Fitness Yoga

Not entirely clear in the differences between fitness yoga and any other kind, I have been attending Saturday morning fitness yoga for a few weeks now (around Repair Cafe and cycle group outings).  Last Saturday the 'teacher' was into part 2 of a series designed to improve the students' understanding of the shapes they were trying to achieve.

Lots of lunging, and Warriors I & II (which you yogis will know involves bending one knee and feeling your thigh muscles quaking with the need to stand up straight again).  I don't mind adopting poses like an All Black performing a haka, but holding them indefinitely while the teacher rabbits on about the whys and wherefores....|)  And then there is the breathing: in for this move, out for that one.  We will all do this little routine together a couple of times and now that you know what you are doing just go ahead and do a few in your own time.

'Make it your own' she said.

I clearly breathe a lot more slowly than other people (I do have an unnaturally slow heart rate, so maybe I breathe slower too); they have all powered through three repetitions and I am still doing a three legged dog somewhere in the second half of round two when the music winds down and she is congratulating everyone on finishing together.  I quietly lower my leg and and sort of unravel as gracefully as I can to join everyone else standing up and looking pleased with themselves.

Gracefully and me don't sit comfortably in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence.  Mr T would have told you that - he supervised enough attempts at internet-led yoga during lockdowns.  He made a point of sitting under me when I did bridge shapes and conducted a general critique of my form.

"You will never make a cat."

"I agree, but you don't have opposable thumbs."

Actually it was the number of triceps dips that caught up with me on Sunday.  Yes, I can hold my body off the floor in a triceps dip if I think everyone in the room is looking around to see if anyone else has flopped onto the floor, but only at the expense of a few layers of tooth enamel (she says through gritted teeth).

"Relax your neck" (and teeth - she could have added).

Fortunately for me about half the class are men and most are in a similar decade of life; the commentary from one at the back of the studio echoed my thoughts exactly as it was suggested that we might hook an elbow around our toes to increase a quad stretch - "no chance" would be the acceptable translation.

I photographed these crocuses on the way home - pretty, uncomplicated, not tortured by their own inadequacies or aging bodies in need of long delayed maintenance.  I should be thankful I can still contemplate making a few shapes, even if it is unlikely I will ever pull off a crow pose.