Well, I just finished my first ever “Bodyflow” class at Goodlife – it’s advertised as part Tai Chi, part yoga, and part pilates.<\/p>\n
And I discovered I am a TOTAL YOGA SNOB.<\/p>\n
It’s dreadful… I know it’s been over three years since I’ve seen the inside of a gym or a studio, and I’m completely out of shape, but the muscles, they remember. I was serious enough about yoga at one time in my life to be going upwards of four times a week to practice. I regularly did two-hour Ashtanga sessions at Downward Dog. I was seriously considering teacher training. I thought about opening my own ashram.<\/p>\n
So you can imagine that doing a whole three sun salutations to the soothing sounds of Bryan Adams was not exactly my skeeze.<\/p>\n
The teacher kept giving everything it’s English name, rather than the Sanskrit. I know, I know, people at a Goodlife do not really want to learn Sanskrit, they just want to get sweaty, but I am fairly certain everyone would have had just as good a time enjoying “Savasana” as they would being told to get into CORPSE POSE. Nobody cares if you call it Mountain pose, but it has a certain poetry if you say “Tadasana”. You don’t have to use it all the time, but it is part of the full yoga experience.<\/p>\n
Also, oh my god the music. I really can’t do Warrior to shitty pop electronica. I just can’t. Sting is great, I love him, but I know for a freaking fact that he doesn’t do yoga to his own albums, so why should we? It should be a silent practice, so that you can listen to the sound of your breath, can hear your instructor, and can pay attention to what your body is telling you. It should not be the crackle and hiss of a badly positioned headset microphone, transmitted over loud speakers that are cranked up to 50 decibels just to be heard over the roar of the air conditioning(!) and the freaking Robbie Williams or whatever.<\/p>\n
Air conditioning is also a no-no. Okay, people don’t enjoy sweating and straining in extreme heat, I got the memo. In fact, I think I wrote that memo. But yoga is about generating internal heat so as to enhance flexibility in the body and to improve circulation. There needs to be sweat in order to extract impurities. In a room maintained at a chilly 18 degrees, you will not be as bendy as you could ideally be if you were practicing without A\/C, or even –perish the thought– in a heated room. Goodlife has obviously never heard of Bikram. <\/p>\n
Okay, that’s mostly the end of my yoga snob rant. We’ll see if I can bring myself to go next week. I kind of feel like this class might undo all of my good habits if I keep taking it, but then again, I am too fucking lazy to drag my ass back south to Downward Dog for a proper workout on the weekend, so I guess I should take it where I can get it.<\/p>\n
Namaste, all, and good night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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