checkout desk
THOUGHTS IN A (VERY SLOW) YOGA CLASS
Happy yoga classes are alike; each unhappy yoga class is unhappy in its own way. You can’t step in the same yoga class twice. Et cetera.
I am at this yoga class with my friend S. We have taken several classes here before, although not this particular one. This one is billed as “restorative” and there are candles around the perimeter of the room and candles delineating spaces for mats. As we are setting up S. expresses a joke-worry that she will knock one of the candles over and cause a namaste blaze, a sun salutation conflagration, an inversion inferno. Is she more myopic than I knew or just at a bad angle to see the candles clearly? I helpfully G. Gordon Liddy my hand over one of them to show that the candle is fake. No danger here.
No danger of injuring ourselves either, as the yoga teacher says that we will be doing just five poses and they are all variations of “lying on the floor.” I know this is what I signed up for. The class told the truth with “restorative.” But I have been to yoga classes where restorative means something more like “gentle,” which is nice and stretchy, but to others where restorative means “comatose flatfish blending in with the ocean floor.” I adjust my expectations and think flat, fishy thoughts.
Warning: I am going to type some things that will read as being critical of this yoga class, and many readers will think Where The Fuck Does She Get Off. I get off (not literally) (sometimes literally) to my own words in my own head, obviously. I have had a diary-blog for 24 years. I am leaving a review on the Yelp of my mind. I am noting details that I want to remember. I am judging. When we watch the Olympics for more than ten minutes we become instant judges. Oh there is no way he will win with just a forward 1.5 somersaults half-twist in the pike position. Seriously, what was that.
Can I do an any-direction any-number-twist dive in any position? No. Do I have hundreds of hours of yoga teacher training? No. Not even one hour. Could I lead a better yoga class? No. I can still have thoughts about this one. Leave me alone. No wait, keep reading.
I am instructed to build a kind of soft skate ramp or recliner for a supported savasana and it is nice to be there. Who knew my collarbones were this long. I am a folded map being folded the other way.
Our teacher talks. It could be my imagination, but there is something tonally off about her voice, and everything has a slight undercurrent of sarcasm. “Noticing your breath as it moves in and out of your body,” but said with a flat and dismissive note. There is no audible snort at the end of her phrases but you can imagine one. You and your stupid breath, moving. Yup, just keep noticing that breath, moving in and (eyeroll) out of your body. Wow. Very typical. Very you.
She also starts a chakra meditation. I get excited. The chakra system is one of my favorite psychospiritual systems for organizing my body and energy! That also sounds sarcastic but it is not, chakra stuff is a perfect fit for my particular flavor of OCD. Do you like to categorize and organize and put things away and just generally know where everything goes? Like, “a place for everything and everything in its place”? It’s kind of the spiritual version of that! Learn about the chakras!
Sad trombone: yoga teacher has absolutely bungled the chakra meditation. I can forgive her for not using the Sanskrit words. That is, like, extra credit. But just naming chakra-associated BODY AREAS and asking us to put our attention there is wasting so much meditation gold. The chakra symbols are different COLORS and different SHAPES and the areas they correspond to are associated with different ATTRIBUTES. You are seriously going to say “chakra meditation” to me and then ask me to notice my “center chest.” Oh wait do you mean HEART? It’s GREEN! Two interlocking triangles? Does any of this sound familiar. Blink sarcastically once for yes, two for no.
Look, we are already at yoga. It is okay to get a little fanciful. It is okay to use the more poetic terms for things. “Third eye” is the move here, IN YOGA CLASS. Not “center of forehead.” You are not teaching a class of super-literal neurodivergent four-year-olds who can’t handle the conceptual. We came to yoga class. A little woo is good for the soul. ←GET IT
Now I am starting to feel like this is the worst of both worlds. In my history with yoga, I have taken a lot of different kinds of yoga classes. Some classes are all the way on the side of exercise and getting strong. There is a “namaste” at the end as a nod to tradition but it is the equivalent of a high-five and a “good game.” Some classes are in a strange slightly dusty place with a lot of crystals around and during savasana the teacher sometimes slides into mentioning UFOs. (I went like eight times to this one! I don’t know why, it was bonkers from the start, but I kind of wanted to see what would happen next!)
Sometimes you get a good mix of both, like my late-90s place that was super-strict Iyengar (which is exercise + a satisfyingly fussy attention to details like your blanket seams and precise foot placement). I enjoy a good Invocation to Pantanjai but I also want to move around. But right now, in this moment, in this ever-unfolding Now, I am practicing ocean floor flatfishery with a person who didn’t see fit to mention that the chakra symbols are each associated with a color.
All things end. Or not: all things just flow. On those who step into the same rivers, different and different waters flow. Aw, Heraclitus: you’re the shit. Love you, man. Just one question: what is the river flowing past? When you step, what is the water flowing around? [Heraclitus: His eyes bug out; he dies.] Anyway, yoga class ended, or “flowed,” “past,” “me,” I guess you could say, and S. and I walked outside. In her warm car, we Roger-and-Eberted the yoga class and listened to mid-90s trip hop and everything was very funny and fine. Which sounds a lot like an ending line from either Frog and Toad or Hemingway. Let’s combine them! Frog and Toad At The Closerie des Lilas. Frog And Toad At The Bullfights. Frog and Toad Think About Death.
—mimi smartypants can hear it calling, did you see her falling.