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,

Last week I met this woman at a public speaking class.  She was telling me she met a small business management consultant.  She rattled on, “This businesswoman really took the time to get to know me.  She cares about me and I’m in my 50’s.  With all the age and sexual discrimination that goes on I’m thrilled to have her believe in me.”  I didn’t understand why she was spilling her guts to me.  I’m not her best friend, a shrink, nor even such a consoling stranger (she forgot to brush her hair and revealed to me that she had just been tried and convicted for driving under the influence).  She pushed the consultant’s card into my hand.  The teacher marched in and started speaking so I put the card in my pocket.

When I went to bed that night I emptied my pockets and was throwing out the business card when I noticed something.  I put the card up to the light and saw the white outline of two humans pointed toward each other.  They had sort of folded themselves over, slumped in half.  I couldn’t figure it out.  What were they doing?  This is not some athletic trainer’s card, not that of a prayer group, nor even an s & m club card.  I came back an hour later and realized one leg was behind each person, the elbows were on the ground and the head was almost floor level too.  Hey!  That’s the yoga “pigeon pose.”

Since the average business person would not figure this card out, I wondered if this was a signal.  Maybe this symbol was a covert code for an undercover CIA operation.  This is how they recruit, right?  Not!  Obviously I’ve been watching too much Homeland lately.  More than likely this was a female pimp of some sort secretly inviting me into a strange men’s club.  They must figure if you recognize a sophisticated pose from a traditional women’s activity, you are probably into some funky stuff.  That’s not for me, not that there’s anything wrong with that.  Needless to say, I don’t think I’m going back to that public speaking class again.  What do I do that makes me look like such a mark?

Gary

Tammy,

A yoga teacher invited me to a special Halloween yoga class.

I arrived and set up my mat in the darkened room.  Suddenly I felt a couple drops of water pour down my forehead.  I looked up and saw there were no leaks in the ceiling.  So how could this be?  We hadn’t even started the class yet.  I looked around and saw something weird for a yoga studio.  What are those machines?

Just then the teacher came into the class, pointed to the machines, and said, “Welcome to hot yoga.” Oh boy!  At least she didn’t welcome me to Bikram yoga as I nearly died of heat exhaustion the couple of times I tried that.  A minor victory.

Another scanning of the room revealed women in skin tight shorts,  sports bras, and really toned bodies.  I started to sweat even more.  Subconsciously I was getting intimidated; I am a level one “yogi” and they are obviously advanced students.  Once the class started, we got into the sophisticated poses pretty quickly.  I felt like I was taking a steam bath, but in this strange world the scantily clad women were not the focus of my attention.  We started moving so fast my heart began pounding like a jackhammer.  Was I having a panic attack?  I thought my life was starting to flash before me.

I rested on my mat and gulped down an entire bottle of water.  For the first time I noticed the women’s clothes were glowing as there were black lights in the studio.  They looked like synchronized Cirque du Soleil performers; surely I must have messed up their tightly choreographed formations.  To avoid any further embarrassment I fell asleep on my back.

When the teacher invited me to this black light yoga class I should have realized that rather than being given a treat for Halloween, I was actually being tricked or yoga punk’d.  I guess she was getting me back for all the times I couldn’t stop laughing in her classes.

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 thought I’d let you know which are my favorite yoga poses, even though I am not an expert at any of them.

First there is the rarely done frog pose.  With legs out wide you feel helpless and get the feeling you taste like chicken.

Pigeon pose produces a pain like no other in the it bands.  That fits with me as some say I am happy being miserable.

How about flipping the dog?  I can’t visually figure it out, don’t know the Sanskrit name for it, nor have I ever seen a real canine behave like this.   Well,  there’s go yoga getting hypocritical.

What are your favorite poses to teach and for you to practice?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

While waiting for yoga class the other day, I did a little yogic thinking.  I guess these emails suggest I might do that once in a while.  When yoga teachers say that it is my class, I figure that means I focus on me and do the best I can; stopping only if I have trouble with a pose.  On this day, I did something uncharacteristic and intentionally watched the others.  No, I’m not a perv, just curious.   I never knew how much other students disregard the professional yoga teacher’s instructions and do whatever they want.   What’s up with that?  I noticed a woman doing savasana the whole class.  Why get out of bed for an early morning yoga class to just lay on the ground when you could have been snoozing away in a comfy bed?  Then I saw the little duckling pose.  That’s where the mother brings two daughters below ten years old and they try to imitate their mom; in other words, a yoga class of three.  It was cute, especially when the girls couldn’t keep up with the flow and didn’t get totally frustrated.  With more yoga practice, one day all the ducks will be in a row and will be joining the rest of us.  How about the muscle dude in the front row?  When we flowed, instead of upward dog, he did a headstand.  I was shocked when I first saw it and thought maybe that was how advanced yogis do the pose.  Then I realized he was just trying to impress the hot woman next to him.

I know it’s their yoga, but how do you teach your yoga when so many people are freestyling?

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

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,

Last night  I saw a hilarious movie and a few live comics; a late night full of laughs.

I arrived at the outdoor yoga class early in the morning today.  Apparently the teacher said hi to me right before the class started, but I didn’t even notice.  I must’ve been in the “yoga zone” before class even started.  How cool! I was totally focused.  No sports psychologist, astrologist, or craniologist necessary here.

During class I suddenly felt something touching me.  First I thought it was a little gecko as they run rampant here in South Florida.  Yikes!  One of those little guys crawling all over my body during downward dog would have been totally skeevy.  Then my mind went to an army of ants; nope, they race pretty fast and I would have succumbed to their full body invasion immediately.  My iliotibial (it) bands (yep, both left and right) were apparently crumbling from a life’s worth of non use when I finally realized it was the teacher.  I think she said something in yoga speak to the effect of loosen up dude, take it easy.  Be in the moment.  Enjoy!

After like sixteen months of yoga I thought I was totally relaxed and present.  Second thought, maybe you need a lot of sleep to do yoga; otherwise, stay home in shivasana.

Gary Kahn