At one time, I ran a blog called Fitterverse: A universe of fitness. This post originally appeared there. Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I’ve been able to recapture the text. I’ve published them here on their original publication dates.
I was all ready to take Aqua Fit this week. Knew the schedule, it was on my rest day from lifting, and I figured it would be easy.
That didn’t happen. I got a horrid cold and wasn’t going anywhere on the night of the Aqua Fit class. Since I’m riding the bleeding edge of content creation, I had to get in another class before this post was due.
All there was available to me was yoga. I was afraid – determined, but afraid.
Why the fear? Well, my girlfriend is a practiced yogi. She’s been practicing for years, and has recently become more serious, taking on Ashtanga, which is difficult stuff. A few years back she tried to get me to try it. I’m pretty open-minded, so I figured I’d give it a go. She threw Power Yoga with Rodney Yee into the DVD player, and off we went.
I lasted 15 minutes. I think it was when Rodney said something like “Now, take your left leg and bend it backwards and up until your big toe is in your nostril” that finished me off. That and the guy changed positions at Mach 5. I was just getting my toe headed towards my nose and he’s done three more positions.
I had already decided yoga wasn’t for me. I approached this class with serious trepidation. It’s one thing to make a fool of your inflexible self in the privacy and comfort of your own home. I was going to do so in a public gym.
It didn’t help when I got there, I noticed a young man in street clothes stretching in preparation for this class. I’ve seen rubber bands that weren’t as flexible as this guy. He was sitting in a full split, back very straight, with his chest on the floor. He stood up, bent at the waist, and put his hands, palm down, flat on the floor – about a foot behind him. At that point I nearly left, thinking this was going to be Yee all over again. I didn’t want to disappoint my readers, so I stuck it out.
The Zumba class before us let out, and we got in. I spread my girlfriend’s yoga mat on the floor on top of a rubber gym mat. The aforementioned young guy came in and started talking to the Zumba instructor. He then popped a CD in the stereo, and laid out a mat in the front of the room. He was the instructor.
I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not. I was having visions of Yee all over again. That, and he was still in street clothes – loose corduroys and a T-shirt.
There were all of 6 of us in the class. I was the only guy, but not the only beginner. I shared that honor with a 60-ish Asian woman sitting near me. Most everyone else in the class was relatively new, so the instructor said we would have a “light” class.
Without going into great depth on every move, here was my impression. We did a lot of “down dog.” There were one or two positions where he left us there to the point my arms were shaking from the strain. I looked at the clock at one point and discovered we were only halfway through and started to dread the next half hour. The second half was over before I knew it.
Strength training helped in some places, particularly some of the balance poses that required serious arm strength. My lack of flexibility was a definite downside. It didn’t keep me from doing anything, just not to the extent that others in the room were.
Would I do it again? No, probably not, but there’s a caveat. I wouldn’t choose to do it again, but…
- I didn’t absolutely abhor it, it just wasn’t interesting for me
- I definitely saw the benefit of it to both strength and flexibility
- I wouldn’t be afraid to do it again, I just am not interested