yoga as experienced by the non-practitioner

Every couple of years or so, I let a friend drag me to yoga. Now, normally when there is a bandwagon, like oh say, blogging, knitting, or having kids, I take pride in not jumping aboard. That is to say, I am extremely cynical about such trends, and particularly so, when it involves the co-opting of a 5000 year-old cultural tradition for the benefit of a younger and more spiritually deficient one. Or particularly so, when it is something being sold to women as the key to unlocking all our anxieties, the salvation to a better physique, and the means to improving our generally cultureless lives. To quote Anthony Lane in his review of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, "Break me a fucking give."

But look at me now. Not only am I blogging, I am tiptoeing towards yoga.

So come this Sunday morning, I find myself up unusually early, heading to the yoga studio just like all the other Stepford wives--the same whom I previously had mocked--with my yoga matt in hand and the requisite gallon jug of water. Of course, when I show up at the appointed and ungoldly hour, my friend, the Bachelorette, is no where in sight. What she also failed to warn me is that the class would be packed and set at about 110 degrees. That it would be a two and a half hour class. And that it is an advanced level three hatha class, that chanting and meditation is involved, and that the yoga assistants would be coming around and touching people when they were covered in sweat and wearing very little. Immediately, I have what would be the first of many panic attacks.

Looking around frantically for a place in what appears to be a completely full room, I find a spot in the back and squeeze in, just centimeters from neighbor who wears what I will soon understand to be appropriate yoga attire. Perhaps a track suit was not the best choice. Still no sign of Bachelorette. I run to the bathroom where there is a long line and patiently wait my turn. As I exit, I realize the class has already started. I run back but fail to read the sign on the door politely requesting us to, "Please wait until prayer chanting is over if you are coming in late." Mistake number one. I open the door, claim my rightful place, and before the class even begins, receive my fair share of dirty looks. I have no idea what to expect from this level three, two and a half hour hatha class, but it is early Sunday morning and I am being asked to fold my hands together and pray. Not only that, but the words I am being asked to repeat are in another language. To wit, I have no idea what the hell I am saying. Panic attack number two: raised as a Catholic, the mere act of folding my hands together and repeating words I do not understand sends me into a cold sweat.

After chanting comes meditation and breathing, a time I spend checking out the other students and their appropriate attire. As the yoga instructor walks around the room, telling us to breathe in the love and compassion, our eyes lock and he smiles at me in a kindly, monk-ly way, but in a way that, nonetheless, makes me sheepishly shut my eyes and start breathing in the love and compassion.

Looking in my direction, the teacher once again repeats that this is an advanced class and asks if there is any one who has taken less than twenty classes. I sit on my hands. Then he asks if there is anyone who does not know- at which point he rattles off a series of words of which I only catch "dog" "cobra " and the daunting "warrior". That out of the way, I make myself as small as possible and opt for hiding behind the person in front of me. But it is darn hard to hide from one instructor and three assistants combing through the room like prospectors on the American River.

The stretching section is OK. That part I feel confident I can just fake by breathing in and out the love. But then they play that Beck song where he sings about Zankou chicken and I realize I am totally starving. At that point, I have no idea the class will be going on for another two hours. That a towel or three or four would have been handy. That by the end I will be completely drenched in sweat and slipping off my matt and crashing into my neighbor's downward dog.

Is it really necessary to go into the gory details here? I think you can imagine what happened when it actually came time to get up off the mat and move. Think of salmon swimming upstream only not quite as graceful. How about Red Skelton imitating bacon frying in a pan? Or maybe just that homeless guy on the corner stricken with Tourettes who insists on directing traffic during rush hour.