Tammy,

Last week I stubbed my toe.  It didn’t hurt, rather there was blood that took almost a week to completely scab over.  It was at the top of the captain toe so I had to wear sandals almost every day, even at work.

I went to a yoga class and after a couple of poses realized that blood would start oozing if I went any further.  I laid down on my mat and decided to start savasana fifty minutes early.  That’s what yoga has taught me.  Make an effort and if you’ve done your best but can’t complete the task, head to the mental shower for a cleansing.  Actually, I fell asleep.  Maybe I should do this in real life.  If things aren’t going well at work, go to sleep.  Problems with a relationship or friendship?  Go to sleep.  Maybe I should get a sleeping bag for my car for when my effort isn’t good enough.

Am I mistaken or does yoga promote escapism?

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,

Recently I went to yoga class and there were people hanging out chatting before, during, and afterward.  I started to  wonder why I don’t chat with others when I go to class.

Let’s see, first, most of the students are women and they seem to know each other.  What would I say?  Where did you get those yoga pants?  That might be odd coming out of my mouth and perhaps an unintentional, unwanted, flirtatious, pre-class gesture.  During class I don’t talk with anybody but once in a great while I hear some discussions in a corner of class.  Maybe  I should flip my dog a number  of times to get over there and join the chat.  Say, this might even provide some laughter for the talkers and be a great ice breaker.  After class, I like to be in solitude in the glow of my mind cleansing; maybe I could hug everybody and we could share our sweat together.

What do you think of these ideas for a start at socializing with my fellow yogis?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

You know the swimming pool game Marco Polo?  What if yoga teachers played a similar game called pada gustasana?  I kinda like the rhythm, pada        gustasana                              pada        gustasana.

How ’bout Whispering Down the Lane sahaja bhujangasana and see what the last person has to say?

How ’bout singing 100 downward dogs on the mat, 100 downward dogs, take 1 down plank it to the ground, 99 dogs on the mat.  Wait a second, it’s yoga.  It’s supposed to be relaxing.  How ‘bout singing, 2 yogis sitting in meditation, 2 yogis sitting in meditation, one loses focus and they both go grab a beer, they both go grab a beer.  Now that’s what a real man likes to hear.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

I know yogis are not supposed to hate on anything but there are a few poses I find less than desirable.

First there is half standing forward bend.  I bet I look like the hunchback of Notre Dame when doing this pose.  I don’t think any teacher has corrected this pose of mine because they think I might have leprosy and be contagious.

Full Boat pose is another undesirable.  I feel as if I am having Parkinson shakes when in this position and that I’m doing permanent damage to my back.

Dragonfly is not a fave either.  Most women in yoga classes ace this pose and can put their elbows on the ground.  Me, I can’t get my torso to lean forward at all.  I feel like a wax statue waiting to be sent to a taxidermist with my torso leaning backwards.

Do you have any poses not on your preferred list?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Saturday morning I took an outdoor yoga class.  I placed my mat down before class and immediately went into my routine pre-class corpse, or savasana, pose.  I try to establish my goal of being non-judgmental for the class.  When I looked up to see if class was starting I noticed a little girl on a mat near mine.  She was wearing little turquoise blue shorts, a yellow t shirt, and her hair was pulled up.  She was sporting a nice Boca tan as was her mom who was on the other side of this little four year old.

When the class started I noticed the little yogi trying the poses.  Her torso touched the ground during downward dog thereby missing the v shape called for in the pose.  When we went from plank, to chaturanga, to upward dog, to downward dog, she did her own little jumping routine which she altered each time we went through the sequence.  She smiled and was full of energy despite the fact that she didn’t conform to everyone around her.  Eventually she left the area and ran around the rest of the park with her mom in tow; somebody was in the moment and somebody else was in the running fear pose.  I tried to refrain myself but couldn’t help laughing.

Not being judgmental here but I think the kid deserves an A for the class.  After all, she walked away without a worry about what she looked like and was thrilled to see the sights.  I’m not big on the all-about-me attitude but it may have its place.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Saturday I went to a rock & roll yoga class.

At the beginning of class I heard Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ over the speaker system, except something was different.  Usually my mind thinks exclusively of the hot, skateboarding woman in the video.  This time I was actually listening to the lyrics and for the first time I figured out what the song is about.  Thanks John Mayer.

Toward the end of the class the teacher told us to squat on the ground.  We then raised our bottoms, bent over, and tried to put our inner thighs on the back of our upper arms, crow style.  I had trouble getting into the pose, so the teacher said to look forward.  I took a leap of faith and for a brief second I was flying; that’s the word yogis use, right?  Well, then my body flew forward and my head went clunk against the ground.  Hmm, I was thinking, was I body checked?  No.  Was I punched?  No.  I’m doing yoga.  I was a little woozy when I heard the song playing at that moment, Pink Floyd’s Shine on You Crazy Diamond.  My brain rattled around and I couldn’t even figure out what symbolism was.

I guess when I heard Jack Johnson’s Upside Down early in class I should have realized that things were going to be mind altering.

Gary Kahn

PS  Something else happened in class.  At one point, the teacher told us to unclench our butts.  What was that all about?  All I could think of were the lines from Predator 2:  “Okay everybody, just take a deep breath.  Loosen your sphincters.”

Tammy,

I arrived ten minutes early for class Saturday.  As I approached, I saw a woman who smiled and said, “Hi.”  I was taken back a little as the “nobody talks to strangers rule” is usually in effect here in South Florida.

I smiled back and she said, “Where is everybody?”

“It’s a holiday weekend,” I said.

From her accent I could tell she was probably European.  “What holiday?”

“Memorial Day.”

We went our separate ways and rolled out our mats.

During class, I looked up to the sky and saw a bunch of clouds.  I then noticed the blue space area between the clouds.  It seemed to form the shape of something.  I started thinking as we were holding chair pose for an extended period.  The Euro woman must have influenced my thinking because I thought I saw a boot shape, kind of like Italy.  Here I was in a yoga class, doing the chair pose and thinking of some great tortellini, pinot grigio, and a cannoli.  I guess that’s what people mean when they say yoga can be relaxing.  After a year and a half of sweating at yoga I finally experienced a relaxing moment.  Ah, but then my chair pose crumbled and I fell.

Europeans really know how to make their moments count.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Sunday night I went to the beach for a yoga class.  Isn’t that a cool way to finish a weekend?

As I was driving to the beach I could see a big black cloud just north of where our class was going to be held.  It had been raining most of the afternoon around the area.  I was really not up for muddy beach yoga.  Once I placed my mat down on the beach, I looked into the ocean and saw what looked suspicious.  It was a black object that was floating on the top of the water.  My first thought was that a whale had too much to eat and deposited his/her waste in these waters.  Yuk!  My alternative theory:  it was someone’s head that was separated from the rest of his/her decomposed body.  Where is Mariska Hargitay when you need her?  Okay so I watch of lot of Law & Order SVU and I had just seen the movie The Love Guru.  As the class started I was looking to the horizon for a focus point and saw a big grey ship.  It looked like a battle ship.

Shortly after the class started, I went into corpse pose for the rest of the class to calm my mind down and avoid the madness.  After all, how could anybody properly think about yoga with all that stuff floating in his head?

It turns out none of the concerns came to fruition.  It threatened but never rained, the black object was some sort of seaweed clumped together, and the big grey vessel was some sort of commercial ship.  It just goes to show, the mind can come up with a few ways to take something fun and relaxing and make it into something horrendous.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Last night I went to a beach yoga class.

I guess beach yoga puts a lot of things in perspective.  Yoga is there for us to laugh at ourselves.  We go to a place of nature and try to act naturally.  We put our body into a pose to resemble a tree.  The wind comes along and we lose our balance and like leaves, part of us comes falling down.  Unlike normal life, we laugh at our little tree disintegration.  We look at the horizon for a point to focus on and see a cruise ship; we start dreaming about cocktails, midnight buffets, and candlelit dinners.  Then we laugh that the cruise is only in our head.  Or we try to make it into airplane pose, a variation of Warrior III pose, and we lose our balance and fall to a crash landing.  Fortunately we can laugh at this.

The teacher tells us to do the the isosceles triangle pose, or was that the rotating triangle pose?  My head is spinning.  When we miss the crow pose and end up on our head in tripod pose with sand in our hair, who really cares?  How about side plank pose which is also called vasisthasana?  Say vasisthasana three times and if you aren’t laughing, well, take two ujjayi breaths and try the xanax pose.

Gary Kahn