That’s when I decided I needed to join Core Power Yoga.
I should have known that with words like “core” and “power” in the title, it was something I was going to struggle with. But I attended my first class with an open mind.
After all, I was the captain of my basketball team – surely I could do this.
The kind of yoga I was starting calls for the room to be hot. And it was. 103 degrees, to be exact.
Driving there that morning I had thought that maybe I could meet cute (and limber) men in class.
In retrospect, I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m of Norwegian descent and we Norsks only look good at temperatures below 60 degrees.
As soon as I opened the door to class and the hot air hit me in the face, hopes of attracting anyone of the opposite gender went out the window along with my dignity.
I set up my mat and glanced around at the people in the room. My eyes settled on a man to my right.
Immediately, I knew I wouldn’t like him.
He was wearing short-shorts and no shirt and was lying on his mat in a meditative state that seemed to say, “all you other jokers think you can do yoga, but check out my rock hard abs and my perfect meditation skills!”
I tried to focus as the instructor walked in. I told myself I didn’t need to prove anything to this man. WHO CARES.
The yoga instructor smiled at all of us but gave a special wink to the man in the corner.
Hi, Kevin.
She smiled at him like they had history.
I seethed. Didn’t he know that I had a monopoly on being the teacher’s pet in elementary school? That was my territory!
The class began with simple breathing and some basic downward dogs. As the music sped up so did our movements.
I started to sweat so much it was getting in my eyes. My hands started slipping all over the mat and I glanced over at Kevin.
He was fine. Perfect, actually.
The instructor looked over at him during a particularly hard movement and beamed.
Excellent, Kevin.
I grimaced and twisted deeper.
“NOTICE ME!! I can do it too!” the frizzy-haired, big glasses, third grader inside of me shouted.
Finally the instructor asked us to prepare for “crane pose.” Which is this:
At this point I was so sweaty my yoga pants were bunching in inappropriate places. My hair was a mess of tangles and, because of the intense heat, hives had started to creep up my neck and onto my face.
But I could not let Kevin beat me.
I prepared for the position.
And it was hard.
Like – really hard.
As much as I tried, I could not get my feet to rise even an inch off the ground. My elbows slipped off my knees and all I could manage was to squat there with all of my limbs on the mat, as if I was preparing for a serious game of leapfrog.
I stole a glance at Kevin.
Not only was he doing a perfect crane pose, but he was also beginning to raise his legs even higher. I watched from my frog position as his legs came all the way up over his head with the help of ONLY HIS UPPER BODY and into a perfect, beautiful handstand.
The teacher noticed too.
BEAUTIFUL, KEVIN!
It took all my restraint not to swipe Kevin’s hands out from under him with my sweaty feet.
By the end of class I couldn’t tell if the sweat that was now dripping into my ears was from yoga or my frustration that I couldn’t do what Kevin could do.
But when the instructor told us all that she hoped we took something positive and meaningful from class, I paused.
What was I here for again?
It was not (as it turns out) to be competitive.
It was not to prove to anyone that I was strong or flexible or could do a complete hand stand from crane position.
No. It was to improve myself.
It was to let myself have one hour where I could just focus on me.
And it didn’t matter that I was not good at yoga. It didn’t matter that Kevin was a million times better than me.
It didn’t matter because…it just didn’t.
And during the next class I focused on me. I didn’t even look at Kevin once.
…Okay…
Once.
BUT HE CAN RISE FROM CRANE POSITION TO A FULL HAND STAND!
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