Here’s something that’ll surprise those of you who have me pegged as a pie-eating lout: I really miss yoga.
I’ve done it on and off over the years, never got any good at it, but enjoyed the classes, particularly the bit at the end where you lie doon in the dark with a cover over you.
Once, doing something called yoga nidra, I drifted clean away to a lovely place halfway between waking and sleeping.
Yoga classes work for me
It was a one-off experience and I’ve spent many years trying to recapture it, to no avail.
Occasionally, I try yoga at home, but you need a class to stick at it. Of course, the pandemic didn’t help, but I think classes are back again.
Recently, I found one at night half-an-hour away, but I can’t drive in the dark anymore, which is frustrating for me.
The territorial thing
I always preferred doing yoga at cooncil evening classes, too, rather than turning up at a private club where everybody was already established and you faced the worry of taking someone’s “spot” on the floor.
We are all amazingly territorial when it comes to classes.
Pick a spot the first week and that’ll be yours forever, unless it happens to be the one that nobody wants but you ended up in: the one at the front right in front of the teacher with the whole class behind you.
No, it’s better to start with everybody else at the same time.
Evenings at the cooncil yoga
Disappointingly, we don’t have any cooncil evening classes where I live, which came as a big surprise when I moved here.
There have always been evening classes in other “remote” areas where I’ve lived.
As someone who otherwise doesn’t see a soul from one month to the next, a weekly evening class or two was always a godsend.
Apart from the social aspect, a class lets you focus on something.
Getting away from your daily self
The best way to get in touch with your true self is to be taken out of your daily self, away from the monkey chatter in your mind about work, weight, mortgages and relationships with friends and worse.
That’s not you. That’s a load of nonsense.
One change I noticed in yoga latterly was more men attending.
“One nutter per bus”
I used to think there must be a cooncil rule that there was only one man in every yoga class – like the “one nutter per bus” stipulation – and that man was usually me.
I was usually the nutter on the bus too.
I think women are maybe better at yoga, right enough. A bit softer.
I was always useless at forward bends, in particular, possibly because I’m barrel-shaped and my moobs, er pecs, got in the way.
But, in cooncil classes for “normies”, few of us were brilliant at it.
It’s taking part that counts
It’s the taking part, not the bending, that counts. I might explore online yoga classes. I can’t think the experience will be the same.
In the city, I always liked going for a fish supper and a couple of pints after a class.
Having spent time trying to rediscover that special cosmic place halfway between sleeping and being awake, I felt it important afterwards to stay grounded in the real world, with added salt and sauce.
