Yoga and I don't always jive. I have dabbled in yoga on and off for two decades, but I never really commit. I usually crank up my efforts after hearing another inspiring tale from a friend about how yoga changed their lives. A girlfriend of mine in SoBe told me last year that her body "hums" after doing yoga. Hums? My body groans, creaks, cracks and occasionally outright laughs, but I'm not aware of any humming unless there is a pile of C batteries within close proximity.
Part of me is a bit suspicious, I've known far too many yogis that get hooked. The signs are always there: they start going every day, they talk about yoga non-stop, they want you to come to their class, they drink green smoothies, then (and this is so predictable) invariably they all want to ditch their careers and become yoga instructors!
I've been to all sorts of yoga classes, hot ones, long ones, ommming ones, quiet ones, dark ones, smelly ones, easy ones, impossible ones. Not once did I feel compelled to go down the instructor path. Maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe I just missed the day when they dispensed with the yoga Kool-aid. But I also have a healthy amount of skepticism and a recent report on NPR confirmed what I always suspected: if you go to India, the birthplace of yoga, you will be hard pressed to find a yoga studio much less someone practicing yoga. It really is just another American obsession that comes with the layers of stuff like yoga mats, yoga straps, yoga bags, yoga pants, an entire magazine dedicated to all things yoga. And I have to wonder, as I watch women clad in sleek yoga attire emerging from their Hummer combat vehicles, if maybe we haven't gone completely overboard with what was meant to be some simple stretching? With simplicity and stretching in mind, I enrolled in yet again another yoga class. I'll keep you posted, be sure to raise a flag if I start blogging about becoming a yoga instructor.
No comments:
Post a Comment