Friday
Jul162004
Rebel Housewife Yoga
Friday, July 16, 2004 at 07:15AM
The kids were finally back in school--yay!--and it was the end of the long, hot summer. I decided to do something for myself, and hopefully deal with some residual stress and, um, weight gain (20 pounds). (Okay, more like 30.) I signed up for a 10-session weekly yoga class at the family recreation center.
I've taken yoga once before, a prenatal yoga class eight years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. (Now I have three kids--they gave me ten pounds each!) At that time, I was 25 years old, still working, and blissfully naïve in so many ways: Life with kids? Weight "problems"? Life after 30? I had no idea what lay ahead of me.
Back then, the yoga was a good break from work once a week, and it was "nice", but I had a hard time relaxing deeply and tuning out the busy little voice in my head that just kept going and going:
"I'm getting HUNGRY!"
"I need to call...and take care of..."
"I wonder if we're all going out to lunch after class?"
grocery lists, to do lists, baby stuff--
I just wasn't IN to the relaxing yoga experience. A couple months after Zach was born, I was back at the Bally's, high-impact step aerobicizing and circuit training my little heart rate right up there with the rest.
Eight years later, with the three kids and the thirty pounds, I need to do SOMETHING to de-stress, coax my body into better shape, maybe even lose weight; yet the idea of high-energy jumping around with twenty-somethings in sport bras and butt-floss completely overwhelms me. I was ready to give yoga another try.
My first class was an experience. I arrived a little early and followed the other haggard-looking thirty- and forty-somethings (at least I fit right in!) into a workout room.
As soon as we're in though, I'm out of place. Everyone else was laying out their yoga mats and towels. How did they know to bring props?! Fortunately, there was a basket of mats in the room, so I took one and staked out a space in the front row where I would be able to see and hear the instructor. Then I sat down and took off my athletic shoes and gym socks, obviously a newbie to forget we do yoga barefoot. (Very happy I still had a fresh pedicure going from my long day at Goodyear with the Jeep last week! I spent one of the six hours at the nail salon across the street for a manicure/pedicure.)
The instructor bounced in (she teaches aerobics classes too), started the mood music and got right to it--no intros, no basics.
Okay--everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, so I followed along, figuring this was a warm-up stretch and she would "start" the class in a few minutes. But she just went on and on from familiar warm-up stretching and breathing to--the REAL stuff: sequences and poses and cat-style and doggie-style, on and on.
Seriously regretting my bold decision to be right up front, I figured to myself, "Okay. I've done this before. Yes, it was EIGHT YEARS ago, but I can do this." And I did pretty good, trying to relax, breathe and follow the moves.
After the first half-hour, I was digging it. I kept my eyes closed, except when I had to see what I was supposed to be doing, and my mind started to "free" and wander. I was thinking, "I could do this every morning in my sunny front foyer. The soothing music would float up to the children and help them wake up refreshed--they could join me for family yoga!" I was really having a beautiful vision: the five of us dressed in white yoga duds, enjoying a peaceful morning--truly a vision of paradise.
Reality began to intrude. First, breathing through the nose exercises: forceful inhale and expel. This was kind of a problem since I was a little stuffed up with allergies. Wondering if anyone else was having a problem with snot shooting out on the power exhale, I tried to wipe inconspicuously. And still keep up.
We moved on, getting into a nice groove...and the farts started. Mine, regrettably. What the heck was that?! Thinking I was getting a little TOO relaxed, I got all tense again over these involuntary bodily noises, way too wrapped up in preventing another "poot", or at the very least disguising the noise or trying to pass it off as floor or mat noise--
My stomach was getting squished in the bendy positions, and I'm sure it would have been fine if I didn't have the three-baby tummy getting in the way. But I do. My wrists started hurting from holding myself up in other positions. I was no longer relaxed.
But I was trying to be good. Trying to relax and get back into it, figuring it was almost over. I started to focus again, just in time to worry that the class was going too long. Russ has a regular Monday night business meeting to get to, and my inner voice at that point started grumbling: "I've gotta get home, gotta get home..."
Still, by the end, I really enjoyed the class. The last half-hour was a guided relaxation--wonderful. (Even with "gotta get home, gotta get home...") At the end of the class, half-hour after I was already supposed to be home, we were dispersing, and I had to ask:
"Did I miss the first week of this class? Everybody seems to know what they are doing."
I got some very strange looks, and the answer, which should have been obvious: I was in the wrong place.
"This is an ongoing class for fairly advanced yoga students."
Well, that explains a lot. (But not the farting.)
On the way home, I check my cell phone--three missed calls, messages from hubby. I call to let him know I'm on my way. He is curt, rude, obviously pissed off. I pass him on the driveway--he is parked out front ready to go as soon as I turn in. I give him a wave that could have been interpreted as one finger or five, and he takes off. (It's all okay by the time he gets home later.) Pulling into the garage, I decide I'm not going to let it bring me down after a good class, thinking at least the kids will be in bed since I'm so late--NOT. They are up and running, and within minutes the peace and serenity of that first yoga class is GONE. But it was fun--and I feel GOOD.
© 2003 Sherri L. Caldwell. All rights reserved.
I've taken yoga once before, a prenatal yoga class eight years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. (Now I have three kids--they gave me ten pounds each!) At that time, I was 25 years old, still working, and blissfully naïve in so many ways: Life with kids? Weight "problems"? Life after 30? I had no idea what lay ahead of me.
Back then, the yoga was a good break from work once a week, and it was "nice", but I had a hard time relaxing deeply and tuning out the busy little voice in my head that just kept going and going:
"I'm getting HUNGRY!"
"I need to call...and take care of..."
"I wonder if we're all going out to lunch after class?"
grocery lists, to do lists, baby stuff--
I just wasn't IN to the relaxing yoga experience. A couple months after Zach was born, I was back at the Bally's, high-impact step aerobicizing and circuit training my little heart rate right up there with the rest.
Eight years later, with the three kids and the thirty pounds, I need to do SOMETHING to de-stress, coax my body into better shape, maybe even lose weight; yet the idea of high-energy jumping around with twenty-somethings in sport bras and butt-floss completely overwhelms me. I was ready to give yoga another try.
My first class was an experience. I arrived a little early and followed the other haggard-looking thirty- and forty-somethings (at least I fit right in!) into a workout room.
As soon as we're in though, I'm out of place. Everyone else was laying out their yoga mats and towels. How did they know to bring props?! Fortunately, there was a basket of mats in the room, so I took one and staked out a space in the front row where I would be able to see and hear the instructor. Then I sat down and took off my athletic shoes and gym socks, obviously a newbie to forget we do yoga barefoot. (Very happy I still had a fresh pedicure going from my long day at Goodyear with the Jeep last week! I spent one of the six hours at the nail salon across the street for a manicure/pedicure.)
The instructor bounced in (she teaches aerobics classes too), started the mood music and got right to it--no intros, no basics.
Okay--everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, so I followed along, figuring this was a warm-up stretch and she would "start" the class in a few minutes. But she just went on and on from familiar warm-up stretching and breathing to--the REAL stuff: sequences and poses and cat-style and doggie-style, on and on.
Seriously regretting my bold decision to be right up front, I figured to myself, "Okay. I've done this before. Yes, it was EIGHT YEARS ago, but I can do this." And I did pretty good, trying to relax, breathe and follow the moves.
After the first half-hour, I was digging it. I kept my eyes closed, except when I had to see what I was supposed to be doing, and my mind started to "free" and wander. I was thinking, "I could do this every morning in my sunny front foyer. The soothing music would float up to the children and help them wake up refreshed--they could join me for family yoga!" I was really having a beautiful vision: the five of us dressed in white yoga duds, enjoying a peaceful morning--truly a vision of paradise.
Reality began to intrude. First, breathing through the nose exercises: forceful inhale and expel. This was kind of a problem since I was a little stuffed up with allergies. Wondering if anyone else was having a problem with snot shooting out on the power exhale, I tried to wipe inconspicuously. And still keep up.
We moved on, getting into a nice groove...and the farts started. Mine, regrettably. What the heck was that?! Thinking I was getting a little TOO relaxed, I got all tense again over these involuntary bodily noises, way too wrapped up in preventing another "poot", or at the very least disguising the noise or trying to pass it off as floor or mat noise--
My stomach was getting squished in the bendy positions, and I'm sure it would have been fine if I didn't have the three-baby tummy getting in the way. But I do. My wrists started hurting from holding myself up in other positions. I was no longer relaxed.
But I was trying to be good. Trying to relax and get back into it, figuring it was almost over. I started to focus again, just in time to worry that the class was going too long. Russ has a regular Monday night business meeting to get to, and my inner voice at that point started grumbling: "I've gotta get home, gotta get home..."
Still, by the end, I really enjoyed the class. The last half-hour was a guided relaxation--wonderful. (Even with "gotta get home, gotta get home...") At the end of the class, half-hour after I was already supposed to be home, we were dispersing, and I had to ask:
"Did I miss the first week of this class? Everybody seems to know what they are doing."
I got some very strange looks, and the answer, which should have been obvious: I was in the wrong place.
"This is an ongoing class for fairly advanced yoga students."
Well, that explains a lot. (But not the farting.)
On the way home, I check my cell phone--three missed calls, messages from hubby. I call to let him know I'm on my way. He is curt, rude, obviously pissed off. I pass him on the driveway--he is parked out front ready to go as soon as I turn in. I give him a wave that could have been interpreted as one finger or five, and he takes off. (It's all okay by the time he gets home later.) Pulling into the garage, I decide I'm not going to let it bring me down after a good class, thinking at least the kids will be in bed since I'm so late--NOT. They are up and running, and within minutes the peace and serenity of that first yoga class is GONE. But it was fun--and I feel GOOD.