"So what do you do exactly?"
She describes it. The thing is the ecstasy in her voice doesn't match up with the words coming out her mouth. She tells me how you stay on this rubber mat for sixty minutes in a room that is 115 degrees while putting yourself in painful positions…oh, and you aren't allowed to leave. In other words: torture. But her voice is so enthusiastic. "You just have to try it. Promise me."
"OK," I promised.
So I go on line to see what hot yoga looks like. Here is what I saw:
Oh boy.
Over Christmas my father-in-law showed me this famous illustration of what the slave ships looked like for the Africans who were transported across the ocean. You probably have seen it. Here it is.
Now, please don't hear me say that these yoga peeps have it as bad as the slaves did. Hot yoga's only an hour or so, and they choose to be there (unless they are dragged there by their wives, not that I'm speaking from experience or anything).
So last Sunday I get dragged. The room is packed. It's hotter than the tarmac in Dubai. The girl two rubber mats away is touching the back of her head with her toes. This guy strips down to his Speedo. I turn to Lia, and I tell her I'm out of here.
She says, "Relax."
Relax. Right. My heart's racing. I can hardly breathe. There is so much stretchy clothing around me. I'm freaking out. The instructor says that the max for the room is 70. We are at 74, not that I am counting. There is definitely not enough oxygen for 74 of us, I think to myself. I panic. I tell Lia that I'm leaving. The instructor shuts the door. She says that whatever you do the one thing you cannot do is leave. I tell Lia I'm leaving anyway. She gives me the trust-me look, or it might have been the do-not-let-me-down look, I can't tell with the sweat blurring my vision.
I'm just saying.
Somehow, I stayed. I survived. I didn't pass out. It was…a miracle.
Lia says, "It will be better next week."
NEXT WEEK!
Thank God I promised Hugh I'd run with him.
I have a week to come up with another excuse. Any ideas?
2 comments:
Funny stuff! Regular yoga is awkward enough. I've done it once and being the only guy in the room, the instructor thanked me for "trying" at the end, which was a form of pity.
I want to read "Clay" but do not have a Kindle here. Can I get it on an Ipad?
Dear Davis,
if you have the Kindle App you can definitely read it on the iPad. The iBook version is in the process of getting approved. And it is taking a long time for some reason. So I would go through the Kindle App for the time being.
Ned
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