Act IV, Scene 1: A Room In Polonius' House
In which our hero, having attended yoga class ruminates on getting his butt kicked.
Mrs. Geek and I have said "You know, we should take a yoga class together..." for a couple years now. Mrs. Geek has never taken yoga, though she has tried a few DVDs like Yoga Booty Ballet over the years. I haven't taken a class in a few years, and haven't seriously done yoga for about 10 years. When I discovered that the karate dojo down the hill was also offering Iyengar yoga classes, I knew it was probably time. When Mrs. Geek and I both stepped onto a scale recently, that "probably" turned into "definitely".
Oh, I was woefully out of practice... and heavy. The gut I've put on my middle and really, really need to loose made certain of the standing poses a much more interesting exercise in physics. My hamstrings are also really, really, REALLY tight... though to be honest, they haven't been anything like loose since I was about 5 years old. I was pigeon-toed as a child, and an orthopedic surgeon ruled that it was because the muscle attachments to my hips were a little off. Yeah... that's probably why some of those leg stretches are so hard... that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I made it through that first class, and now I'm waiting for the fallout. Stretching all those muscles was hard, but felt like such a release. Part of the reason I do like yoga is that it is such an interesting way to dig into muscle-memory. I'm sure there's some kind of physical release of chemicals from the muscles... but it is also a way to stretch and move secondary muscles that just fall into "habits" of various kinds.
In any case, I'm waiting for the aching to set in. I said to Mrs. Geek before class that it was going to result in some soreness after. She said "well, just try not to over do it". What she didn't realize is that these are isometric exercises. There isn't really any "in between" for a lot of poses. It's just you, moving your body weight from position A into position B. That's work you have no choice to do, if you are going to attempt the pose at all. So, yoga usually ends up kicking my ass for a while... then after some period the incremental improvement takes hold.
Other than that, we're just trying to figure out what to think about the staff at the dojo. At first, they keep telling us "you should try the Saturday introductory class". Me, I think I remember enough that I don't need to start from square zero. By the end of the first class on Thursday, the receptionist kept asking "Are you free in the morning? Are you free in the morning? There's this intermediate class that's really great." No, I'm not ready for that thanks... I'll let the beginner class keep kicking my ass for a while.
Maybe they just want us to take as many classes as possible to get our money. Yeah. It's not very yoga, but it does pay the rent... and that's cool.
said drgeek
on 2007-07-13 at 9:01 p.m.
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