Amy,

As you know I haven’t been practicing yoga nor blogging because of flu-like symptoms.  Strangely enough, my Twitter following (@garykahn) has increased.

A yoga teacher said that while I’m getting better I should take care of myself and be okay with not practicing yoga and not writing.  How bad was my yoga?  Would my wheel pose cause a permanent yoga flat tire?  Would practicing warrior pose get me dishonorably discharged for fear of friendly fire?  Would the continuation of child’s pose force family services to issue a restraining order against me?

Perhaps the signs are there and the public has spoken:  I should stop participating in yoga and stop writing.

Gary

Amy,

It was my first yoga class in a while and it felt weird.  I mean, what’s the perception of someone who hasn’t been to a yoga class in a while?  As I looked at all the bodies flat on the ground, all I could think of was John Belushi, I mean Bluto, in Animal House:  “Hey! What’s this lyin’ around sh*t?”  The people were barely clothed but this wasn’t a toga party.  What were we doing?  Why were they, and I, doing this so early on a Saturday morning?  It’s not gonna help my GPA.  I don’t think I can put it on my resume.

My warrior wasn’t solid and I was surely susceptible to enemy attacks.  The heels of my downward dog weren’t touching the ground but I didn’t feel high.  I was quivering in vasisthasana as my brain made a futile attempt at translating sanskrit.

In a strange way I felt exhilarated as we flowed through the poses.  I felt out of my mind and surely looked crazy so maybe I should wear a toga to the next class.  I can visualize it now:  A little bit louder now.  Shout!  Shout!  Yeah!  Yeah!  Yeah!  Yeah!

Gary

Tammy,

Tropical Storm Sandy, who changed her name to Frankenstorm for Halloween, left the South Florida coast somewhat submerged so yesterday’s beach yoga class was washed away.

Beach yoga classes are important to my psyche.  After a long week, I, like most, look forward to doing fun stuff during the weekend.  When friends won’t call me back about our plans (maybe I call them friends but they probably call me “nothing-else-to-do guy”), the Monday-through-Friday stuff has me so exhausted I nearly sleep away the weekend, or when it’s a must-do-laundry weekend, I hanker for beach yoga.  Beach yoga is weekend salvation.  I love the thick, cottony clouds mixed in with the warm, orange and pink colors of the sunset.  My entire body feels like nothing matters as the hypnotizing sounds of the waves rush in and out.  The rocks that bookend our beach “studio” inspire dreams of being in a vacation fortress.  Did I mention that at beach yoga I can do full wheel pose?  On the beach, the sand is forgiving so I can even do crow pose.  Indoor yoga forces me to wear a helmet for crow attempts; surely that’s not how I like to style in yoga class.  On the sandy shores I successfully flip the dog, well, most of the time.  But if I were you, I wouldn’t get anywhere near my oddly raised canine leg.

Somehow at beach yoga I even seem to overlook a couple of, shall we say, peeves.  Like the senior citizen who runs through our class every week and hits on our young teacher in broken English.  Did I mention that his shorts are barely bigger than a speedo?  How about the drunk dude who walked by our class and insisted he could do the inverted poses?  I thought it might be funny but the resulting sloppiness almost made him toss some pretty, pretty nasty cookies.

With the clocks rolling back an hour next week, I fear my last beach yoga class of 2012 was cancelled.

Gary

Tammy,

I was at a yoga class this week.  We were doing a pose which involves a lot of stretching and produces a lot of stress; well, at least in my mind.  I heard a noise that was louder than a yogi’s normal ujjayi breathing.  It was more powerful than an asthmatic dying from a wheezing attack.  It was like somebody was snoring really, really loudly; in fact, it sounded like a wildebeest was roaming around the room.  I was skeeved and my skin started to crawl.  What’s going on?  What’s the matter with this thing?  Wait a second.  Nobody brought their animal to class today.  Could a person actually sound this way?  I hope he has it checked out; if not, the next thing you know everybody will start making the loudest and strangest noises.  The type A personalities will battle to have the best yoga noise and they will be put on Yoga Journal’s website.  If the hideous noise is stopped now, an epidemic similar to the grunting in tennis will be narrowly averted.

I’m entitled to a pristine class, without revolting noises.  Isn’t that a promise in the brochure of every yoga studio?  After all, how can I practice my focus if there is something distracting me?

Gary

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,

The other day I went to yoga at a gym.  After class started the teacher said that later on we would be going to the bar.  “Cool,” I thought.  The class and teacher would chat and get to know each other.  That would build the yoga community.  This was the first class I ever had with this teacher and I was pretty psyched.  No other yoga teacher of mine had ever encouraged a class of students to go for a brew after class.

We did the usual sun salutations and started to get into some more sophisticated poses.  I was getting sweaty.  I like this as it means I’m getting a workout.

The end of class was approaching and the teacher told us to go to the back of the room.  She told us to raise one leg and put it on a wooden beam that extended six inches from the wall and ran the entire width of the wall.  “This,” she announced “is  the bar.”  What?  What about the post-class coldness to relax muscles?  Uh, not after this yoga class.

Apparently the upper levels of yoga involve a ballet bar.  Ballet!  Ballet!   I’ve looked at an issue or two of Yoga Journal and I don’t remember seeing anything about ballet.  What’s going on?  Did I just spend almost two years getting into something that would end up with me wearing slippers with tassles on them?  Would I be expected to wear tutus and pink tops?  What kind of Crying Game is yoga?  Maybe I should do some research before I start something new.  I think I’m going to the bar and figure out what to do with all of the free time I will now have.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today I was running late for a yoga class at a gym.  I got there just as the previous class was letting out.  I went into the room and practically the entire floor was already covered with mats.  As I walked throughout the room looking for a space, I didn’t see any friendly faces looking at me.  I found some empty floorboard space near a woman who was packing up to leave from the prior class.  I could see she wasn’t thrilled about me and my mat.

The teacher arrived and asked people to create a couple of spots for the expected latecomers as they were coming from a significant distance.  I didn’t see any happy faces at this request.

About ten minutes into class we heard a car horn beep and then beep again.  I think the driver was trying to say, “Save me a spot.” Knowing the crowd I was with, I wouldn’t put it past the motorist.

At the end of class I wanted to ask the teacher something.  I waited in line for my turn and noticed a woman approach the same area and wait too.  When I was done I looked back and noticed she was third in line.

I’m relatively new to yoga and I thought yoga practice was supposed to be a friendly place, as they say, a community. Maybe I’m wrong.  Perhaps the code name for power yoga is killer yoga, kripalu yoga is really known as cripple you yoga, and smokers enjoy ashtongue yoga.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

This week I watched some videos online  about yoga on a bicycle (click here to view).  Yoga teacher Kelli Refer, who lived in Colorado (a US mecca for cyclists) and now hails from Seattle, demonstrates some super yoga poses for cyclists.

Side stretching while riding works on the torso and tests balance as you take one hand off the bicycle.  Not that I ever do, but, I definitely wouldn’t recommend drinking and riding for this one.

Being a guy, pyramid pose on the still bicycle is a sensitive one; a little too aggressive and any future kids I have may end up, well, a little disturbed.

Cat and cow poses on the moving bicycle benefit the spine.  I’ve just got to give up caring that people will think I’m having convulsions while riding on the streets.

For clothing, I could try a little cross dressing and wear the women’s Specialized-lululemon team jersey and shorts.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I went to my first Iyengar yoga class.

Every pose was deliberate and held for a lengthy period of time.  Blocks and belts were frequently used to help us with alignment.  In savasana we put a padded bolster under us to be gentle to the spine.

This is much different than the vinyasa flow classes where one doesn’t have time to ponder whether the alignment is right in any position.  Do the pose and if you don’t get it, on to the next pose.  Come on!  We don’t have time to wait for you.  Bolsters, blankets, and blocks.  Are you kidding?  Help?  Help?  Only the strongest make it to the advanced levels of yoga.

Maybe Iyengar wrote his legendary book Light on Yoga to let people know that one can just do yoga and have the time to get it right.  Maybe the Big I doesn’t want you sweating.  Maybe this Guruji thought Joseph Pilates was an uptight dude and yoga should be an endeavor where your body and mind become harmoniously in sync.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I attended a “hands on” yoga class.

First the teachers said they were going to massage some Chinese gel into our shoulders.  Since we are in South Florida where they’ve had problems with asbestos in Chinese drywall, I immediately became fearful that this class may be carcinogenic.  Shortly thereafter while I was in downward dog, a teacher put a harness around my waist and started pulling me backwards.  What are they trying to make me into?  A rickshaw driver.  Then, while in child’s pose, one of the teachers had me reach my hands forward and grab her ankles.  The thought crossed my mind that I was going to be attached to something by the other teacher and become become part of a human trafficking scheme.

Fortunately my brain eventually shut off, the neurosis went away, and I started to feel a slow bit of exhilaration run through my whole being.

Gary Kahn