breathe in breathe out

My daughter in law and her twin sister do yoga.  My daughter and law and her twin sister combined have a smaller waistline than my upper left thigh.  My daughter in law and her twin sister unknowingly have inspired me to try my hand (and foot and core) at yoga.

Before I ventured into yoga I decided to try my hand at meditation.  I envisioned myself learning to relax and ultimately finding my third eye.  Having no yoga mat I grabbed my dog’s bed and positioned myself in a cross legged seated position which when I was a kid was called the Indian position.   I couldn’t do it then, I can’t do it now.  I sat with my legs as close as my inner thighs would allow.  My back protested and promised to punish me tomorrow, but I was determined to get this right.  My hands in a prayer like stance, I practiced the breathing technique, in out…ok nothing new here, I can do this!  Oh wait, it was in through the nose and out of the mouth.  As I tried to slip into that relaxed meditated state I was so desperate to obtain,  I kept nervously thinking I wasn’t breathing right.  I was focusing on opening my mouth at the right time, inhaling and exhaling with some kind of rhythm but eventually I just ended up holding my breath.  That euphoric feeling wasn’t my third eye surfacing, it was oxygen depravation and passing out.   Before I keeled over,  my dog realized I had his bed and came bounding over and sat on my kinda-crossed legs causing my left ankle to impale my right calf.  OK go ahead, I’ll wait….got the visual…hey I said they were kinda crossed!

I repositioned myself on the rug, got into a more comfortable position and began breathing again, this time getting the in and out right. I was clearing my mind, quieting the voices in my head and then I thought….what am I making for dinner? I shook it off and as instructed concentrated on the sounds of my breath and then I thought….is Mob Wives on tonight? Once again I re-grouped and then I thought….I really have to pee. So much for meditation…I will just move along to yoga. My daughter in law and her twin sister will never know I quit before my third eye or chakra showed up.

I was going to buy ‘how to’ yoga videos but that made no sense since I am sure this yoga thing would pass like every other physical activity I have endeavored to master in recent years. I found some fascinating videos on you tube and planted myself on the rug once again, this time equipped with a lap top of instructions. First… lay on your back….ok can’t see lap top anymore but I can still hear the instructions. Feel your abdomen…FEEL? Even laying down I can SEE my abdomen! Pull your right knee up towards your chin pressing your thigh into your abdomen. Ummmm…ok This stretches your lower back or in my case crushes the lungs and inhibits the ability to breathe. Did I mention the size of my thighs? Beginner yoga, as I soon learned, is nothing more than stretching parts of your body that normally don’t get stretched unless you inadvertently fall down a flight of stairs, which is how I felt after I completed my first video. I am pretty sure I haven’t moved my body parts even an iota of the amount the thin, tan, toned girl in the video has. Lesson two has the rabbit pose, the camel pose and the cobra pose none of which sounds like something a human body should be aspiring to achieve. I have learned there is advanced yoga, weight loss yoga, yoga for men and even chair yoga. There is yoga for runners, for couples and even for pregnant women…there doesn’t seem to one for an overweight indolent who has a daughter in law with a twin sister.