Every year I make a few New Year's Resolutions. This year was no different. I've made three so far. 1. Write more (blogging now, so CHECK) 2. Get a dog (currently visiting shelters and am hearing good things about some rescue place on Fairfax called Bark n' Bitches) and 3. Yoga.
Have you heard of Lifebooker? It's a lot like Groupon. Except where Groupon encourages you to try new things like sky diving, horse back riding and salsa dancing for a discounted rate, Lifebooker is really there to convince ladies to spend their hard earned cash (or not so hard earned as the case may be) on their hair, nails, skin, and body. I love it. Lifebooker makes my fantasy life of facials and massages all reasonably affordable. The vendors are hoping that with the one time steal they offer you for their services, you will become a life long and devoted client. I defy them by never returning and never paying full price. I am like a one night stand. A massage-gettin' baller who runs around town macin on the best and cheapest massages, never to return. N.P.F.P. Never Pay Full Price. Someday, in the near future (I hope), when I have more expendable income, I might reevaluate this motto, but maybe not. We'll see.
The other thing that Lifebooker and Groupon offer is Yoga classes. I've always liked Yoga since I had to take it as a part of my dance class requirements in college (yes, I had dance class requirements for my major, I also once danced the part of Clara in The Nutcracker, so what? Stop asking me about it!) Wait, let me rephrase my previous statement. I have always liked the idea of Yoga since I had to take it as part of my dance class requirements in college. I like the idea of stretching and toning, becoming more flexible and elongated. The idea of sitting in silence, breathing and mediating. Of centering myself and emptying my mind. Of "practicing" the movements and not worrying about perfecting them. That is why it is called a Yoga Practice. So I have been practicing yoga regularly on and off since college. I should be very good at it, but I am not. Not in any way, really. I am not particularly flexible or elongated. I find it impossible to empty my mind. I forget to breath. I clench my teeth. I usually find myself obsessively thinking about what I am going to eat for dinner after class. The other un-yogaish thing I do during my "yoga practices" is that I am very competitive with the other people in my class. I check out people's yoga outfits and compare them to my own. I am envious of women with more lulu lemon than I am wearing. I am envious of women who are more flexible or don't have weird inflexible shoulders like I do that don't allow them to twist the way one is supposed to. I push myself too hard, saying to myself, "if that skinny bitch can hold the pose, then so can I" even though the teacher has encouraged us to lower in to child's pose if our legs start shaking. I might look like I am a Parkinson's sufferer, I will not surrender until the waif does.
So I've been working on this problem. This un-yogaish yogaing I've been doing for years. I bought a pass (on Groupon or Lifebooker) to a new studio, where I can pretend I am a new yogi who is centered and noncompetitive. I put on my most unassuming yoga gear and headed over to the studio for a class called Strong Yoga 4 Woman. The class description reads as follows: "Yoga to support women on their life journey through reproductive difficulties, relationships, pregnancy and menopause. All women, including prenatal." Hmm, well, I am a woman on a life journey. I am in a relationship. I hope to one day be pregnant and unless there is some miracle of nature and science on the way, I will one day go through menopause. Aside from the "reproductive difficulties" it all sounded perfectly appropriate for me, and most importantly, it fit in my schedule.
I rolled out my mat and looked around the room at the 7 or so women about to take this life journey with me. We all looked about the same. Youngish, whiteish, thinish. The teacher asked about our yoga experience and everyone claimed to have some. We started with a relaxation meditation, sitting cross-legged with our eyes closed, focusing on our breath. The teacher asked, with our eyes closed, if anyone was on a reproductive journey to please raise their hand so they could speak quietly and privately about it. I squinted my eyes open a slit, my curiosity getting the better of me, but didn't see a single hand go up. "Good" I thought, "No babies, just a bunch a chicks journeying together. Let's do this." I cleared my mind and had the most meaningful full soul full body yoga practice I've ever had...WRONG. It was pretty much as it always has been. I thought about work. I thought about the script I'm writing. I thought about the skinny girl next to me who's hips might have been double jointed. Her bound ankle pose was stunning. And she was married. Did I mention she was married? Big old diamond perched on her hand which was at the end of her very long, toned and flexible arm that was, no doubt, attached to a shoulder that has no problem twisting the way shoulders are supposed to. She was probably, at any moment now, about to start her reproductive journey as well. That was probably why she was there. To get her tiny body in to tip top pre-baby shape. Ugh.
The teacher was lovely. She was soft and curvaceous. Her shirt showed off a lot of cleavage which I found a bit odd for a yoga class, but if you got 'em, flaunt 'em I guess. She told us we were all beautiful, which I appreciated, and that we were really engaging our feminine, which, you know, we all totally were. We did a lot of "round" poses, since round=feminine and linear poses=male. We didn't do as many "heart openers" since the lunar cycle was waining instead of waxing and we positioned our arms differently in the "warrior two" pose if we were on the first two weeks of our cycle than if we were in the second two weeks of our cycle. This was some serious girl power yoga. I would have really loved it if I could have just stopped thinking about what I was going to cook for dinner after class!
All in all, it was a great class and I am planning to return soon. I did, however, have a anxiety ridden thought during the class, while swirling my hips around in a feminine "cat/cow" sort of thing, that if this class has a secret fertility difficulty fixing element, what could it do to someone who is not having any difficulties? Soon after, as we all laid on our backs in the dark in a pose called "corpse pose" I obsessed about how fertile I might have just made myself. Yikes! This is the end of the practice where you lie silently, peacefully, with your eyes closed, absorbing all the hard practicing you just did. It's a reward. But I was lying in a tizzy thinking about pregnancy and fertility and all the problems and pressures that can go along with it. Not being fertile, being too fertile even! And I still didn't know what I was gonna eat for dinner. Oh yoga. It seems I still have a lot of work...I mean practice to do.
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