Full Moon and Yoga Grump

It’s five ten. I scan the yoga schedule at the local studio and realize I can make the new five-thirty class. Ahh. I envision my body gracefully flowing from pose to pose, exuding serenity and compassion. Good plan.

Thirty five hot sweaty minutes later:  I am in down dog, searching for my inner smile but only finding my inner snarl. “Why?” I ask the air, lifting my right leg as requested and feeling sweat slide from my upper lip into my left nostril. The instructor floats around the room, lilting instructions. My arms and standing leg trembling, I attempt to ease my breathing as suggested, inhaling slowly and exhaling even more slowly. My lungs, fearing deprivation, decide of their own accord to take approximately seven breaths to every one of the instructor’s. “If you are too identified with the discomfort in your body, try to be something else,” the instructor says soothingly. “Be the floor.  Be the ceiling.  Be the air.” I try to be the air, but the image of a giant Toblerone bar rushes into my head and makes short work of that. 

Desperately I force my mind back into the sauna of a room. Serenity now, goddammit, I yell internally. Now we are holding horse, thighs screaming, butts quaking. The instructor drifts through the room, high on yoga. Has she forgotten us? I wonder as she gently adjusts another student, spending at least twenty seven minutes or so speaking softly as she lifts an elbow, runs a finger down a spine to illustrate proper posture. My body suddenly and incomprehensibly chooses this moment to activate every single sweat gland it owns. A furtive glance around the room reveals glowing yogic faces, nary a drop of dew on any. My body, embarrassed, heroically sweats even more and then threatens to fart. Good lord.  

Now we are in frog, now pigeon. Holding each pose, my mind begins to relax its grip on societal norm. It takes nearly the whole class, but I finally feel my thoughts unclench and my body evolve from a fist to an open palmed flower. By the time we get to sivasana I’m all wrung out, peaceful, and ready for pizza. Ya. Got my yoga on.