Actually, they weren’t totally honest about this being a Yoga class. They said it was “Stretch & Tone” with none other than Joy-elle. Tis’ the season, I guess.
I figured it might be a little bit of stretching and little bit of free weights work. As it turned out, there was a A LOT of stretching and the weight we used happened to be the weight of our own body. Anyway.
I started off the day hoping that my daughter would prefer the warmth and comfort of her own bed just a wee bit longer and we could just forget about all this exercise stuff. I dropped a couple of hints along the lines of….
“I am doing this for YOU” and “You know, if you really don’t WANT to do this we don’t have to”
She wanted to.
See, the day before, which was Monday, we had effectively talked ourselves out of going because, well, we didn’t have a thing to wear! But, as it turned out, our health club, though it may appear to be a hoity-toity kind of place, is really just a step above the YMCA. In other words, “come as you are ” is perfectly acceptable and we could wear whatever we wanted. No special clothes for Yoga, Spinning or ANYTHING. So, that excuse was done for.
Fine.
I didn’t have time to shower or fix my hair since I had essentially spent my grooming time trying to come up with more reasons why we could stay home.
So out the door we went with my morning bed head, which for me, amounts to a serious crested cockscomb look.
Think Lyle Lovett and you’ve got it totally nailed. ——————————————>>>>>>
I had bags under my eyes and well, let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. But, we’re going to exercise, so who cares, right?
We arrived early to give us enough time to negotiate checking in, finding lockers and locating the exercise room. Which happened in plenty of time for us to loiter around outside the room looking like total newbies. A few of the regulars showed up and kindly helped us into the room and pointed to mats.
“We’re using mats?” I asked, really not ready for Yoga at 9:00 in the morning. “I thought this was stretch and tone”
“It IS stretch and tone. Stretch and tone YOGA.”
“Oh”
I don’t know about you ladies, but I’ve done Yoga. In fact, I was into Yoga in the early 1980′s when Yoga was not cool. (that sounds vaguely like a country western song). I read all the books on Yoga and even considered looking into Hatha Yoga, Yogi training.
(Truthfully, I don’t remember if there was even such a thing, but I do remember wanting very much to be a Yogi. I got over it.)
The point is, Yoga is hard. REALLY hard. All of that stretching and twisting sounds easy, but believe me, it’s not. But, we were in like Flynn as they say and there was no turning back now. Joy-elle glided in with her perfectly “Stretched and Toned” Yoga instructor body (what else), put on the Indian Yoga instructor music (complete with sitars ) and my first day of a 5-day-per-week-exercise -commitment was in full swing.
It wasn’t too bad actually. I took mild comfort in the fact that even though I’m nearly 53 years old and haven’t done much exercise to speak of for oh, I don’t know, 10 years? I hung in there pretty well. I’m actually pretty limber too, for an old broad and can twist, turn and stretch pretty well. (particularly when I’m reaching for the brie and crackers) I just didn’t know that we were going to be expected to multi-task as well.
Joy-elle kept reminding us to breathe.
I know that seems rather simple since we’ve all been breathing effortlessly, literally since the moment we were born. But, something really strange happens when someone reminds you to breathe. It’s like someone telling you not to blink. Or don’t laugh. All of a sudden you become awkwardly aware of the process and I’ll be damned if you don’t start to hyper-ventilate. And when you’re hyper-ventilating it’s really difficult to “breathe in when you lift and breathe out when you stretch.” I suspect that’s when my snorting and grunting began.
She also kept reminding us to watch our form. Which wasn’t so bad, except I realized that I had become the front row example of “what not to do in Stretch and Tone Yoga class with Joy-elle” Stuff like:
- “Don’t lean forward on your mat like your watching television” (I swear to God, she said that)
- “Don’t let your stomach muscles hang out there – pull your belly button into your spine” (I had on a long t-shirt. I didn’t think she could even SEE my stomach muscles and anyway, I WAS holding them in)
- “If you can’t touch the soles of your feet, your toes, your shins, your knees or even your THIGHS is okay too”
Joy-elle, could not only touch her toes, but Joy-ELLE, could sit straight up and poise her arms above her head in a perfect arch, while her legs were stretched straight out in front of her and behind her in the splits.
She had a perfectly round, firm ass and glided across the floor like she was on ice skates. I think Joy-elle was about 19 years old - tops.
We have another class next Tuesday.
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