Yoga

I’m going to try to avoid baseball discussion that excludes teams not named the Angels or the entire league. It alienates a lot of people, so I apologize for the previous post.

So with little to no baseball discussion today, I’m going to go ahead and get on with this stupid thing.

I tried yoga for the first time today, and it went about as hilariously as you might expect. I used a workout DVD my parents had purchased with the intent of relaxing. They decided to nix yoga as soon as they were told to sit on the heels of their feet. I can’t really blame them.

First of all, if you actually sat down and watched this DVD objectively without doing the exercises, you’d realize that this is probably intended either for people in their 40s who are simply too lazy to leave the house or perverted old men. The workout is led by a man in his late 30s who is accompanied by a fairly attractive young woman, to whom he refers as “the greatest yoga teacher I know.” Her credentials do check out; she performs the instructor’s exercises even better than he does. Nevertheless, the show consists of several shots going right down the young lady’s low-cut shirt, of which she is clearly aware – she gives the cameraman several dirty looks throughout.

The instructor himself puts you to mind of an unkempt hippie you might see wandering People’s Park up in Berkeley with the personality of a cult leader. His appearance is clearly relaxed, and that carries over into what I can only describe as a bizarre charisma. He has sort of a calming presence, reassuring the viewer that they should not feel guilty at all for taking it easy on a particular exercise, but I couldn’t help feeling that a command to engage in a mass suicide would catch me off-guard.

The last thing I’d call myself is active, even remotely so. I haven’t done anything that can even be described as remotely physically demanding since I played football with a couple of old college chums a few weeks ago. They’ve seen me in action, and it’s not pretty.

First of all, I didn’t have a yoga mat, which is imperative when you’re trying to work with a hardwood floor. I tried to fold up a comforter into a cushy little rectangle instead, which looked promising at first glance. As it turned out, it was more of a hindrance than a help. For many exercises, it worked wonderfully, but for a few that involved leaning forward or backward, I found myself sliding uncontrollably and came close to snapping in half here and there. After the frustration had reached its peak, I gave up on the endeavor and did some simple stretches, push-ups, and crunches. I had admitted defeat.

3-3 isn’t bad at all to start off, although Tampa Bay looks absolutely terrible. A scrappy Toronto Blue Jays team visits for the next few days. Crap, I reneged on my promise. Oh well. GO HALOS!