Jewish Community Centre Toronto

Yesterday I took my first yoga class in the history of my non-flexible life.

I was in over my head, and after an hour of being improperly attired, gasping, wobbling dangerously and lurching about as if blindfolded, existing wholly out of synch with the rest of the class, two other students actually approached me to offer me some consolation. They wanted me to know that it took them years to reach the levels they had achieved, and that given time, I might, too. The instructor, who was kind and helpful, as I am led to believe all yoga instructors are, told me that she did not want me to hurt myself and that perhaps I should try a less challenging branch of yoga.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

I had of course imagined this day many times, picturing myself as the funny, if slightly creepy, older guy in the back row. I would make friends and surprise everybody with what a quick study I was. However, instead of being securely positioned in the back, slacker row, I was placed in the front row by the attentive and concerned instructor, and wasn’t able to prove myself funny to my peers as I was always out of breath, in pain or struggling in some other manner. To everybody else in the room, I probably appeared kind of sad and a little bit distracting. It wasn’t that everybody was looking at me it was more that everybody wasn’t looking at me, as if they couldn’t bear to watch, as I was a grim reminder of human mortality. I felt like a salesman nobody wanted to make eye contact with, like a person with a dry, hacking cough, or even a completely different species, some doomed sea creature that washed up on the beach and was covered in oil. I was conspicuously “the other.”

From various angles, as I looked up and into the mirror in front of the class, I saw spread out behind me rows upon rows of beautiful, graceful people moving in perfect, almost effortless harmony. It was as if, dying in battle, I saw fleets of angels waiting behind me to carry me home.

No matter, I am going to keep trying, just a much tamer version. Clearly POWER YOGA is not for me, but even so, it was a fun and worthwhile experience, however it was obvious that even within the apparent inclusion of such an enterprise, a person such as me, so out of place and asymmetrical, really would have been a continued disruption. My incompetence, even my spirit of incompetence, was ruining the vibe and rendering the holy sanctuary muddy, and I felt like I’d just done a cannonball into the cool, tranquil pool from which all had come to drink after their hard days work.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMC1_RH_b3k]