Oh, how I miss evening classes. They were a useful social crutch, something to get me oot the house, while exercising my body or brain.
I’ve done yoga on and off for yonks. Never got good at it, but it helped me loosen off and relax.
I always liked the bit at the end where the lights went off and we all lay under a blanket – separately! – and drifted off.
Once, I swear I got half-way to ooter space. It was during something called yoga nidra, where you scan your body up and doon, and end up somehow in a state half-way between being awake and asleep.
Oh, what a feeling
As I don’t enjoy being awake, and don’t have a scoobie what’s going on when I’m asleep, this was ideal for me.
I’ve never really recaptured that feeling, despite trying it at home frequently. I’d love to experience it again: floating aboot in the universe, ken?
I also did pilates, which was like yoga, certainly in the sense that I’d usually be the only man in the class.
I think that has changed now, but I never really let it bother me anyway, as long as I could drink beer, play football and botch up some DIY to make me feel manly again.
Meditation: tried that for one session, but found the format awkward.
You’d to tell the class what had come into your mind while doing it, and it was always embarrassing when I had to say: “Chips” or “Bathroom repairs”.
I also gave tai chi a go a couple of times but was never comfortable with the so-called martial side of it.
‘Knee the opponent in the heid’
You’d have a sequence of slow moves with pleasant names like “Cloud hands” or “Strum the lute”. Then the next one would be “Knee the opponent in the heid.”
I used to see old ladies doing this, believing they were now a senescent version of Bruce Lee.
Recently, I started re-learning tai chi off videos, but kept speeding them up to get on with it.
On the brainier side of evening classes, I suppose I mean languages, in my case Latin and Norwegian.
The trouble with Latin
Altogether, I’ve spent four years studying Latin and still can’t translate a word.
I first learned it at school, then forgot it, then did a couple of classes at it, and forgot it again each time.
I really do it out of fealty to my old Latin teacher, Donald McLaren, who was a lovely man, and I enjoy all the associated learning about ancient Rome.
But, rather like yoga and pilates, the benefits only last for the duration of class (at yoga, we’d all be slouching again as soon as we got to the car park afterwards).
Meeting actual Norwegians
Norwegian was the same. Not that it made you slouch, but in the sense that you seemed competent in class then forgot it all afterwards.
I remember when we’d all thought we were doing well, and the teacher took us to meet some actual Norwegians. We’d no idea what they were on about.
Covid put the kibosh on many classes, and there’s hardly anything where I live anyway.
But I hope to get back to them some day, preferably to something that doesn’t involve kneeing people in the heid.
