Moving the Chains: No more Namaste

By Scott Ludwig, [email protected]

Years ago I took a beginner’s yoga class.   Just $27 for four one-hour sessions with a certified instructor. 

Only there were just three sessions: the fourth one was cancelled due to snow.  In this part of the country, venturing outside the house when there’s white stuff on the ground isn’t the wisest choice, and operating a vehicle is tantamount to a game of Russian roulette.  

I use that analogy because, although I didn’t know it at the time, I was taking my life into my hands when I signed up for a yoga class whose lone requirement was ‘being able to move from standing to the floor without assistance.’

In hindsight, I should have known there was more to it than that.

***

In the first session, Shelly, the instructor, asked me about my experience with yoga.  I proudly told her I’d been practicing yoga for four months in my living room, thinking what a stud she thought I was since I was well beyond the point of simply moving from standing to the floor without assistance.

It didn’t take long to realize she thought I was anything but.  A stud, I mean.  While I was performing a few of my exaggerated Chubby Checker twists to loosen up, I caught a glimpse of a woman in the back row wrapping one of her legs around the back of her head. 

Now there was a stud.  I didn’t know what that made me, but whatever it was I knew it didn’t bode well for what was about to happen.   

At first I thought I might be in the wrong room, but then I remembered Shelly saying something about her ‘beginner’s class.’  But from what I could tell, the only beginner in our class of 18 was yours truly.  That would include Mike, the only other male in the class, who I could tell was a light year ahead of me as a yoga practitioner – because I caught him touching the back of his head with his ankles.  

For the entire hour of class, Shelly belted out non-stop instructions, demonstrating all her moves without so much as breaking a sweat.  (Me, I could barely breathe just trying to keep up with her.)  

For someone like me with the flexibility of a breadstick, it was a rude awakening.  

Surely, I thought, I’d do better next week.

***

I thought wrong.  The second week was worse.

At one point Shelly passed by me and dropped a block on my mat as I sweated profusely trying to do what Mike had done the week before.  (Apparently the block is used to compensate for a practitioner’s physical limitations.)  I didn’t use it, and when Shelly passed by me a second time she nudged the block closer to me with her foot.  My pride wouldn’t let me use it.  

She passed by a third time, noticed I still wasn’t using the block, leaned over and asked if I was hurt.  

Hurt?  No, I said.

Embarrassed?  She had no idea how badly.  Fortunately, she didn’t ask – and couldn’t read my thought balloon.  

Surely, I thought, next week will be better.

***

Wrong again.  In fact, I may have gotten worse.  

The third session focused entirely on balance, which hasn’t been part of my repertoire in the last generation or so.  In fact, my poor balance was on full display when a policeman pulled me over a few years before as I was driving through Tyrone.  

I couldn’t find my insurance and registration (it was a company car), so the policeman asked me to get out.  After driving for an hour, this breadstick (me) was stiffer than usual, and I got out of the car without any grace whatsoever.  Thinking the worst – that I may have been drinking – the policeman asked me to stand on one leg … which is something Shelly can attest to that I simply cannot do.   

Naturally, I failed.  Next, I couldn’t walk a toe-to-heel straight line.  Fortunately, I passed the inevitable breathalyzer test. 

Back to yoga class: thinking ahead, I placed my yoga mat next to the wall for the third session.  It paid dividends: every time I lost my balance, I was able to fall towards the wall and lean on it to break my fall.  

Pretty sad, right?  

I’ll never know if I would have done better in the fourth and final class, however, because that was the night that – mercifully – it snowed.  

***

So here’s my takeaway: a true yogi must be flexible enough to bend their body into the shape of a pretzel.

That leaves me out.  You can’t make a pretzel out of a breadstick.