Yoga: Let's Do the Twist
by Karen Williams - September 5, 2007
I'm not one to clog my mind with non-essential information. In fact, sometimes even essential information eludes me.
When I drive, I don't notice anything other than yard sale signs and the things into which I'm not supposed to crash. All else is irrelevant, as a friend once discovered when chasing me to let me know my gas cap was loose, with gasoline sloshing out of my tank when I took sharp turns.
I was further reminded of my inattention to detail when I recently took a tai chi class while on vacation.
"How many of you have taken tai chi before?" the gruff instructor bellowed.
I raised my hand.
"What kind of tai chi?" he demanded, rattling off various esoteric-sounding possibilities.
"Uh, I dunno," I stammered. "The regular kind, I guess."
The instructor's shocked stare told me I'd just set martial arts back 500 years.
When daughter, Emily, and I took a yoga class the following day, I kept my experience to myself. In reality, I once practiced both yoga and tai chi. I think the yoga was called hatha, but I always called it haha, because trying to contort myself into various postures remained laughable.
That long-ago class was taught by a gorgeous, supple woman named Cindy - with long black hair, not an ounce of flab on her body, able to go into the full lotus position quicker than most of us can eat a Hostess Twinkie. Surprisingly, our class consisted of many men - who turned up in totally wrong attire, failed to execute even the most basic postures, and yet somehow sustained an avid interest in the discipline. Go figure.
To this day, I still do a few yoga postures each morning while watching Regis and Kelly, but I've developed my own version. I don't know if I'm doing downward dog, upward dog, or slobbering dog. I simply twist my body in various bizarre directions until it hurts and then I stop - immediately or sooner.
I expected to hold my own in the yoga class that Emily and I attended. A glance around the room revealed many participants were in their sunset years.
"Dial it down a notch," I told myself. "No sense in making these old dears look bad."
I shrugged off the warm-up stretches, for I didn't really need them, plus I was still trying to figure out how to remove my borrowed mat from its case.
Then a slip of a girl instructor began leading us in a surprisingly difficult regimen.
"Mom, stop making faces," Emily whispered while glaring at me in the diabolical wall-sized mirror.
"I can't help it," I panted. "Scrunching up my face helps me to focus. Plus, it's good for the sinuses."
"Well, quit it," Emily growled. "You're scaring people."
At that moment, I lost my balance and crashed to the floor, while all the old dears, who were perfectly holding the current pose, turned to look at me with alarm.
Darn that warrior position. I had become its victim in one fell swoop.
But all was not lost. I ultimately demonstrated that I could execute the class's final posture with utter precision. It's called the dead man pose, and it requires a person to lie on the floor, motionless and inert.
That has always been my favorite yoga posture, and I can even remember its name.
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Copyright 2007, Karen Williams
