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,

Today I arrived about ten minutes early for your class.  I was the fourth person there.  To my surprise the three other people were guys.  I set my mat up where I usually do; this is apparently now the “men’s” side.  More people started arriving; they were women.  In fact, four women showed up and placed their mats on the opposite side of the room which was apparently the “women’s” side.  I felt like I was at a middle school dance.

One of the guys then started doing push ups.

Then you arrived and went into your normal spot, front and center.  Were you holding a battle of the sexes yoga class?  I missed that text message.

I usually have my eyes closed during class, so did the women’s side of the room laugh when any of the guys couldn’t hold the chair pose or warrior II pose for extended periods of time?    Did any of the women make any non-verbal, yogic passes at the guys to throw off our focus?  Did the women’s side become jealous because you had to spend more time adjusting the men’s side?

I had to leave right after class so what was the winner supposed to get and/or what was the losing side required to do?  Guys will not wear capri or crop pants to a yoga class.  This is a deal breaker; sorry, guys already feel weird walking out of a class carrying a yoga mat.  No way will any of us guys be getting any of those yoga tattoos on our lower backs.

So, who won?

Tammy,

Little do you know but for the past month I’ve actually been doing the homework you assigned me some fourteen months ago.  That’s right, I’m doing child’s pose every day.  Woo hoo!  I’m completing your assignment, albeit a little late.  I know you’ve given up on expecting much from me.  But come on, what do yogis say?  When an unwanted thought pops up, go back to focusing on the breath and all is good.  So, now that we’re all good, you and me, do you think you can go back and alter the grade on my report card from last year?

In class today you were walking around the room and from a distance you could see if all of the students were properly aligned and breathing the pranayamic way.  Towards the end of class, I laid on my back, with my palms face up, the back of my head on the mat.  The music was barely audible.  All of a sudden my head nodded off to the left; I came to pretty quickly.  A minute later the same thing occurred.  Shortly thereafter the class was over.  While leaving the class you asked me what was going on and I couldn’t come up with anything.  Touche was all I had.  You were just toying with me.  You knew I had actually achieved the goal of shivasana which is sleep; though mine were only two brief narcoleptic-type episodes.

Today, right before you said namaste, you gave a homework assignment.  The only time I remember you giving howework was 14 months ago.  What can I say except that I reach a colossal milestone in class and you up the ante.  Can’t I just have a post-class celebration for one moment?  I was thinking about an end zone dance in the front of the room or a shot of Cabo Wabo.  Don’t yogis get excited over their long-awaited triumphs, no matter how small?  Come on, live in the moment.  Or does the seemingly accepting yoga always have to keep bending forward without even a second of partaying?  Didn’t the creators of yoga realize that all work and no play makes a yogi convert to pilates?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

The other day you caught me grimacing during a pose and told me to breathe and smile.  Why is breathing given such a big focus in yoga?

When you’re concentrating on your breath, you fail to take life for granted.  You fail to worry that you’re doing triangle pose wrong and you fail to care that your shorts are riding down and someone might see a small part of your butt.

Right now I’m in your level one class so I’m just concentrating on achieving some semblance of the basic poses and simultaneously breathing smoothly.

In the advanced yoga classes do they teach multi-tasking like breathing and thinking?  How can I grow into a mature yogi if we continue to do the happy baby pose?  Let’s start practicing the snotty teenager pose; my sense of humor might fit in better.

Is it possible we concentrate our thoughts on each breath so we live life in the moment, here and now?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today I sat and meditated.  For fifteen minutes I thought about normal things; like the garlic festival I will be going to and how garlic is supposed to be great for your health.  I then pondered how many weeks it will take to get the smell out of my pores.  Next I remembered something in the liquor store; they actually sell tequila in bottles shaped like rifles and hand guns.  I know these might be cool at parties but what kind of message are they sending?  After all, how accurately can you shoot when drinking?  I started to think about the dinner I had with someone’s elderly mother.  The woman is in an assisted living facility but they don’t shave her face.  She has whiskers almost a half inch long but I don’t think she has a clue what the cat pose is.  Do the workers leave this grotesqueness there to spite her since she is mean to everyone?

What are you supposed to think about during meditation?  Is there a right and wrong? Am I twisted?  I pay attention to my breath but my mind wanders elsewhere pretty quickly.

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

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.