It's Okay to Belly Flop in Yoga

After last week’s post about Zumba, I felt compelled to share my yoga experiences.  While my Zumba instructor may not get me, I feel like my yoga instructor, Michelle really does.  She says things in class and I feel like she’s speaking directly to me like, “It’s okay if you do a belly flop trying to get back down to your mat”.  When she leads us into a squat where only our hands are on the floor and our feet are hovering, I take the liberty to practice my head stand.  Most times not intentionally, but it happens.  She just says, “Yeah, okay or you can do that instead.”  If ever I decide to become a break dancer I will be appreciative of the time she gave me to practice the head standing thing, since clearly go-go dancing is out of the question.  Read this for more information on that.

I of course only listen to her for so long, as I have my own inner dialog going on.  Like, Did I shave my legs today?  Then we move into a position where I am face to face with my legs.  No, no I did not shave my legs.  Shit.  Michelle tells us to find a place to focus for a while.  Mine is usually at my leg hair.  Is that blonde or red?  I can’t tell.  Man, this is not cool. On the first big yoga position of the day I always think, Oh god, please don’t let me toot.  Please, please don’t let me toot.  And if I do, please let the class think it’s the girl next to me.

Just like most things I love in my life, I have eventually become obsessed with yoga.  I have literally worn a hole on the bottom of my big toe doing yoga.  Instead of telling people I’m limping because I had a blister that is now rubbed into a hole, I tell people I have holey feet and walk away.  I found out today that they take this as “holy” feet and are really confused.  Potato potato. (Written out, that’s really confusing too.)  What was I talking about?

If I can’t reach something from where I’m standing, instead of taking two steps forward I lean out as far as I can, center my breathing, lift one of my legs out straight, turning myself into a human T.  Making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Shylee’s lunch now takes five times longer and she just walks away saying, “Dad!  Mom’s doing that weird statue thing again.”

Shylee eventually got into it when she realized she could stay up a little bit later as long as she was doing that weird crap her mom does.  Baby Kaydance even got into helping with yoga.

Too much help!  Too much help!

In the mean time I’m trying out a new Zumba instructor tomorrow.  I’ve promised myself I won’t mention middle school dances, AIDS, ice cream, or friendship necklaces.  I’m always up for origami fortune tellers, so I refuse to rule those out.