i'm a yogi

Yesterday I had my second ever yoga class.

My first yoga class i took 12 years ago. I suffered from backache and someone suggested me to go to this Hatha yoga class. It was the heavy-duty kind where they make you stand on your head and take all kinds of impossible positions. I had told them this was my first yoga class and that i had back problems. However they didn't give me any different instructions. So i participated as the competitive me, trying to perform as good as the next guy, preferably better, best. The participants were all semi professional athletes, like ice speed skaters. Besides the standing on my head i remember one other practice where i had to spread my legs as far as possible and then touch my left ankle with my right hand and then the right ankle with my left hand.
My backpain got much worse after that experience, and in fact it proved not much later that i had a slipped disc. So i swore never ever to take yoga classes again.

After years of nagging, my dear friend - let's call her poodle- finally persuaded me to join her yoga class. After all it was less than five minutes from where i live and only costs 5 euros for an hour and a half of supreme yoga instruction! I woud be 'a thief of my own wallet' (as the expression goes here in the stingy Netherlands) no to go and being the stingy bastard that i am, i went.

As i entered the building the aroma of a bio dynamic wholesome food store entered my nostrils, a bit of a sickly, slightly offish smell. There is a raw food restaurant in the building too. Will try that next time and tell you about it.

It was a whole different setting then my previous yoga experience. The large class room was dimly lit. The smell of inscents filled the air and sitar music was softly playing. Several people were already sitting on mats, meditating. I followed suit. There were about 25 people in all. We meditated for half an hour.

The yoga instructor was Indian. Which made sense since yoga originates from India. I've seen yogi's in India aged 70+, standing for hours on one foot, while the other was on their shoulder. I saw yogi's with large heavy rocks hanging on a rope from their penises too.

The instructor - let's call him Anal- was very Indian in the way of an outspoken guru with unshakeable beliefs.

He made everyone bow for the one who created everything, to whom we owe everything and then chant his name: Om shiva hare hare, om shiva.
Anal talked a lot during class, apparantly this is due to problems with his third chakra.

He said that yoga, if done properly, could stop the ageing process and in fact turn it around and become rejuvenating. I must say that he did look quite young for his age, but undoubtedly his hair was turning grey.
He said a whole lot of things that would get a lot of laughs in the biology department of any university, except maybe the aryuvedic ones.

The excercises we did i found fairly easy. There were one or two that i couldn't do. I still feel a bit lame when i'm the only one in class who can't do an excercise, but that's my ego talking. In fourty years from now, i won't be able to do any excercise, whatsoever. Stop! there is no future, there is no past, there is only now.
Most of the participants were young, goodlooking women. Unfortunately during class i needed all my attention on the excercises and after class i didn't have time to chat up to them since i had a dinner date with some friends from high school, Dieke and Nathalie - let's call them Huey and Louie.

Today, the day after, i feel a bit stiff, some muscles ache a bit, but after some yoga excercises, im fine again. I even meditated for half an hour. Recent research has shown that regular meditation changes the brain: meditators do excercises slower, but make less mistakes.