Making Animal Noises in a Public Place

I feel that I should begin this post by saying that I am not a novice yogi. I may not be an advanced practitioner, but I am not a beginner. (For an overly detailed description of just how long I’ve been doing yoga and the strange reason that I’m compelled to grab my crotch in public, please see this post).

And while I am primarily practice ashtanga yoga or other vinyasa-based systems, I am absolutely open to new styles of yoga. Hence, I have done anusara yoga and yin yoga as well as more generic hatha yoga classes. (I’d also like to aspire to karmic yoga in my everyday life, but really I’ve got a long way to go…)

Anyway, I do this long introduction to over-explain that I walked into a new yoga class this week with a completely open mind. Really, and truly. I was totally up for it.

The first sign of trouble came when another woman – let’s call her Thong-Wearing Yogi - said to the teacher, Do we just use our mats like typical?

To explain, this is a new class for my studio so we were all a little unsure of what to expect. The teacher looked at her like a frightened rabbit and said, Um, sure…but you don’t really need a mat for this class.

Huh? I’ve never actually done a yoga class without a mat. Plus geez, I just paid $80 for a new one, at least let me use it. Anyhow, I was a little surprised, but Thong-Wearing-Yogi looked like she’d just been asked to change one of Zane’s diapers when he had rotovirus – in short, horrified.

But, okay. Whatever. I can go with the flow. I’m easy like Sunday morning.

The class starts, and it’s a little different – for example, the teacher and her mentor were both clothed all in white, with accompanying head covering – but that's okay by me. They didn’t tell me that I had to wear white or cover my head, so live and let live.

And then, and here I just want to reiterate that I am not yoga-phobic, it started to get bizarre.

Bizarre Posture #1
(This will be the only posture that comes accompanied by a picture because the rest are just too humiliating.)

I’m not sure of the name of this pose, but the teacher called it the “ego buster” – which just tells me that some psycho who was torturing his step-kids came up with it – and we had to hold this pose for two full minutes while doing a strange kind of breathing which shook our whole body.

Yep, two full minutes of holding our arms up at a 60-degree angle while clenching our fingers into the pads of our hands and pumping our guts in and out as hard and fast as we could. (Go ahead and try it. It’s completely doable; you’ll just wonder why you did it.)

Bizarre Posture #2
No picture here, so you’ll just have to do it along with my description to get the full impact.

Okay, stand up straight. Now bend over and grab your ankles. If you can’t grab your ankles, grab someplace along your shins or knees. Now, without releasing your ankles, walk around the room in as big of circles as you can. Don’t stop. Do this for three straight minutes. Don’t stop!

It was at this point that I started to think that SRH had called the yoga studio and set up an elaborate prank and that he was in a closet somewhere videotaping me. At least, that’s what I hoped was happening because I could find no other reasonable explanation for this foolishness.

Bizarre Posture #3
This wasn’t so much a posture as an exercise in just-how-far-will
-you-go-for-a-new-experience-Zany-Mama type of thing?

Okay, I’ll just say it: We started roaring like lions. Not so much lion’s pose – a cleansing exhalation of breath that is accompanied by a vocalization – but rather, we just roared like idiots…er…lions. Yep, just like I do with Zane everyday when we make animal sounds, well, except that I did it for three minutes straight with a room full of other adults.

And when it was finally over and I was almost out of there, they had a “special” yogi tea made for us. At this point, I just went with it. I don’t particularly like tea, and I really just wanted to beat feet to get home, but I figured in for a penny, in for a pound.

So, I drank a cup of soymilk flavored with cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and pepper. Yes, indeed, it was as dreadful as it sounds – the whole experience.