Conflict Diamond and Yoga

Saturday, September 3, 2011

I know that yoga is good for me, honest. I'm fully aware that it provides flexibility, balance, cardiovascular health, inner peace, all that stuff. Plus Benedict Cumberbatch does it and the man has the body of a Greek god, so if you're lucky you get pretty things to look at in class, as well.

And I've tried a class. It wrenched my bad knee, completely kicked my ass, left me drenched in sweat, and it was advertised as "Gentle Yoga" so I can only imagine what a regular class is like. So yeah, I know it can be tough when you start.

So why don't I want to go back to this place? They were certainly pleasant and low-key (the teacher was a substitute and was perhaps a bit sniffy when I explained that I had bad knees and would not be doing certain positions as a result, but I'm not an idiot and I know my body's limits, and trying to do Warrior I makes my knee try to dislocate) Upon further consideration, I think it's because the woo-woo crap associated with yoga gets right up my nose.

Okay, fine, I'm a troglodyte. But I'm really don't care which chakras get opened during a particular pose, and frankly it's kind of hard to achieve inner peace when sweat is dripping into my eyes and I'm wondering if I'm about to pass out from oxygen deprivation due to being bent in two. I just want to stretch and strengthen my body, not have a dialog with my inner child. She's a fucking brat, anyway.

To make matters worse, I was reading an article about some hard-core yoga class, and how on the first day some of the students were late. The teacher informed them that they had no integrity because they'd agreed to come to the class on time and hadn't. The article didn't mention how any of the students whacked the teacher in the head with a water bottle before storming out of the room, so I assume they all kept their cool and accepted his judgement. That being said, if I show up late for something, there's usually a damn good reason, and if you get into my face telling me that I have no integrity because of it, I will demonstrate just how far a tightly wrapped yoga mat can be inserted into the human rectum.

I dunno. Maybe Pilates would be a better fit for me.

3 comments:

Ben said...

Melanie darling,
So I've been listening to DQYDJ for years and reading this blog for as long as it's existed, yet I can't remember commenting, weird. Actually maybe once, whatevs it doesn't matter.

Anyway - the yoga thing. The thing I've come to discover about yoga is that there are so many different disciplines that gentle for one isn't really gentle in real terms - just relative to how grueling the other versions of that particular discipline are.

I can't actually remember if you have an ipad (despite there being 17 DJYDJ episodes devoted entirely to it) or if it's just the others, but there's this app called All-In Yoga HD and out of all of the yoga apps I've tried, it's by far the best. There's nothing too insane in there so you don't need a teacher for it, you can start out small and just do a 10 minute sun salutation if you'd like.

I don't like the woo woo associated with it either - I take a secular approach and enjoy it purely for the flexibility, balance and other assorted health benefits.

Oh and if you're going to find inner peace - you've got a better chance finding that after yoga doing meditation, not during it. You're usually floating in some kind of high and relaxed and it'd be a great time to meditate. Not that I ever have - I'm way too hyperactive for that.

Melanie said...

Hi, Ben, and thanks for listening to that gang of reprobates I head up. The All-In Yoga HD app sounds interesting -- I'll head over to the app store and take a look at it. I actually have a couple of yoga DVDs for plus-sized folks and they've been useful -- the only problem is that the cats think, "Hey, she's on the floor -- she must want to play with us! Yay!" Have you ever tried doing a Downward Dog with two cats trying to climb you like a tree? Yeah...

As for inner peace, I'll settle for inner peace and quiet for a half hour. :-D

Ben said...

Hahaha, now I'll be thinking of that every time I do Downward Dog from now on :P Thankfully my cats (er cat, been hard adjusting from plural to singular) just likes to sleep all day and respects a closed door, so he's no worry ^_^

As for the reprobates (GREAT word by the way, it never gets used enough) I'm a huge fan. It's so well produced and clever and exactly my kind of humour. I've always found it a mystery why you aren't super mega humungously popular (err that was a compliment and not of the back-handed variety, I swear!).

Anyway whatever you decide to settle on, dvd or app (by the way you can customize the poses to get rid of warrior and forward bends etc.) or pilates - keep us updated!