Yoga-ish

My experience at yoga tonight. Here's the play-by-play of what goes on in my over-active brain that refuses to shut the hell off...

Rush, rush, rush. I'm going to be late for yoga! Shit, I better stress myself out to get there on time because who wants to walk into a yoga class late for Christ's sake? Stress, flip off the lady that just cut me off, stress, stress in order to relax, unwind, and let go. Oxymoronic, no?

Walk in. Everybody's already stretching and they all look so damn peaceful and superior. Who's this chick that's walking in late? Doesn't she realize that she's disturbing my chi? Give me a fucking break. I pay fees at this gym, so the way I see it I pay to be late.

OK, I've got my mat unrolled. Look up at the instructor...What am I supposed to be doing? Downward dog, oh. Gotcha. Downward dog, check. Switching to child's pose, OK. When does the real yoga start? This warm up crap is nice and all but it's not going to make me look good in the new bikinis I bought for Italy. Let's get this going lady, come on. Picking up the pace a bit, this is better. Oh, that girl's doing it better than me. I need to lower my warrior pose so that I've got the best damn warrior pose in here. I'm not going to let some chubby girl beat me. Ha. Mine's better, my quads and hamstrings are obviously much stronger than yours (I'm uber-competitive if you can't tell. People don't even have to know that they're competing with me, that's irrelevant because I've already turned it into a competition without their knowledge.).

What the hell are we listening to? I came here to relax and zone out while simultaneously getting a work out in (multi-tasking at its best), not listen to your shitty music that is totally not conducive to either relaxing or zoning out.

This random stream of consciousness continues for some time...

Then we come to the cool down.

What?!? It's already over? I haven't relaxed yet! I didn't zone out and clear my mind yet! And worst of all, I didn't get a decent sweat going!

Instructor (in the kind of voice you imagine every yoga instructor having, zen-like to the point of cheesiness): "Let your legs fall down, straighten your knees. Allow your palms to face up towards the sky, open them. Relax your jaw, relax your brow, relax your body. Let everything slip away."

Me: "Yeah, let me 'relax' my entire body. Let me do just that. If I could, I wouldn't be here lady. The guy next to me can, he's almost asleep. What's wrong with me? Oh, it's raining outside. I should go running in the rain instead of on the treadmill. I like running in the rain."

Instructor: "Begin to let consciousness come back to you. Let awareness slowly come back."

Me: "What the hell are you talking about? 'Let awareness come back'? It was never gone!"

Instructor: "Slowly wiggle your toes."

My toes spasm like the love child of ADHD and schizophrenia.

Instructor: "Open your palms slowly, one finger at a time."

My hand SNAPS open. Then shuts. Like the jaws of a venus fly trap (Tangent: Whenever I think of this plant I think of my brother because he used to have one and love them.).

Instructor: "Rotate your ankles slowly in one direction, then the other. Now rotate your wrists in one direction, then the other."

Me: "Ohmygodjustletmeup!"

Namaste. Yoga's over. I then make my way upstairs to the treadmill for my run and finally get some peace and quiet while paying attention to nothing but the sweat making trails on my forehead, falling to oblivion and being spit out on the back of the treadmill, and the pounding of my feet on the track as I run to the beat of the music streaming through my headphones, taking the direct route to my brain and bodily forcing everything else out. Maybe I don't need yoga. Maybe my brain and body need a more active release. I'll probably still go to yoga though.

A peek into my mind. Not sure how this is a universally acknowledged truth...just one of my truths.