My dad recently asked me as we sipped coffee what “hot yoga” was.*
I found it hard to give an apt description – partly because it’s different everytime I go, partly because I don’t really know what I’m doing, and partly because I wanted to do the Gwyneth thing and compare my memory of it to his Vietnam ones.
But even I have a couth-line I draw.
#sorrynotsorry
Mostly, though, it’s because my brain’s escaped through my pores and into my yoga towel by the time class is over. When my instructor first came in and started talking about “yin” and “yang”, I thought perhaps the rapper twins from the early 2000’s were going to come teach the class. “Good,” I thought, “I love celebrities. They’re so much better than real people. Hey maybe we’ll get Russell Simmons next time!”
They must have cancelled last minute, though. Because all she went on to explain was how “yin” is meant to stretch the body, hold poses longer, lubricate joints, fascia, get synovial juices flowin-… I stopped listening at some point. I was too busy focusing on what a tongue-holocaust this coconut water was (which she’d shamed us into buying).
Then, through a haze of coruscating heat, I saw a rainbow array of lightbulbs.
When she said we were going to work on chakras, I got really excited. I still don’t know entirely what they are, but I like to pretend that I do. Plus it makes me feel like I’m some holy Eastern yogi for a sweaty hour and a half – right before I get in my car and scream along with Chino Moreno to cope with traffic.
Monday FunFact: Even if you don’t dig the whole hippie element, there’s this psychological element to “chakra” work. But when people get the good feeling afterward and “can’t explain why” – they don’t try to ’cause it’s nice to believe in something ethereal. But I don’t like nice mystery things. I like to know. And if you do too, it basically boils down to a body-scan. A non sweaty method is to stop for a sec and almost move your feet. Think about moving your feet. Do everything but actually move them. Your brain has to send information to whatever muscles you wanna move.
Basically, when you mentally scan your body, you can move your blood or feelings or chi or pi-squared-to-the-rainbow-colored-chakra-power or whatever you wanna call it… to anything. From your scalp right down to your sweaty genitals.
And by this point, everyone’s were odoriferous. Already.
And wafting toward my mat.
(Not me, obviously. I emit naught but notes of lavender.)
But we weren’t gonna be doing some guided meditated with Deepak today. While I had hoped this would feel great and relaxing, I realized just how wrong I was barely into chakra one – the feet and leg and lower spine area.
“This chakra is the red chakra – the root chakra…” (she’d repeat something like this after each new pose as a new matching light bulb flickered on)
“More like root camp,” I thought, smiling inwardly at my own stupid joke and suddenly wishing I didn’t know there were six more torturous levels to follow. There’s a reason they don’t put clocks in these rooms. And that’s not so I can count down the seconds in watts.
We moved up. Eventually we got to the third chakra and she turned on the yellow light before annihilating our abdominals with her instructions. My ovaries cried as my tummy caved in. My viscera fervently searched in vain for a way out. Finally, the six pack that I don’t have ignited from the flammable gastric juices squashed under their own pressure, and I blew up like a roman candle, engulfing the entire studio into a burning death trap of smothered stink.
No one cared.
When the world stopped spinning and the dust from the apocalypse had cleared, we ended the pose. Calmly, the instructor asked in a tone that would almost sound patronizing were she not so goddamned serene and sweet, “Do we all know where our yellow chakra is now?”
Everyone laughed (hatefully).
“On the next chakra, I want you to think about your ancestors that came before you…” Wait, what? I was lost. Genealogy and family trees have never been my forte. If you didn’t at least leave me some pearls or a nice ring before you threw in the towel, you’re not giving me much to go on, darling. So the only tree I kept focusing on was my tree pose.
“You might see a white light,” she went on.
Yeah, no white light. But as we switched legs, I started to feel faint as my muscles began to buckle. While perspiring profusely and dizzying, stars began to form in my vision. As I dripped and dipped further into my dehydration induced k-hole, I thought:
“Oh, hey. There’s that white light.”
“And whattdya know. My ancestors are at the end of it. Beckoning me.”
I’m currently writing this from permanent-savasana afterlife.
And I offer my eternal guardian angel care to whoever mails me a care package including a fully stocked bakery, jojoba body wash, and the satisfaction refund I was promised.
*This was an unpublished entry from March.
I’ve since returned from the dead… to renew my membership.
#thisbishneverlearns