I hate yoga.
When was the last time I tried it? 1969.
Progressive thinkers that they were, my parents made me take yoga when I was ten, believing it would help me to become more focused and improve my grades. I may have told you this before. Every Saturday morning, they drove me into the city for class. While my friends were eating Cocoa Puffs, drinking Tang and watching cartoons, I was saluting the sun and hating every minute of it. I decided then that when I finally had complete freedom to make my own decisions, I’d never go within 10 feet of a yoga mat. Forty-one years later, I’ve held to it. I also remain one of the least flexible (and least focused) people I know. Such is the price of freedom.
Many of my friends and acquaintances do yoga and love it. Being barefooted, moving slowly in a quiet room, is not my cup of chamomile tea.
However, I am aware that yoga has changed vastly in the decades since I first experienced it so unpleasantly.
For example, I recently read about something called “Laughter Yoga.” I might be able to warm up to that. Also called hasyayoga, this discipline involves self-triggered laughter that spreads among people in the class. I assume this enhances the workout in some way.
I’m a fan of contagious laughter, though perhaps not enough so to combine it with exercise forcibly. I laugh plenty in Jazzercise, as my friends and I make faces, exaggerate our dance steps and share dirty jokes on the floor. But that’s genuine, not contrived.
I know there’s also “Hot Yoga,” which involves exercises performed in extremely hot and humid temperatures. Sounds like weeding the yard in July to me.
We have a friend who’s into all sorts of other kinds in a big way, so much so that he recently took a break from his career to focus on yoga full time. As part of a side project, he recently invented something called “In Sink Yoga.”
Setting aside my overall clumsiness and lack of muscular flexibility and strength, I might also find this doable. Here, take a look:
I love this for so many reasons. Did someone say “cleaning fetish?”
Maybe for his next video project, he’ll do Om on the Range.
Remember gym? Big room, wood floor, retractable bleachers and a basketball hoop at each end?
I’m not sure how this bodes for my personal sharpness or how I will fare into my golden years. Except for a few ballet lessons as a child, and as a pretend go-go dancer in our garage when I was six, I didn’t dance much as a child. Not as a teenager, nor as a young adult, except at weddings. Now, I dance several days a week.
Despite popular belief, Jazzercise is a vigorous total-body workout. It comprises about 35 to 40 minutes of aerobic dance, followed by 20 minutes or so of strength training to music. Still, it’s like going to a party every day. If I weren’t burning some 500 calories an hour, I’d almost feel guilty going. Now, I learn it’s a total-body-and-mind workout.
Word Nymph 