thought the class would be.  Nobody was going to the grassy area where the internet showed the location of the class.  So I waited outside my car.  A woman who had apparently gone for a run suddenly arrived at a neighboring car.  I stared at her for quite a while and finally asked if I was in the right place for the yoga class.  Hesitatingly she said yes and that she was the teacher.  She pulled out her mat and other stuff from the trunk of her car.  We walked over to the serene spot where the sun was shining.  The water was close by and the gigantic houses were easily visible across the water.

Nobody else showed up so I was excited for my first private class.  How cool!

It wasn’t quite a flow class.  We started doing poses but they didn’t connect to each other.  I was right in front of her but quickly realized that she wasn’t really talking to me during the poses.  She was speaking as if it was a large class and just letting me know what the next pose was and how to get into it.  She only looked at me twice during the entire hour.  She didn’t adjust any of my poses; not even Warrior I or II.

What happened?  Was the teacher upset that I arrived?  If I didn’t show up, she could have gone home.  Is it possible I freaked her out and she thought I was a stalker?  Maybe I was in the zone and did the perfect yoga class.  Does this mean I will soon have my own yoga dvd for sale?  After all, I was wearing my rock star sunglasses.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Recently I tried something new in your yoga class.  I wanted to really get into whatever it is that real yoga people, yogis, experience while practicing.

It was right after you gave the first instruction that I tried my new yoga accessory, eyes closed during class.  I didn’t know what to expect but I was hoping for peace, friendliness, enlightenment, and exhilaration.  You started the classes and physically I could achieve most of the poses without looking; however, a weightless, stress-free, soothing state of being failed to arrive.  I was far from fantasy land.  Rather my thoughts were totally occupied by sweat washing all over my body.  My nose was now in full bloom as the remaining senses compensate for any missing.   To make matters worse, I was trying to concentrate on exclusively breathing through my nose, ujjayi style.  The lovely fragrance I perceived was that of a men’s locker room.  The studio is clean and I know it wasn’t me, so how could the pungent odor have appeared so soon after the class started?  Wait a second, could it have been me?  You’ve never said anything, though, you are diplomatically polite and try to run away from me after class.  With all this swimming in my mind, I opened my eyes to try tree pose.  I guess the land of hopes and dreams doesn’t include balance as my body resembled a weeping willow during a hurricane.  Marking a conclusion to the experiment, the body of one of my mat neighbors was a little late in celebrating New Year’s Eve and my nose received an inauspicious welcome to 2012.

If this is what people rave about yoga, maybe I should take up internet stair climbing.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Last night I was watching a movie on tv.  A commercial came on for an allergy medication.  The actress was doing downward dog and a canine approached her.  It was ironic and funny,well, if you’re into yoga.

What other poses could be shown on tv?

For an insurance company commercial:  how about while the actress is in plank pose, a thief removes her diamond tennis bracelet?

For a Spike TV promo:  how about a dog peeing on an actress in tree pose?

A promo for one of those Saturday morning fishing shows on Versus:  how about while the actress does fish pose at beach yoga, a trout washes ashore near the yoga mat?  What is the Sanskrit word for gooey and smelly?  The actress then starts doing pranayamic breathing with her fingers on her nostrils.

For a Law & Order crime:  How about a car-jacking scene in Times Square with the jumbotron in the background showing full wheel pose?

How about during the writing of these emails someone does a headstand near me and asks why nobody else has come up with these ideas?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I’m a little perplexed and a little embarrassed as I didn’t know how to handle a situation in class today.

As you have told us, yoga is non-competitive, even with one’s self. Recently you’ve noticed that I’ve been pretty close to the poses you have described and told us to get into. I’m even keeping up with the class as we go a little faster, or as the yoga world says flowing. I’m holding Warrior I and II poses longer than I used to.

Today, you found me in the plow pose, but everybody else was in the next pose, shoulder stand. I think I deserve a mulligan, a pass, or even a special compensation. How do I say this? You see, while doing the plow pose, somebody behind me must have been visualizing a mushroom farm because all of a sudden I heard a noise. Some people might say there was a little crop dusting going on. A short time later there was confirmation of what I heard the first time. Just when I was trying to refocus on what you were saying, a third, shall I say, explosion occurred. You caught me in the plow pose with my back on the ground, legs stretched over my head, and most importantly my knees in my face for, diplomatically, sensory, and olfactory protection. How could I explain this when you came by and asked why I was lagging behind the others?

At the beginning of class, you said that we are not supposed to expect anything. You have always told us not to be judgmental. I was dumbfounded. The auditory shock and fear of an oddly flavored draft arriving in my direction left me confused. What is one supposed to do?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

It was really hot tonight in your class.  We were 15 minutes into the class and I had to take off my shirt.  It’s taken me awhile but I think I may have gotten over the body image and body hair neuroses; even if I didn’t, we were now talking about avoiding heat exhaustion.   I am sure the other students were overheating too and didn’t have the chance to worry about my skeletal deformities.  As a guy I was pretty lucky that I had the luxury of going topless.  Sorry ladies, you get revenge when I exit the studio and regular people see me in yoga clothing.  I was thinking that if it was this hot, I should be getting a tan.  Perhaps the the studio should invest in some tanning lamps.

Without a shirt it was still pretty unbearable.  I  felt delusional and then all of a sudden I was doing Warrior III.  I had been trying that pose with you for months and now my dehydrated brain didn’t have the chance to think about any balance or fear issues.  I just followed your instructions and nothing else claimed any cerebral space.  All I had to do was look over at you and imitate what you were doing.  It was monkey see, monkey do.

If your yoga studio does change over to heated classes, I think they should serve cold beers after such an experience.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

At the end of today’s class you said, “yoga is love.” It’s hard to think a couple could meet in a yoga class. The mate selection process is a little different, if not impossible, that’s for sure.

The women are all decked out in their designer yoga capri pants and matching tops with coordinated sport bras; whereas the guys are in raggy, baggy basketball shorts, tailored cut off shirts (not), and the highly erotic sweat bands. Most guys sweat like crazy so I don’t think any woman would be dreaming about an aromatically rank shower during a mating activity. In fact, one day as I was leaving class I heard one woman say that some guy was cute, but then she laughed and called him stinky dinky doo.   Somehow I don’t think that was an endearing pet name.

If a guy could get by this obstacle, what would be a great pickup line in yoga class? “You’re so hot we should do our own bikram yoga practice, just you and me.” Or, “when I meditate I only focus on you; are you thinking about me?” What about: “I love the way you pose; was that just for me?” Somehow I don’t think any woman would date such a guy. So tell me, what’s love got to do with yoga?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today I went to your yin a/k/a happy hips class.

At the beginning of class you played a song that made us feel like we were in exotic Costa Rica.  Wow!  I remembered that you had scheduled a yoga trip there.  I had never heard of a commercial in a yoga class before and I am sure the creators of yoga were rolling over in their graves.  Those old guys; how were there hips?  I didn’t care about the subliminal message; I loved the music as my mind went on a scenic meditation that yoga hadn’t yet come close to delivering.

Then it came time to get hip and I’m not talking Edward Burns type hip.  You started with a three minute king pigeon.  My hips were hemorrhaging more than an alcoholic with the DTs.  A short time later it was the firefly pose.  The hips were burning and screaming like the towering inferno.  In the frog position I wanted to leap right the heck out the back door into a pool of soothing jello.  Why do you call it happy hips?

As far as your yoga vacation in Costa Rica, the water skiing, zip lining, and snorkeling, really sound like a dream.  For what we now know will be killer yoga, I am not yet ready to have my remains sent back to the States in a yoga body bag.

Gary Kahn