Yoga Rules!

One of the reasons I like yoga so much is that they don't suck all the fun out of it by demanding you conform to a whole series of very specific rules all at once. It is a work in progress.

Can't touch your toes? No problem. You can bend your legs, just concentrate on keeping your spine long and straight. Use a block...or four if you want to. Can't go from downward dog to plank to lunge? Pick one and stick with it as long as you like. Something hurts? Stop doing it. Back off . Listen to your body (mine is usually telling me to go across the street to Dunkin Donuts). This activity was made for me, since I can generally only get my body to do one thing at a time.

When I was seven, my father got me a set of golf clubs and tried to teach me how to become Tiger Woods (I know. What was he thinking?).

It was three days of hiking thousands of acres, fording the raging waters of angry, storm-tossed lakes, fending off ferocious attacks by starved, blood-sucking mosquitoes the size of a mini-bus (okay, so it was a sunny summer day and a few hours at a chip and putt course, but it felt like three days of pure torture.). And there were a lot of rules.

"Hold the club like this," my father demonstrated eight thousand times. "Keep your head down, eye on the ball. Keep your arms straight and follow through on the swing. No, no. Straight arms, not bent."

Whoa. Too. Many. Things. At. One. Time. How about I just try to actually get the ball closer to the hole any way I can? Also, I may have been only seven, but even I knew that when you swing your arms from side to side, unless you are Gumby, one of your arms has to bend. And what's with the whole keeping an eye on the ball? I was only hitting it two feet at a time. How could I not keep my eye on it?

I still have the picture my mom took at the end of our golf "game". I am clutching my driver like I am playing "Whack-a-Mole" and looking like I'd rather be pretty much anywhere else while my father is weeping in the background, clutching the few tufts of hair he had left.

Years later, I got suckered into a softball game at work. It took my fellow teammates about ten seconds to realize they were actually the suckers. And so, between innings, they pulled me aside and tried to teach me the rules. They showed me how to hold the bat, how to stand, and how to run (in the unlikely event I actually managed to hit the ball.)

"Keep your elbows up, bat held high, straighten out your arm as you follow through. Keep your eye on the ball. Try not to kill yourself or anyone else with the bat."

Rules, rules, rules. Couldn't I just choose one of them to follow and maybe modify the rest? Like maybe I could hold the bat high and the pitcher could throw the ball directly at it, and then I could stroll to first base without breaking a sweat or a nail? It was hard to tell who was more relieved that I never played on the team again.

Not wanting to repeat these two experiences which scarred my delicate psyche for life, I turned to yoga.

Oh, they may tell you to pick up your leg and wrap it around your neck three times while bending over and touching your toes, but they don't actually expect you to do it.

With a simple shake of my head (well, perhaps there is a snort and a guffaw involved also), my instructor will adapt a pose that I would need some serious, heavy-duty muscle relaxants to get into and sixteen paramedics to get out of to something I am able to do, like lie down and gently roll my head from side to side. The best part is, nobody wants to do bodily harm to anyone else five minutes after starting.

Until my regular teacher was absent and Attila the Yogini substituted for her. After about five seconds, I found myself wishing yoga involved a bat or a club or even just a really sturdy stick.

"Sit on the blanket folded into a square, not a rectangle," she barked.

Okay, and the shape of the blanket matters because...?

"Sit dead center, not near the edge, and make sure the blanket is parallel to the wall which should be precisely perpendicular to your mat six inches from its base."

Or what? My chakras will collide with my chi? Is it bad karma to be seven inches from the wall, or slightly diagonal instead of at prefect right angles? I was beginning to have flashbacks to my first and only golf game.

"No, no, no," she snapped. "You're doing the pose all wrong. How do you expect to do a headstand if you don't get this pose right?"

Um. I don't. Shocking though it may be to you, I actually have zero interest in balancing on my head. Most days, I'm just happy to be able to balance on both feet.

"You must get your legs straight in downward dog and your heels on the ground, then lift one leg in the air along with the opposite hand. This will be your resting pose."

Resting pose? Exactly what have you got planned if I am resting hanging upside down while my hamstrings snap like the cables on an elevator in a horror movie right before it crashes?

This was so not what I had signed up for. Where was the acceptance of the fact that I have absolutely no talent or coordination and the understanding that I will never be able to balance on my pinkie while simultaneously forming the first three letters of the alphabet with the rest of my body?

Attila was definitely not getting the concept that I could only manage to concentrate on one body part at a time, and right now, I was concentrating on my hands wrapping around her neck.

Happily, the class ended before either one of us had a nervous breakdown, or met with a horrible accident, although it was pretty close. As I crawled to my car and drove home, the thought occurred to me that if I ever ended up with Attila as my regular instructor, I would definitely have to look around for a less challenging activity. I wondered if there is anything out there that is easier than a class where they consider breathing deeply a challenging enough activity.

Ten Years of Ballet, Down the Drain

As a child, my mother would schlepp me back and forth once a week to ballet classes, which sadly turned out to be a complete waste of money. Graceful, I am not.

First of all, I run like I am doing an imitation of Jerry Lewis in the Nutty Professor , with arms and legs flailing. And that is how I broke my toe...twice. Not the big toe, not even the little end toe, but the little piggie that had none.

The first time is a dim childhood memory, involving cousins who were chasing me and a really, really well-made dining room chair (darn Amish). The second time was more recent and involved a door frame which jumped in front of me, I swear. One minute it was quietly sitting there doing its job, and the next it was trying to maim me as I ran for the phone (I don't actually remember who was on the other end, but I'm pretty sure they learned some new and creative uses for several four-letter words--I'm hoping it was a solicitor).

Then there was the time I cut off the tip of my finger while trying to slice potatoes with a mandolin. Aggravated with the way the potato kept slipping out from under the finger guard (duh--guard), I decided to do without it. Not a good decision, which I realized the minute I saw a pinkish piece of potato on the cutting board surrounded by a mysterious red liquid. Ewww, oh and ouch too! (Now I know why manufacturers feel it necessary to put seemingly obvious directions on things like the "Do Not Boil" on my plastic butter dish).

And most recently, I gave myself several lovely contusions on my leg by walking into an open drawer. In my defense, this one was not my fault. Tim had pulled out the drawer a few minutes before and failed to push it back in and, honestly, after twenty-eight years, does he not know that I can't be trusted not to kill myself on inanimate objects with protruding parts (or inanimate objects without protruding parts)? I am, after all, my mother's daughter, and this was the woman who daily stubbed her toes and banged up her shins by walking into a dishwasher that had not changed location in fifteen years. Hellooooooo.

While I normally am only a danger to myself, this week I decided to branch out and try to injure an innocent bystander.

It all started out innocuously enough in yoga class where we were doing twists. The teacher was not happy enough that we were contorting ourselves into something resembling a cross between a pretzel and a corkscrew, she actually wanted us to roll over onto the floor and then back up like huge Weeble dolls while keeping the twist!

"Let gravity just pull you down," she encouraged.

Okay. And what is going to pull me back up? A crane, perhaps?

"Just let your arms and legs flow naturally where they want to go," she offered, when it became clear that this was not going to work out quite as she had planned. (I believe her first clue was when most of us lay gasping on the floor like beached whales, but I could be wrong.)

And so I let my legs flow. Unfortunately, they happened to flow right into the head of the woman next to me.

Luckily for her, she bobbed just at the moment I weaved and we averted a trip to the emergency room (who knew Yoga was a contact sport?). Although she forgave me, I noticed she did place her mat at the opposite end of the room the next time we had class. Probably for the best.

When I told Tim this story, he was not really surprised, just grateful that it wasn't him.

Maybe one more year of ballet would have made a difference. Or not.

Breathe Deeply and Relax

The sound of running water is supposed to be restful. They put it on those sound machines that they sell at places like Brookstone or Sharper Image.

FYI: They are wrong.

Everytime it rains, the roof of my yoga studio leaks, which always makes class... interesting, rather than restful.

Buckets indicate known drips, and putting your mat next to them will slowly drive you crazy (which for me is not a far trip).

"Close your eyes and take a deep breath." Plop. Plop. Plop-plop-plop.

"Feel your ribs expanding as you send the breath into your back." Plop-splash. Plop-splash. How about sending someone to fix the roof? There's an idea.

Chairs or piles of blankets indicate saturated ceiling tiles which, although they are not currently leaking, may come crashing down at any given moment.

"Imagine the breath sending energy through your body." Imagine my head being crushed like a grape when the ceiling collapses.

"Picture a clock on the ceiling. Move your eyes diagonally from two to eight." How about if I just move them from the big leak that is threatening to drown me to the large tile that is threatening to sever a major artery when it lands point-first on me?

And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. They decided to fix the roof (Wasn't it Buddha who said:be careful what you wish for...?)

"Breathe in to a count of four, exhale to a count of six, hold your breath for a count of two." Bang. Bang. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Wait. Was thet 4-6-2 or 2-4-6? Do I breathe in on the thumps and out on the bangs or vice-versa?

"Place the soles of your feet against the wall and straighten your legs as you raise yourself up on your hands." Bzzzz. Thump. Bzzzzz. Thump. Okay, I can barely keep my balance when the wall is not vibrating.

And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse...the lights went out (I swear, I did not ask for this).

Goody. Yoga by candle and emergency exit light. I just love new challanges. Well, at least the power tools were silenced.

After checking with the front desk, the instructor assured all of us that the power had been temporarily shut off in the building, but there was no danger, so we could continue with class. And so we did our downward dogs and dolphins and cobras by feel.

The upside was that when you over-balanced in tree pose and toppled over, no one could see you. The downside was that when you can't see the instructor demonstrating a new pose, it's like playing limbo and twister at the same time. You can end up trying to wrap your leg around your neck while balancing on your pinkie, and taking out the person next to you.

Finally though, class was drawing to an end. It was time for relaxation (You get to lie down, cover yourself with a nice, warm blanket or two, and drift off...my kind of exercise!)

"Feel your muscles relax as you -" Bzzz. Bzzzz. Thump-bang. Thump-bang. Ah. Power was restored. Thank goodness. For a minute there, I was afraid I would actually be able to relax.