Yogi Bear

You guys, I went to yoga. Yes, you read that correctly.

I’m as bewildered and confused as you are right now. Also, my wrists hurt.

And my abs. But I think that one’s from all the coughing, which could only mean one thing, IT’S SPRING!

I digress.

I did yoga. It was weird. But the Groupon I bought was for 10 so I will go back because I don’t like to waste money (you’re laughing to yourself right now because you’ve seen my DVD collection. I totally need all of those movies/shows. Especially that SNL: Best of Amy Poehler).

I was forced into getting the Groupon – that offered 10 yoga sessions worth $100 for only $29. BARGAIN – by my friend/co-worker Stephanie. And when I say forced, I mean, she said “You should get it” and I did.

Round 1 was Tuesday.

I will share my story with you in words and drawings – drawn by crayon because I had a new box of ’em lying around and I am five years old. And I suck at drawing.

OK. So we show up at the place and get to take off our shoes. Plus 1 point for yoga. Barefoot fo’ lyfe! (Living up to the Kentucky stereotype, what?)

We enter the room and find out we are the youngest participants…by at least 32 years. Minus 1 point for yoga.

There are mats and blocks and blankets and peaceful music and it smells nice, so hopefully it’ll be alright. The instructor lady tells us to get into corpse pose.

Yeah, it’s just lying on your back with your eyes closed. If this is yoga, count me in forever.

Unfortunately, I did not pay $29 to lie on the floor in a peaceful room for an hour and a half. I can do that at home. It’s called Sunday afternoon. And it’s free.

So it got tougher.

We had to make ourselves into tables and then try to balance on one knee and one hand. Like Twister, only you’re not drunk.

And then the painful stuff begins. Like when she tells you to flip your hands backwards and put all your weight on them. Because that’s relaxing and helpful.

Oh and then there’s the animal poses..

In case you can’t tell by my DaVinci-esque drawing skills, cat means you arch your back up and cow means you stick your butt up.

And all this time she’s saying words I don’t know about what we’re cleansing and opening and looking for and all I know is there was a lot of mention of pelvic stretches and at one point she told us what we were doing was good for our uterus (uteri? uteruses? uterus?).

I’m pretty sure she also told us we were focusing on our Scherbotzky, which I know is nothing yoga-related, it’s Robin’s last name on How I Met Your Mother. Or maybe she said something else. I may have blacked out in fear that my wrists were going to break.

After a few more complicated things I do not remember the name of and that were supposed to strengthen our core, we did the child’s pose for a little while (sit on your knees with your legs bent back and lean forward so your forehead’s on the ground) and tried to see if we could turn our entire top half of our body around without moving the bottom half. No? That’s not what it was? Felt like it..

We did some standing up stuff too, like that thing you do where you make a number 4 with your legs which I can totally do upside down in the pool, but here it was hit-or-miss.

Then it was back to the floor, where we grabbed a block and found the least comfortable place on our body to put it under and laid there for a while. What that does for you, I don’t know. But I think I now have scoliosis.

After that, we were pretty much done, all that was left was more of the corpse pose, which I am so good at.

All was well and good and relaxing and my chakras were aligned and my mind was blank and the 71-year-old dude next to me fell asleep. Know how I know? Because he was snoring. That or he was a Walker.

You cannot focus on relaxation when someone is making noises that sound like that. So I didn’t. But the first few minutes were nice.

And I’m going back next week, because, well, I paid for it already, and maybe it’ll get better/easier. I hope.

Also, I didn’t fart. So that was good. ‘Cause I was worried.

Until next time….