Class Five of the 40 Day Challenge, or There is One Reason I am Awake at 8 a.m. on a Saturday

Class today was packed! (See me tie in this wicked cool image with something yoga-y? :D) 21 people, I think. Crazy, but there was fun chatting and bending and folding and I didn't smack anyone even once (accidentally).

Lorna and I were talking on the way out about how the 8 am gentle yoga was where we started, 2 1/2 years ago.

Let me tell you, I was sitting one day after a hard weight workout, and I decided to try yoga. I told Lorna we were trying yoga and, after the look of shock stopped (well, okay, first there was a look of shock, then a spate of hysterical 'we're going what?' laughter, then another look of shock/horror, then pure, unadulterated fear, because that was how I get us into trouble...), Lorna says, "Uh, okay...where?"

So, I googled.

As an aside: Do any of you remember life before Google? When figuring things out involved Yellow Pages and libraries and long distance phone calls to your mom to ask what to do? I mean, Yay Search Engines!

Anyway, I googled and found a few places. Some closer, some free. Some this. Some that. Some not at 8 am on a Saturday morning (hey, I'm a professional writer; my working day starts at 8pm and goes to 4am).

Still, I have to tell you, I never considered another class. My soul said Zelinda was it (Go ahead, mock. I'm used to it. I listen to the universe when it tells me to pay attention. It's a thing.) and so, off we went to Target to find yoga mats.

(Mine was pink. Feel free to pretend surprise.)

Saturday morning rolled around. We got up, walked the bassets, Lorna cursed me, I considered just going back to bed. We got into the car, drove over to the dance studio and passed it five or six times before pulling in.

We turned off the car and sat. We sang "Voices Carry" with Til Tuesday.

We stared at each other.

We discussed just leaving.

We sat in the air a little longer, making it halfway through "Thriller" before we did our "we are grown ups and brave and not cowards and already printed out the new student forms and filled them out and wasting paper is bad damn it" pep talk and went in (yes, we rationalized THAT much).

B and Zelinda would laugh now to know just how much gumption it took for us to finally take the plastic off my yoga mat and walk into that room the first day, but it did. I was so scared my glasses were shaking, me and my new yoga pants, trying to look confident so Lorna didn't bolt.

As soon as I was in there, B said hello, Zelinda chatted, and it was okay enough that I didn't run.

It took a couple of weeks before I knew it was okay enough that, when Zelinda asked me to do something basically impossible, that I not only didn't run, I cracked up. (And usually fell over. I'm sort of Weeble-shaped.)

So, yeah. Still getting up at the crack of dawn on Saturdays.

Still bending and stretching.

Although I admit that, sometimes when we pull up, we do sit in the car and car dance for a few minutes, if the music is *really* good.

Namaste, y'all.

S.

 

Class info:

Location: The Yoga Room

Class type: Gentle

Teacher: Zelinda