I settle on my mat and arrange my limbs, shoulders down, arms out, palms up, legs apart, toes out -- you get the idea. The room is deliciously hot, around 38 degrees C, but my mat spent the day in the trunk of my car at -14 C, so the contrast is like a cold Bud lite after mowing the lawn.
My mind wanders, slowly divesting itself of all the miscellaneous flotsam left over from a hellish shift at the hospital. Suddenly Angela's melodious voice interrupts my snoring. Surreptitiously wiping drool off the side of my face, I flip over into child's pose and get ready to gift my body with 90 minutes of love.
As my hips soar up into the first down dog of the day, my feet start to scream at me, "What the bloody hell are you doing? We just spent eight hours running around like a chicken with its head cut off on a cement floor. And in case you haven't noticed - you're heavy!" I concentrate on my breathing and try to ignore them. Inhale. "This bloody hurts," whimpers Righty. Exhale. "You're not heavy - you're FAT" screams Lefty in desperation - if logic won't work perhaps insult will.
Soon extremely loud breathing drowns out my feet. I'd love to say it was the skinny, flexible chick next to me huffing and puffing like the Big Bad Wolf with his eye on some pork chops, but, alas, her breathing was barely above a whisper - so you know who that leaves sounding like a ten pack a day smoker trying to tie her shoes.
I rise up into warrior pose. I feel powerful as my shoulder blades slide down my back, my chest expands and I glance imperiously at the mirror. That's when my thighs decide to speak up, sounding suspiciously like a couple of second rate mobster enforcers. "How'se about you stop right now or yer kneecaps are gonna have a nasty accident."
Angela, the masochistic dominatrix, I mean the gently encouraging yoga goddess, starts us on our thousandth flow. She makes it sound so fluid and relaxing, "Inhale forward, exhale down to hover, inhale to up dog, exhale back to down dog and relax here." In my version of the English language, down dog and relax never co-exist in the same sentence.
At this point my shoulders, the Valley Girls of my body, join the symphony of screams. "Like, hello! This is so totally wrong. Aren't you, like, listening here? What part of 'upside down is just wrong' don't you understand? We're having a great time - NOT!!!"
In a moment of sheer craziness, the Darling Marquis de Sade decides we should all just lift up into side crow:
which gets all my body parts screaming in unison, "We are unanimous in this - you want us to put what, where?? Get out of this freaking fantasy world and get bloody real." This is, of course, quite a crushing blow to my fragile ego as everyone else in the room instantly folds up like walking origami sculptures.
Finally we come to the end of the class and everyone relaxes (or collapses in my case)into final Savasana. My heartbeat slows down to jack hammer speed and every single muscle does a simultaneous imitation of melting ice cream. Angela is yammering on, some blithering diatribe about how wonderful we've been and how we owe it to ourselves to relax here and let our bodies absorb all the benefits of our hard work, blah, blah, blah.
However, my symphony of screams is finally silenced and a new symphony of sumptuous sighs starts as my muscles spill spaghetti like onto my mat. I listen carefully for any complaints, but as sweet surrender soaks into my soul all I hear are some gentle whispers.
"Thank you," from Righty and Lefty.
"That was, like, totally, like, incredible."
"How'se about we make a deal - you do this again next week, no body gets hurt."
My body feels like a wet dishrag and it even hurts to move my cheeks (both sets), but I manage a small smile for the lovely Angela, "See you next week!"
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