Down Dog and Half Pigeon

Contrary to my indolent nature, I go to yoga classes six times a week. This is not to be confused with actually liking yoga. I don’t. In a perfect world I would lie in bed 15 hours a day watching Netflix and eating ice cream. Then I would get a good night’s sleep. I am, in fact, such a sedentary person I would probably be quite happy in a coma.

But even I know that permanent inertia is unhealthy. I started doing yoga a few years ago for two basic reasons. The studio is around the corner from my house and if I had to get in a car and drive three blocks, I would never go. And yoga involves a lot of lying down, an activity in which I have had substantial experience and for which I have enormous talent. It isn’t much different than Kindergarten naps — everyone is on their own little mat, the teacher talks about moving around, you can’t talk or disturb the person next to you, and the purpose is to get a little rest during a busy day.

One of the important elements of yoga is proper breathing. I learned to breathe about three seconds after I was born and have done it successfully ever since. But apparently, I have been using oxygen incorrectly. Inhaling massive gulps of air and taking ten minutes to exhale is the goal. I am working very hard at this but so far my breath is too little and far too conventional.

The physical part of yoga, actually squirming into various poses and staying there for about 30 seconds, is almost pleasant. But yoga also has some truly satanic forms. There is Hot Yoga, in which the studio is heated to a temperature so high you can fry onions on the floor, and there is so much sweating everyone loses 25 pounds in half an hour. There is Vinyasa Yoga, a sequence of poses that moves at the speed of light and requires the kind of strength usually associated with rowing a boat from New York to London. And there is Advanced Yoga, which involves standing on your head for several weeks or twisting into positions so contorted they belong in Cirque du Soleil.

I do not do any of these. I am, at best, a medium-level beginner. I am fairly flexible but have no sense of balance. It is easier for me to operate a John Deere 9600 combine with advanced disawning plates and rust-resistant rasp bars, than to stand on one leg. I am, after all, not a crane. But I keep trying, even though my efforts always end in a desperate crash to the floor that will one day break my neck.

The concept of yoga goes back 5,000 years to its beginnings in northern India. It was always a series of movements but its goals changed over time. At first, the purpose was the elimination of ego. Then it was achieving complete enlightenment. During the Post-Classical era, it was rejuvenating the body and prolonging life. And today, modern yoga’s primary function is to increase the sale of leggings, teach 20 words of Hindu that will never be used in normal conversation, and support the delusion that life on this planet is filled with tranquility and joy.

Based on its foundations, yoga is a harmonious blend of physical practices and spiritual principles. As much as I am sloppy and sluggish with the body movements, the spiritual components baffle me completely. There are just too many words and phrases I don’t understand.

For instance, Om is a syllable that is hummed for 15-20 seconds to help attain a state of serene consciousness. It is supposed to be the first sound of creation. I’m not exactly sure who was there to hear it when the universe began, but obviously a really good digital recording system was involved.

Chakras are the seven areas of psychic energy in the human body, located from the base of the spine to the top of the head.  I’ve talked to my internist on several occasions and have had three deep-probe MRIs, but it turns out that all my chakras are missing.

Occasionally, a yoga instructor will say something to the effect that, “We are all connected. Everyone in the world is as one.” That is absolutely not true. I am not one with Donald Trump.

Another slightly inaccurate phrase is, “Be aware of your own body. Celebrate its perfection, honor it, and be grateful for it.” Obviously, these people have never seen my wrinkled, whale-sized thighs or the slurpy flesh that hangs from my upper arms down to the floor.

My very favorite mental exercise, the one that has true meaning for me, usually occurs at the beginning of class. It is pre-movement mind imaging. The instructor will say something like, “Picture yourself on a soft sandy beach under clear blue skies, with the gentle waves of the ocean whispering to you.” This image is clear in my mind for about six seconds. Then I remember I am a redhead and run out of the picture to get suntan lotion and an umbrella. When I return, I have nowhere to sit. So I leave again and drag in a folded lounge chair and spend fifteen minutes setting it up. I sit down and relax for a few minutes but don’t have a book to read or my cell phone. I run off again and don’t get back for a long time because my book and cell phone were at home and I had to drive a long way to get them. Finally I enter the beach scene again, ready for a quiet, mind-calming afternoon of inner peace. But on my left I suddenly see four beautiful girls walking along the shore. They are wearing bikinis and have impossibly deep tans, creamy glowing skin, and perfect bodies. I am so upset I grab all my towels and pile them on top of me. Now I am hungry but can’t signal the waiter because I am hiding my body under 30 towels. I get very angry and now I’m frustrated and exhausted. Then it starts to rain.

There are supposed to be 830,000 yoga poses. I hope to learn 6 or 7 of them before I die. Many of the poses have Hindu names that, in English, translate into various animals — dog, pigeon, cat, cow, eagle, cobra, turtle, and dozens of others. For such an exotic exercise program, I am surprised that the animals are so ordinary. It seems to me that it would be far more appropriate to do an Inverted Ocelot or an Upward Ibex, a One-Legged Dingo, a Low-Lunge Herring Hog, or an Extended Wildebeest. But nobody asked me to edit the yoga vocabulary.

Most yoga instructors are gentle, encouraging people with soft voices who remind me to go at my own pace and only do what is natural for my body. But there are also a few who were reincarnated as Nazis. They creep around the studio adjusting limbs and forcing perfect positions. One guy pulled my arm back so far I almost toppled over, so I hit him in the face.

My favorite part of yoga is folding up my mat and going home. My second favorite part is called Savasana, which is the restorative part of yoga at the end of class. It begins with lying on your back on the mat with eyes closed, fully relaxed. The mind then floats into a supreme calm, turning inward from the mundane world and surrendering all mental chatter to an awareness that transcends time and place. This is created by a mantra, a word or phrase that is repeated in silence so that its subtle vibrations eliminate Self, achieving a deep consciousness that is the source of spiritual energy and light.

I am especially clumsy at this. Although my mantra is a profound mumbling about universal peace and love, it eventually slumps into a stream of thoughts like what time is he coming over and where did I put my drivers license and I forgot to separate the whites from the colors and I think she’s mad at me for some reason and the bank will be closed by then and I can’t believe she bought that hideous couch and I need my nails done by Tuesday and maybe we should go to Miami instead and damn my car’s not ready yet.

But all this isn’t the whole of it. At the end of class everyone sits cross-legged on the edge of their mat, heads bowed, hands folded in prayer. This annoys me because I’m generally not a prayer and bowing down kind of person. But there the irritation ends. As we bend over to the floor we say “Namaste” in unison. This is a Hindu word that stands for “The light in me reaches for the light in you.” Then one of my favorite instructors says, “May you and the people you love be safe and may all your wanderings lead you home.”

Even I, suspicious of pigeons and poses and peacefulness and pretention, am moved by the simple sweetness of these thoughts. They have a barefoot, tee-shirt kind of holiness. They are a benediction of unfamiliar kindness. I am suddenly flushed with an obscure and unexpected good cheer. That’s probably why I go back the next day.