Wine and Yoga
When a friend recently suggested we go to a wine and yoga class, I readily agreed, thinking that my love for this friend and enjoyment of wine would more than offset the bad blood between me and yoga. I was wrong.
I knew we were off to a bad start when I arrived and everyone but me had a yoga mat. It hadn’t even occurred to me to bring a yoga mat. I don’t own one, given the whole bad blood thing, but still. It’s not like me to go anywhere unprepared. Luckily — or unluckily — the teacher arrived a short while later and had an extra mat.
She also had several bottles of wine and poured us each a small glass. I noticed that her bigger glass was filled nearly to the top and almost jokingly (okay, half-jokingly) complained, but that didn’t seem very yogi like. Besides, the wine was too sweet for me.
To begin class, the instructor asked us to sit on our mats and hold our wine in our hands. We were going to practice mindfulness. Everyone around me sat and comfortably crossed their legs. I now know this position is called Sukhasana, or comfortable pose. It should be relabeled “comfortable for everyone but Jeannette pose.”
You see, I can’t really sit cross-legged. My hips and legs won’t bend that way. I like to blame this on the fact that, as a child, I sat the opposite of cross-legged, with my legs in outward facing Vs, a position a physical therapist has since told me is discouraged in young children today.
So, while everyone else was becoming Zen and mindful, I was uncomfortably trying to figure out what to do with my legs. When I tried to cross them, my knees pointed to the ceiling, and my hips hurt. I ended up sitting with my legs straight out in front of me.
My friend sat next to me in perfect Sukhasana pose. I wanted to make a joke about my embarrassing inability to sit crisscross applesauce, but I knew that wouldn’t be very yogi like either. So, I kept my mouth shut and tried to remember to breathe.
After what seemed a lifetime but was probably only five minutes, the instructor told us to take a mindful sip of our wine. Having had a taste of what the next hour or so was going to be like, I wanted to guzzle my small cup, sweetness be damned. But I also wanted to be able to correctly do at least one thing she asked that night, so I took a mindful sip.
I then put my cup down a good distance away from me so that I wouldn’t knock it over during the class. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I could foresee I was going to get.
We spent the next 50 minutes going through a variety of poses, most of which I could only very roughly approximate. The instructor walked around helping all of us. She preached that we were all different and should respect our own abilities. Still, I couldn’t help apologizing when she came to help me into yet another position, pillow and bolster in hand.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m really inflexible.”
“No,” she said. “You’re very flexible.”
I immediately thought of her very full glass of wine and almost laughed out loud. But again, not very yogi-like, so I kept it in.
Finally, we approached the end of the class. In my few run-ins with yoga, this has always been my favorite part of class. It’s not just that I know my torture session is almost over. It’s that the corpse pose is something I can easily do, and I really need those five minutes of relaxation to release the tension I’ve built up over the previous 55 minutes.
After we finished, the teacher told us about other classes she offered. I smiled, but I won’t be going back. I know I need to stretch, but I need a yoga for dummies, or at least a yoga for stiffs class.
On the bright side, I got to spend time with my friend and discover that I sometimes enjoy sweet wine. I also got to stretch my tight runner’s hips. And I didn’t pull a muscle like I did when I braved a yoga class six months ago. Those are all wins in my book.
Namaste.
