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,

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,

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,

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,

I think I may be  turning into a yogaholic.  Can you tell me if I am in need of a twelve-step flow, I mean program?  Will I need an anti-yoga intervention?  Will you be my sponsor?

I practice yoga with you once a week. I go to Barnes & Noble a couple of times a week under the pretense that I drink coffee and read the paper. Actually I read all the yoga magazines and books. I’m lucky because my B&N has the yoga section in a back corner.  When nobody’s looking and the surveillance cameras have panned by, I dream about sneaking in a vinyasa and sometimes a full sun salutation. That would be awesome.  It would be like my yoga coming out party.

It feels like I’ve worn out all the yoga dvds from the library; I believe I’m now banned from checking out any and all yoga materials. Those cretins! I think I even saw a picture of me with a diagonal red line through it at the checkout desk; they claim I recently tried to sneak out the newest yoga picture book.

I get in such a zone during yoga that my focus blocks out any portion of reality.  I don’t know what I do in this state of mind.  How can I be responsible for my actions during such enlightened flashes?  I’ve heard about the guy who was forced to wear an ankle bracelet because he called the local sports radio station 250 times requesting a yoga class be broadcast over the air.  At his restraining order hearing, I heard his lawyer argued that it was only 238 calls.  I’ve only called around 50 times, but I block my number before dialing.

When my ham strings and quads need the boost, I scan Groupon, Living Social, and even craigslist for a cheap unlimited month of yoga. Those deals are only for new customers but I convince the yoga studio owner that I am so desperate I will disavow Buddha if he/she won’t let me have the deal.  I don’t even believe in Buddha but I know I’m striking a nerve and that’s the way to get what I must have.

This Thanksgiving I will participating in a three hour yoga workshop, thereby missing my family. Somehow I think they won’t regret my annual twenty minute evaporation from the holiday dinner table. I tell them my stomach is sick, but I believe they know what I’m up to. You see, during recent desserts I heard them muttering my meditation mantra.

What do you think?  Are these normal signs of a person doing yoga or am I slipping off the yoga mat of sanity?

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

The other night in class you came over to my mat and looked at me and asked, “How did you get into that mess from what I demonstrated and described?”  You laughed at me.  I laughed at me.  Yeah, I try as hard as I can, but come on, yoga’s funny stuff.

Let’s take melting heart pose (anahatasana)?  It looks like you’re a centipede moving slowly along, with your butt in the air all the time.  Maybe it’s the new way to search for hidden coins on the beach.  Or maybe you’re trying to find a contact lense.

How about prasarita padottanasana a/k/a wide-legged forward bend.  Maybe if you’re being inducted into a college fraternity you should practice this pose.  “Thank you sir, may I have another.”  I think this pose is actually a tribute to Douglas C. Niedermeyer from Animal House.

What about mermaid, I mean fish tale pose?  If a woman ever wants her guy to feel feminine like she is, ask him to get into this dainty pose.  After the pose, trust me, the guy will be running to the doctor to check for low testosterone levels.  If he doesn’t feel that way, tell him next Halloween he’s dressing up as I Dream of Jeannie.

I laugh at this stuff and some emails may seem like I complain about various things yoga, but it’s all good fun that keeps me going back.

Cheers and I look forward to our next adventure.

Gary

Tammy,

Tonight was my first Bikram yoga class.  I don’t know if I can go back but I’ve already paid for 9 more lessons.

When I walked in the studio door it was already a little steamy.  Okay I thought, this is really going to be exhilarating.   When the teacher arrived she asked for my name and whether I had ever done Bikram yoga before.  No and Gary I announced.   She then cranked up the heater near my mat.   Initially we did some breathing poses where you move your arms and neck.  So far so good.  Then oblique twists for mountain pose.  Cool, good bye muffin top.  Soon there were new poses I didn’t know and I was covered in sweat.  I reached for a towel to wipe my face, neck, arms, and chest.   The cute, young, girl-next-door-teacher, approached and told me to give up the towel because I would need it the whole class.  I was able to do a few more poses and then I had to stop and sit in timeout on the ground behind my mat.  I feared heat exhaustion.  Aerobically, I was burnt toast.  I could feel my heart pounding out of my chest.  I watched everybody else do what I was incapable of.  She then called out triangle pose.  She came over to me and sweetly whispered, or so I thought,  “come on, even Charlie Brown can do this one.”  During another pose she told us to put our hands by our heart and we can pray if we want.  I don’t think she was kidding.  I couldn’t see the clock so I piously requested the end of class.  Throughout class the teacher would call my name to encourage me; however, I felt quite embarrassed.  After all, there were a couple of overweight guys who had 15 years on me and they could do all of the poses.  I heard her say shivasana and I got up from my exile as I can definitely do relaxation pose.  She said to keep our eyes open.  I think something is wrong.  Three seconds later we were instructed to fold our torsos over our legs; this sent me back to once again being a bench warmer.  The teacher was so hot her halter top and capri pants were covered with sweat stains.  No need for any weird ideas; I was so delusional my brain didn’t have the capacity for any Clintonesque thoughts.  After several more fakes, the real shivasana arrived.  I got back on my mat and nearly passed out.  When I came to, I saw there was only one other person in the class and she was leaving.

Was this really yoga?  Maybe an inbred cousin.  Hardly any of the poses resembled vinyasa yoga.  It was so hot I think the walls will soon be covered in mold.  Maybe I should call Groupon and tell them I dropped into the wrong class and get my money back.

Gary Kahn

Tammy,

Today I wanted to take a mid-morning yoga class at a local gym.

I was a guest of a friend and we got to the parking lot ten minutes before the class was supposed to start.  Cars galore.  What’s with that?  Well, there was a fitness class prior to the yoga class and there are a lot of retirees in South Florida.  We had to really scurry for a parking spot.  Saying my friend was nervous as I backed up past 15 cars through the only lane of travel would be an understatement; I thought there were going to be ½ inch finger divots in the passenger door handle.  Then, as we got into the place, the previous class was letting out; within a minute the entire floor was completely covered with mats.  Are you kidding?  What’s the Sanskrit phrase for turnaround and leave?  Yep, adios before we even started a single pose.

Somehow I don’t get the idea of massive yoga classes.  They’ve had yoga classes in Times Square, the National Mall in DC, and Millennium Park in Chicago.  I’m not trying to be negative but I like to have space for my poses.  I know you’re supposed to accept your neighbor, but touch your sweaty neighbor more than once and I get a little skeeved.  I know if they touch me, I’ll be quarantined for sliminess.  Am I missing something?  In a setting where the space is filled mat to mat, can you, or any teacher, make it around to each and every person for adjustments?  Did I miss a tweet saying only yoga teachers or perfect yoga students are invited to yoga love fests?  Is there supposed to be some sort of cosmic group connection or yoga wave in the colossal sessions?  Perhaps the best person for these classes would be the shivasana robbers as they stand to make some extra loot.

Can you let me know what the appeal is to enormous yoga classes and public displays of yoga affection?

Gary Kahn