A Vision of Death: I Try Yoga
November 29th 2006 11:49
I showed up at the gym on the hottest day of the summer determined to "get out of the box" to "expand my comfort zone" etc. ad nauseum. After four decades of lifting weights and having ridden a bicycle about 50,000 miles in my younger days I thought I knew fitness and I wanted to try something I had admired from afar for a long time: yoga. I knew that I was out of my element, but I really had no idea what would transpire: a vision of my death and good dose of humility.
I tried to be inconspicuous as I grabbed a generic mat provided by the gym. I kept my head lowered in newby self-abnegation, as the veterans strolled in with their customized mats and lithe bodies. I took off my shoes and felt really strange being barefoot in the gym. I reminded myself that I wasn't going to drop a weight on my foot-this was yoga. I made sure I showed respect for this ancient art, but it wasn't like it was tough like doing squats or something.
The teacher entered. As I waited unsuspectingly, she prepared her music and then asked if this was anyone's first time. I sheepishly lifted my hand slowly until she acknowledged me. At that point began the worst hour of the year and one of the most signal bad hours of my adult life.
We started with some simple things like raising our arms over our heads and holding them there. I wouldn't have thought this would be hard. There weren't any dumbbells in my hands,after all. Oh, was I wrong! I soon wanted to put my arms down, but we didn't. I started to sweat; we descended to the mat and began a dizzying array of stretches and movements from the floor to standing up to back to the floor. I discovered that the simple act of reaching down with both hands to grab one of my ankles and holding it was agony. My sinuses weren't used to being upside down and I started to get woozy. With woozy came sick to my stomach.
Eventually we got into a pattern which combined various leg positions on the mat punctuated by a position the teacher referred to as "downward facing dog." I couldn't believe how many times we seemed to return to this. I found myself standing in a jackknife position with my hands on the mat and my rear up in the air. I was sweating the sweat of impending expiration now and my head was spinning. I soon become distort the "downward facing dog" into "downward facing hog" as my shoulders gave out and I began to root my nose on the mat with porcine affinity.
At last we started the cool down, except for me. I began to panic. I was so sick I was afraid I would never reach the car to go home. Then I looked around as we lay on our back on the mat to quiet ourselves. There were the expected young profoundly flexible women there but there were also several who had at least ten years on me and they were dry and at ease. I sat on the mat at session end and tried to determine how to get to my car. I slowly rose and walked with tiny steps ,looking to neither the right nor left. Every step filled me with joy. I might make it to the car.When I got home I felt better-after two hours!
What did I learn? I relearned what I already knew. The body is a marvelous adaptive mechanism. It will adapt to the activity it is asked to perform. There is no such thing as overall fitness. You body is what you ask it to do, if and only if, you follows its rules and let it adapt overtime and yet make it keep adapting by intelligently ramping up your demands. Yoga is cool, but I gotta go slow. Slim is cool and so are big muscles, but you gotta go slow and learn how to do it right. Your servant, as always
I tried to be inconspicuous as I grabbed a generic mat provided by the gym. I kept my head lowered in newby self-abnegation, as the veterans strolled in with their customized mats and lithe bodies. I took off my shoes and felt really strange being barefoot in the gym. I reminded myself that I wasn't going to drop a weight on my foot-this was yoga. I made sure I showed respect for this ancient art, but it wasn't like it was tough like doing squats or something.
We started with some simple things like raising our arms over our heads and holding them there. I wouldn't have thought this would be hard. There weren't any dumbbells in my hands,after all. Oh, was I wrong! I soon wanted to put my arms down, but we didn't. I started to sweat; we descended to the mat and began a dizzying array of stretches and movements from the floor to standing up to back to the floor. I discovered that the simple act of reaching down with both hands to grab one of my ankles and holding it was agony. My sinuses weren't used to being upside down and I started to get woozy. With woozy came sick to my stomach.
At last we started the cool down, except for me. I began to panic. I was so sick I was afraid I would never reach the car to go home. Then I looked around as we lay on our back on the mat to quiet ourselves. There were the expected young profoundly flexible women there but there were also several who had at least ten years on me and they were dry and at ease. I sat on the mat at session end and tried to determine how to get to my car. I slowly rose and walked with tiny steps ,looking to neither the right nor left. Every step filled me with joy. I might make it to the car.When I got home I felt better-after two hours!
What did I learn? I relearned what I already knew. The body is a marvelous adaptive mechanism. It will adapt to the activity it is asked to perform. There is no such thing as overall fitness. You body is what you ask it to do, if and only if, you follows its rules and let it adapt overtime and yet make it keep adapting by intelligently ramping up your demands. Yoga is cool, but I gotta go slow. Slim is cool and so are big muscles, but you gotta go slow and learn how to do it right. Your servant, as always
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