In which DoZ tries yoga
As part of my new-city-new-life-dementedness, yesterday, I took myself to a Hatha Yoga class. I checked with at least 6 people if the class was for beginners and hearing uniformly positive answers, decided to take a chance. Clearly, what I consider “Yoga for beginners” – my version involves “lie down on back, breathe in and out, turn over to lie down on stomach, breathe in and out” (it’s all in the breathing, ye skeptics!) – is apparently very different from what those half a dozen people think. Sure, I wouldn’t have minded occasionally stretching a limb or two, but the things this instructor made us do…The body would shudder at the thought if it could (it is too painful to execute the sort of complex muscular maneuvering that shuddering involves).
All my life, I’ve been a front-bencher. You know, the type who sits in the first two rows of any class, shushing any one who talks, advertising her “active listening” to the lecturer and the world at large through vigorous nodding of the head, and taking of notes. Yesterday was different. I was the one who felt like bursting into giggles and did do so more than once, kept looking at my neighbor’s poses (even when I was explicitly instructed “to keep my head straight and look at the wall”), and said many many times to the instructors – I can’t do this. It felt very librating, or as liberated as one can feel with one’s butt pointed heaven-wards, head down and thighs and knees off the floor.
At one point, when trying to touch the floor with my feet by bending said feet over my head, I couldn’t help laughing. I was the only one who apparently saw the inherent ridiculousness of this activity. My instructor walked over and told me to not laugh, because it could hurt my stomach. No kidding. Bending your legs over the wrong way to touch the ground which can be touched in a much more direct fashion is fine. But laughter – that’s the true killer. If my head hadn’t felt like bursting from all the unaccustomed blood flow, I’d have been capable of stronger emotions than a mere girlish giggle.
At the end of the 75 minute class, I staggered out and very gingerly made my way home. I’ve not tried drugs, but I can imagine the high being similar. When I say I felt high, I don’t mean the great feeling that all health freaks swear you get post a vigorous session of exercise. I felt light in the head and almost ethereal. Were it not for assorted dull and not so dull aches and pains, I’d have easily believed that I was levitating. But if this is the sensation for which people get drunk or take drugs or ride roller-coasters or twist themselves a la kai-murukku, I don’t understand why they do…
And the sad part is that I didn’t really punish my body, or nowhere near as much as the idea of taking the class seriously might have involved. I remember this old physics experiment about water finding its own level. You pour water into a container with multiple dissimilar necks and you see that the water reaches the same height in all the necks, irrespective of their shapes. My body’s like that. Irrespective of the ridiculousness of the posture I tried to cajole it into, it would find the position of least discomfort and settle into that.
Yes, I can see that it must be nice to fit into clothes for thin people. It must also be nice to not have every friend and relative drop hints subtle and unsubtle about how much better life is when you exercise. But why does it have to be so hard? If survival is the raison d’etre for a species, activities that make that possible usually come very naturally, or are definitely pleasurable. Getting into shape and remaining that way take time and a lot of effort. If it’s in the best interests for the survival of your species that members remain healthy, why isn’t it easier? And if it feels this unnatural, are we right to even have such goals for ourselves?
Maybe we just like to make things difficult for ourselves, so we can feel a sense of accomplishment. I’m currently reading Jonathan Franzen’s How to be alone (amazing book, review will be up later this week). In one of his essays he talks about how the ‘worthiness’ of a book increases in direct proportion to how difficult it is to read. I couldn’t agree more. As readers, we know that the books we’re the proudest of having read are often also the ones that weren’t a breeze to get through. Isn’t it the same thing with acquiring the body beautiful? Does it feel beautiful because it is so difficult to achieve?
And while this will sound stupid coming from a person who has spent all of 75 minutes “trying” to do yoga, won’t it eventually be carried too far? I just ask because that’s what happens with reading and movies. You start out as everybody else, reading Arthur Hailey and Robin Cook or watching and enjoying the typical Hollywood blockbuster. But over time, you only get your thrills from books and movies that are, oh, what’re the terms we like using – “difficult but rewarding”, “horizon-expanding”, and the always popular “weird but fun”, alienating yourself from friends who now use you as a reliable barometer of what to avoid.
Going by my experience, someday, if I stuck with this Yoga thing, I’ll have to not only have to tickle my ears with my toes, but simultaneously drink water using a straw stuck up my nose to truly enjoy the experience [1]. I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to pursue yoga because not only will I end up drinking water through my nose but once converted into a the-mouth-is-for-amateurs person, I will likely insist on proselytizing the rest of the world too. Friends who insist on my acquiring healthier habits, do you really want this to happen? Isn’t it bad enough that I demand you to read Joan Didion and enjoy it? Let me be my fat self. It’s for your own good.
[1] Readers who still remember Door Darshan might recall a yoga show, which featured a stringy bearded old man performing yoga and doing things with water that were amusing in a horrifying sort of way… Younger readers – please note that DD served up horror in the name of entertainment (they probably thought it was educational) long before the West came up with Fear Factor.
Comments (3 comments)
isn’t running up and down the city enough? yoga on top of all that? phew.
I enjoy reading your posts, lurker here.
roots / September 29th, 2006, 12:14 pm / #
roots: Thank you! Walking to and from the Subway everyday is apparently not enough…I might just sign up for a pilates class this week end. I understand that “aerobics” is passe.
DoZ / September 30th, 2006, 12:10 pm / #
…the type who sits in the first two rows of any class, shushing any one who talks, advertising her “active listening” to the lecturer and the world at large through vigorous nodding of the head, and taking of notes
lol. reminds me of that episode of Frasier where the brothers sign up for a Car maintenence class hoping to top it but actually end up cruising through it.
oh, I love your posts DoZ.
Furrylittledancingimp / October 4th, 2006, 4:34 pm / #
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