New York: My Boyfriend Loses His Yoga Virginity
As I mentioned some months ago, my long-time boyfriend was a yoga virgin. No more. A couple of weeks ago, of his own free, non-nudged will, he went and signed up for Jivamukti's beginner series.
When he got back from the first class, he sent me an email with the subject "Jivamuktilicious." I clapped, so relieved his first time had been good. For so long I had been hesitant to introduce him to yoga for fear that he'd have a bad experience; for this control freak, it was just too much responsibility. But here's what he wrote me:
"So i had my first ever yoga experience... I was greeted by a mellow, smiley young woman, who looked up my name on the computer and asked if it was my first time there. "Yup, I need to rent a mat, right?"
Once that was all taken care of and I was changed into my jammies [ed note: In lieu of anything stretchy, I told him his pajama bottoms and a t-shirt would be fine.] I went into this little room, about the size of a small studio apartment and people were laying out their mats. There were about ten or twelve of us, about 40% men, 60% women. One woman looked like she was in charge and I asked her what to do. She was an assistant and told me to get some blankets which seemed utterly mysterious, were we going to take naps? And some blocks and straps which were even more mysterious and seemed a little S&M.
Our teacher then arrived, the lovely Narayani aka Nicole Nichols whom had been recommended by the guy who took my Visa card number on the phone when I signed up. "Is anybody here for the first time?" I and another woman raised our hands....
We started with some omming, which was kinda cool since the teacher did it with authority and everyone just followed, including me. She also talked about finding enlightenment through yoga, saying it could be achieved in the here and now. She may have said it was through connecting the body and soul to the earth, or maybe that was just my interpretation.
We went through a series of standing poses--next week it's sitting poses or something like that. Starting with just standing tall-chest open, I forget the Sanskrit word already. Then downward dog and a bunch of others.
Even though it's more than 20 years since I was a gymnast, the whole thing seemed familiar. As a gymnast we would stretch for 30 minutes before practice. I never realized it until today that part of what we were doing during stretching was quieting the mind to focus on the task to come.
As a gymnast, I did routines which were series of moves strung together; yoga feels like the same concept, but a lot slower. I liked the feeling of doing things with my body that were controlled, disciplined and precise. The workout was heavier than I had imagined.
Toward the end I started to feel a little light-headed, not sure why. I looked around a lot at my peers to try to make sure I was doing the right thing and a few times the teacher put her hands on me to correct
my poses.
My body surely doesn't do the things it used to but it remembers those things and I felt them again like I haven't in many many years. At the end we laid in darkness with music and the teacher gave me a 10-second neck rub with some sort of oil with a familiar scent.
My verdict? I liked it. I like physical activity that is controlled and requires mental focus. I felt at home doing this even if it was all new and my body is very out of shape. I can't remember all the Sanskrit words, or any of them actually, but I could look them up."
What was your "first time" like?
Comments
Glad to know that your friend liked the very first Yoga class
It will be good if a little bit of Sanskrit is also learnt.
There is an organisation involved in teaching of Sanskrit.Please visit their web-site if you are interested to learn some basic Sanskrit:
www.samskritabharati.org
Posted by: Vishvaksenah | April 17, 2008 02:50 AM