Tammy,

Recently I went to Daytona Beach for a yoga class with someone who is renowned for being a great teacher, does world-class inversions, is really sweet, and likes to have fun and laugh.  She’s a lot like you.

I took I-95 to get there and found the yoga studio which was pretty close to, but not quite on, the beach.  The studio was right next to an Irish bar.

The class started with the routine warm-up poses.   The pose changes then came quicker and quicker.  I’m asthmatically challenged so intervals and fast aerobic activities are not my strong suit.  It soon came to me that “my colleagues” on the mat were teachers and veteran yoga practitioners.  Not a problem, I would do things at my own pace.  I soon drifted a few poses behind everybody else.  My heart was pounding out of my body and my shirt and mat were full of sweat.  Whoever says yoga makes you look great has obviously never tried yoga.   Anyway, the teacher then started going into some of the poses with our legs off the ground.  I tried a couple and then it got too complicated.  My brain recognizes the left from the right but converting that to my body and occasionally there’s an issue; add some inverted positions and my mind-body coordination inverts and then flatlines.  So I backed off and started watching  what the teacher was displaying and asking the students to try.  They did zoological animal poses that I didn’t know were even part of yoga:  scorpion, grasshopper, and side crow.  It looked so cool I should have been the class photographer.   All the while I was laughing.   What was so funny about all of this?  Was it that 50 other human beings could do things with their body that I was incapable of?   Was it the realization that the other participants would not appreciate me calling them “colleagues”?   Was it that yoga allowed me to constantly laugh at failure?  Whatever it was that day or in your classes, yoga is a big laugh (to me).  Who cares why I laugh?  I’m going back to your class for more!

Gary Kahn

P.S.  After class I went to the Irish bar hoping to hang with all of the other yogis and talk about the class; like people do with friends after you play softball or football.  Nobody else from the class showed up.  Perhaps there’s something else to I need to learn about the yoga world besides the poses.

Tammy a/k/a today’s Hero Poser,

May your happy baby pose cry out with silly laughter.  May your child strike a great pose for you.  May the pranayama breath you take to blow out the cake candles inspire all your wishes to come true.  May your mountain pose be the highest in the world.   May your head and shoulder stands be above all others.

Have a ROCKIN’ and TRIANGLE KICKIN’ birthday!

Namasbirthday!

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

While out of town last week I took a couple of yoga classes.  I was the big dog as I was the youngest and most flexible.

So today I felt quite confident and went to your class.  As usual, you were serene and glowing.

It was a small class so you announced that we would go a little faster today.  First you giggled at my triangle pose and hinted that it looked more like a trapezoid; you had never seen anybody do that before.  Don’t worry, the Guinness book of records didn’t come calling.  When we were going into happy baby pose, I could see you were going to help me; however, the look on your face told me you had never seen a new born this sweaty.  You held your nose and sprinted to help somebody else.  Well, I’d been doing downward dog for many, many months so I thought l could ace at least one pose.  Nope, my but wasn’t high enough; after all we are in Boca Raton.

Gotta hand it to yoga:  go in feeling cocky and come out with your thong in a wad.   Sometimes in class you tell us we should be happy and feel lucky; we have the luxury to be doing yoga.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

For the second time I went to visit my father and step mother in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  They moved there about 3 years ago.

They picked me up from the airport.  It was night when my dad’s car was about a mile from his house.   I was pretty tired from a long day of travel and having a mild allergy problem.  In my oozy state I looked out the window and saw something I didn’t see the first time I visited.  A street sign indicated that the next turn signal would be the split between Western Trail and Namaste Road.  I didn’t see this sign on the first trip.

They say when the student is ready the teacher will appear.  Am I ready?  Was I born again the second I saw this momentous sign?  I’ve been doing yoga for many months with you and my quads are still weak.  My body isn’t lined up along a single plane in Warrior II pose.  I find the Sanskrit and English names of the poses pretty wacky and laugh at them in class.  Was this the sign that you and yoga are telling me that I should do a life-long meditation along the Western Trail?  Along Namaste Road there is a STOP sign right below the street sign; did I pass this anti-yoga sign so that I would get the hint and stop going to your classes?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Recently I went on a bicycle ride right next to the beach.  This is something I do often.   It was the middle of the day and extremely hot.

A couple of miles up the road, my bicycle computer indicated that I was cruising.  In fact, I was going a full 3 miles faster than my average speed.  It was a little weird.  I wasn’t pushing any harder than normal on the pedals.  There was almost no wind.  I was riding alone and wasn’t in anybody’s “slipstream.”  I wondered what I had been doing differently that was making me ride quicker.  I was sweating profusely and started having either a daydream, or perhaps a hallucination.  I thought I saw a big parade float in the sky pulling me forward.  As I drew nearer I realized that the float was not a cartoon character but a person doing a yoga pose with the head and back bent over in an aerodynamic position.  The phantom character was smiling down at me.  Then I realized I was actually picturing, you, my yoga teacher, in Warrior III, a pose I’ve never been able to master.

At first I was a little confused as to why I would be daydreaming about yoga during my ride.   Then it struck me.  I realized my head was tucked down and my back was parallel to the ground.  I was as close as I’d ever come to Warrior III and I was pretty satisfied.  My subconscious had put me in a pose that helped my cycling without me even realizing it.  Three cheers for yoga!

I also realized I was relaxed enough to follow the vision in my head.  What’s that old cliché?  When the student is ready, the teacher will appear in a strange place.  In my case, the old cliché might actually be that if you see parade floats in your head, the little men with the white suits will soon be tying you up.

I guess the next question is how can I relax like this in class so I can do all of the poses and skip to the advanced level classes?

This week is Thanksgiving so thank you Tammy for being my teacher and for the apparition on the bicycle.

Gary Kahn

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

Tammy,

For the second yoga class in a row, there were plenty of teachers in training to help you.  At one point you instructed the students to lie down on our backs.  The young teacher at the student next to me took this opportunity to put her foot on her student’s pelvis.  Better said, she stomped on the person’s pelvis.  Then, seeing that I was laughing, she came over and stomped on my pelvis.  She was now laughing even harder.  What’s going on?  I didn’t see any posters announcing this as sadistic yoga week.  Then again, I’m obviously not in the inner circles of yoga. Who knows?  Maybe those old guys who created yoga were tired of dealing with spoiled students and found a friendly way to take a little jack out on them.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today was kind of interesting at your yoga class.  As you are aware, there were enough teachers in training that pretty much each one of us students had their own.  After a while I noticed that these young, soon-to-be gurus, could have some fun of their own, at my expense.  During shoulder stand my personal teacher put her foot in my rear end.  I don’t know whether she was trying to adjust me or punish me; all the while she was smiling.  I didn’t know how to diplomatically inquire about this after class.  Should I have asked:  “What is the Sanskrit word for the old foot in the tush pose?”  Or:  “Were you just telling me I’m your bitch?”

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

At the request of one of your colleagues I went to her yoga class today.
She likes my energy and needed some teaching hours for a certification.

There was no child’s pose to start the class so I figured the young teacher forgot something.  Three minutes into the class I heard a pose called out:  crane, or maybe it was crow.  I thought, where do I put my arms and legs?  I looked at the woman next to me for a clue and she was balancing on her hands, with her legs in the air.  I once again remembered that yoga has different levels and I was way in over my basic head.

I was ready to quietly exit but my mat was nowhere near the door.  I decided to stick it out rather than take yoga’s version of the walk of shame.

Despite the teacher’s various pose commands, I frequently found myself in child’s pose.  I realized that child’s pose was for the physically incapable, the cerebrally challenged who could not figure out how to do a pose, and/or those frustrated with the whole deal.  Then I realized why yoga teachers wanted these “slow” students in the child’s pose; with your face in the ground they can’t hear you whining or crying.

I was sweating profusely over what could possibly be next.  I wiped my face and body with my white towel so much that it became discolored, thereby preventing me from using it as a surrender flag.

I am not writing from the hospital nor the grave, so do not worry.  I am simply reminded how happy I will be sharing sun salutations with you for a long time.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I woke up this morning with a lot on my mind; the week, the obligations, the Kardashians:> NOT.

I went to the local yoga store to take your class.  At last, I realized that you had not banished me from taking your classes.  In fact, you graciously welcomed me and asked how I had been.

There were a lot of people.  The woman next to me gave me grief because I have a bigger mat than most and she claimed that I was in her space.  I was thinking:  “give me a break.  Look at all the makeup you put on for a yoga class.  Who are you trying to impress?”   Oh yeah, I had lot’s of charitable kharma this morning.

You started the class and my mind focused on the poses, stillness, and skittles.  Yeah, all the different colored mats made me think of the chewy candy.  My mind said chew on yoga and get back to why we’re here.

Eventually I focused on the poses and felt the glory of the pain during frog pose.  I was ok; it just let me know I’m alive.  As we closed with the meditation, my mind was finally relaxed and I had become more accepting of myself and others.   I even saw the beauty in the woman next to me; she was sweating so much her mat looked like a Jackson Pollock painting.

Gary Kahn