Below is the note from my doctor excusing me from yoga classes:

Tammy
Yoga Studio
Boca Raton, Florida

Dear Yoga Teacher Tammy:

Kindly be advised that your student Gary Kahn is not expected to be in class this week.  He presented today at my medical office with flu-like symptoms.  Gary is asthmatic so we must pay careful attention to his lungs.  Since you are a yoga teacher, you should note that when the stethoscope was put up to his chest to check his lungs and he was asked to breath, he breathed through his nose.  This is not normal as he must breathe through the mouth for this test; I do not know where he picked up this habit.  He said something about pranayama, whatever that is.  Anyway, please excuse him from any classes he may miss.

In an odd request, Mr. Kahn did advise me to let you know that while sick over the weekend he watched a couple of documentaries about yoga.  These yoga documentaries included appearances by BKS Iyengar and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.  He also watched the movies Seven Years in Tibet and Eat, Pray, Love.  Thus while he cannot physically practice he is mentally trying to follow the yoga ideals.  Personally, I think that he should let things be and not worry about missing classes and live by the American phrase, it is what it is, all is good.

Thank you and we hope this letter brings you a little enlightenment of the situation.

Tammy,

I know something is different when I’m at the airport newsstand and I see the word Yogi on the front of Sports Illustrated.  I think to myself, what mainstream sport realizes that opening the hips may be good for player productivity?  Not so fast Raja.  The sports world isn’t openly that progressive.  It’s an article about former baseball player and word master Yogi Berra.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today you taught us a new pose but I can’t remember the name.   Is there an aardvark pose?  I was a little confused; make that a lot.  In fact, I couldn’t figure out what to do even after watching you, nor looking at the people around me.  It was sweet how you gently came over to my mat and asked how I got into the ridiculous position I had created.  Eventually I realized that you helped me get into child’s pose so that other people wouldn’t imitate me.

Gary

Tammy,

How was your vacation?  I am sick again.

For the first time in a few days I left the house yesterday.  I went to the grocery store for some sickness supplies.  I walked through many aisles to the back of the store.  All of a sudden my hands were over my head and I stood up tall in Mountain pose.  This was followed by a swan dive after which I folded over into Uttanasana pose.  My girlfriend was shrieking and hiding.

Does this mean that through your classes I have become a yogi?  After all, I don’t do yoga at home.  Why did this urge come up when I was light headed in the refrigeration section of the grocery store?  Is yoga now part of my heart center?

Still in the refrigerated section of the store, I looked down at one of the shelves and found the cheeses and other cold stuff.  Lo and behold I also saw an Einstein Bagels bag.  Hmmm I thought: a bomb in a grocery store?  Let’s do some national security work and see what’s in the out-of-place bag.  I mean, why would a sack from a foreign food seller be found in this grocery store?  After much trepidation and careful maneuvering, a bagel was found inside the bag.  Now, I know sometimes people take an item from one part of the store and when they don’t want it, drop it off in another part of the same store.  This was clearly not the same store.  Perhaps somebody with Alzheimer’s disease forgot what store they were in.  Or maybe somebody else was more sick than yours truly and did a full yoga class in the store, but forgot to take their pre-bought-post-shavasana bagel with them.  Have you ever heard of yoga having this effect on people?

Unfortunately and perhaps needless to say, I won’t be in your class tonight and hopefully will do fully monitored vinyasas, mountain and other poses in your class soon.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I think I know why I go to your yoga class.

Your classes remind me of being in preschool.

We arrive with our own blankets, or in yoga terms, a mat. You greet us with a warm smile and some encouraging words.   We know that you will take care of us.

You then ask us to get down onto our mats for child’s pose.
Immediately my mind harkens back to the warm blankets I had in preschool when I was 4 years old.  I start to believe my mat is actually a magic carpet and that it will take me away into dream land.  In fact, you instruct us to do ujjayi breathing (some sort of back-of-the throat yoga breathing) and we are supposed to sound a little like Darth Vader.  Wow, I am supposed to be a character in Star Wars.

Actually I’m on an adult journey and I don’t know it.

You then ask us to put our bodies into various postures or poses; downward dog, upward dog, cobra, cat tilt, triangle pose, warrior I, etc.  You even come around to each one of us to make sure we are doing things right; in the parlance of yoga, you adjust us.

As we are moving our bodies, you tell us not to judge ourselves and that everybody is okay, exactly as they are.  We don’t need to look at our neighbors because everybody is different.  This is what we learned at the wee young age.

You gauge the class and see how well we are adapting to this new language; kind of like in preschool when we are being taught to tie shoes or beginning to read.  Little do we know that besides the opening up of our hip joints, you are opening up our minds to patience, to forgiveness, and to be in the present.  Of course you are teaching us lessons on how to be good people and succeed without us even knowing it.

As we go into pigeon pose you tell us that the feeling in our hips is good for us.  In the most sweetest of ways you tell us that this feeling is just an unused body part saying hello.  The more we visit again, the more friendly the feeling will be.  You whisper to us that if we practice every day, the pigeon will be a great friend and we will have lots of fun together.  Sounds like practice makes things easier to me, and even a lesson from Sun Tzu (keep your friends close and your enemies closer).  Also, if the pigeon is befriended, his/her kind may never make droppings on our heads.

After we’ve extended and contorted the body and stimulated the cortex, it is time for shavasana.  You smoothly say we should take this time to float into space.  Sounds to me like lay down on our mats, I mean carpets, and go to sleep.  You even come around and massage each one of our little heads.  The only thing missing is the milk and cookies.

We then hear a bell signaling the end.  Our last remnants of innocence is ending. You say Namaste, release us into the big bad world and tell us we’re on our own for life’s real problems.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

So I was in the shower and it was time for me to wash my legs.

Usually I raise a leg to the side wall of the shower and put the soap on.  You know, like most people do, I think.  Tonight however, you wouldn’t believe what happened.

The crown of my head somehow automatically went down towards my feet and my hands framed my feet on the floor.  Yes that’s right, Uttanasana pose.   Maybe Iyengar was taking a shower when he thought of this pose.  This yoga thing creeps in at strange times, especially if you’re not thinking about it.

Gary Kahn