Up until this past weekend, I maintained an incredibly skeptical view of yoga, pilates, and other similar exercise/meditation routines. I saw exercise as something that required panting and sweating and bruising, none of which could be provided while listening to peaceful music and standing in a downward dog pose. However, I have been hearing such positive reviews of yoga lately that I decided to include it as part of my new training program for mountain biking. I purchased a video entitled “Yoga for Athletes” on Saturday and tried it out for the first time tonight.

If you are not familiar with yoga and are seeking a way to relax and meditate, allow me to suggest a few activites that you may find more relaxing than yoga:

1. Sprinting uphill while carrying cinderblocks
2. Cagefighting
3. Vaccinating feral cats

The program I selected to try tonight was called “Basic – 20 minutes” and included poses such as Mountain, Tree, Triangle, Thunderbolt, and Child. Mountain was easy; all I had to do was stand and reach for the ceiling while breathing deeply. I felt at peace and very comfortable and even started thinking that maybe yoga really was enjoyable. Then came the Tree Pose, which was marginally harder, and then out of nowhere, the Triangle Pose. In a soothing voice, the woman leading the video instructed me to turn my feet towards the left and bend completely over my left leg and curl my tailbone inward while pushing my inner thighs outward and then to turn my head slowly to the right while rotating my shoulders and pressing my ribcage downward and my hips upward and my neck sideways and my fingers out. Then she told me to root my feet deeply to the floor and reach for the ceiling and then? And then I was supposed to let all of the tension melt out of my body.

I did that. I turned off the video and got into bed.

This is going to take some practice.

4 thoughts on “Quitting Pose”

  1. Lindsay!

    It’s Joe. From that dark, terrible, law-themed place which shall remain nameless. The tall one. From the paper. I could go on. (Actually, no, I can’t, because that is about as perfect a description of me as has ever been written.)

    I was writing something for the paper, thought of you and your hilarious…ness, remembered that you have a blog, struggled with the name for a second, (The outfield? The infield? Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner? What was it?) and here I am. The interweb is truly an amazing thing.

    So, how are you? I suppose I could read every post on your blog for the last 12 months, but that ain’t happening. What’s up, homeslice? My nizzle? And so on?

    (Sorry about the tone, I’m a little hyper this evening. Cocaine is a hell of a drug.)

  3. I made the mistake of trying Bikram yoga one time… the same squatting-mammal poses, but they make the room hot as hell (they say shoot for 100 degrees) and you’re supposed to sweat away all your bad karma and relax on the mellow vibe of 50 yoga-ers perspiring in funky sweatpants.

    Thanks for the blog, I am at this moment gathering up the courage to go meet with the head of my law school and give Socrates the finger. It was helpful to seek perspective from strangers on the internet, as they can’t backtalk like my mom can (will)
    Great writing, good luck with the yoga.

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