Post-yoga

Yoga was OK. The teacher was really quite attractive - which only served to make me more self-conscious. The ride down was nice, not too chilly. Afterwards I rode over to Powell's Books again on Hawthorne for a coffee. I read for a while, window shopped at the book store, then came home my usual route - Burnside Street. Pretty uneventful.

There seem to be a few inherent problems with yoga. The language the instructors use leaves me puzzled. Maybe it's just that way where I'm going because it's sort of a hippy commune, but she kept saying things like, "breathe through your spine" and "feel your breath leave the top of your head." What the fuck does that even mean? I breathe with my lungs - doesn't everyone? And my breath comes out of my mouth or nose - if it came out the top of my head, I'd probably need to trip to the emergency room.

Another of my concerns is the whole process of breathing in general. You'd think this would be pretty easy because I've been doing it for so long, but apparently I've been doing it wrong and I can't get the rhythm of how I'm supposed to be doing it - not in yoga class anyway. I breathe out when I'm supposed to be breathing in - I raise my stomach during an out breath when I'm supposed to be sucking my stomach in - I'm not breathing out of the top of my head slowly enough, etc. It seems so damn simple, but no matter how hard I concentrate I cannot get it right.

Maybe in time, I'll understand the lingo and get my breathing under control. That's assuming I go past the five visits I prepaid for. Two down, three to go!

(My friend Bill Bodmer thinks I'm less of a man because of the yoga. He also has a problem with my sauerkraut purchases. Well, suck it Bodmer! I'm going to keep doing my crappy yoga and buying my sauerkraut by the pound.)