"If you do not suffer now, you will suffer the rest of your life," David hissed in my ear as I bent painfully backwards as far as my body would allow. David, the Bikram yoga instructor had been transformed the second we entered into the one hundred and twenty degree room. Outside he had been shy and unassuming, and with just about as much presence as pounds on his body. There seemed to be very few of either.
Pain coursed through my lower back and knifed its way down to my upper legs. This guy is crazy, I thought to myself. The steamy room was full of an assortment of colorful yoga mats, occupied by a mix of women so healthy that the organic food almost seeped out of their pores. As I struggled to bend backwards even half as far as the least flexible, a sixty year old woman with white hair, I hated them.
For an hour and a half the only rest that we had was a minute break between unbearable ten minute exertions. Let me state my bias now, before I get to far into this: I am extremely inflexible. Whenever I go to yoga, something I unsuccessfully try about twice a year, it feels as if a pit pull is tearing at my muscle. But this place was even crazier. Not only must you withstand the battering on every ligament in your body, but you were also expected to brave waves of nausea. If the heat became overwhelming, David could tell instantly.
"Do not leave," he would threaten. "Stay here. Push. Pain is weakness leaving the body." And then when someone would finally get up and drag themselves purposefully to the door, David would say something underhanded such as, "weakness, weakness" to make sure you knew just how pitiful you were. The whole experience irked me for months after. It was only recently that I realized what I found so threatening about yoga. It is so damn competitive. Here I am, always made guilty about the other zone I go into on the soccer field, the basketball court, and well maybe this is my friends and families real beef, on the kitchen table during game night.
There is a tacit agreement that while practicing you can throw the woman bending further over a death look, but as soon as the practice is over, you must only discuss the other women's prowess in the most glowing terms, if at all. I believe in competition to make one reach their potential, but for some reason this benign form left me bitter. I simply didn't want yoga to be competitive. Why? Why because I was the worst one of course.
Shane is so lucky, I think to myself. I have to sit in the front row, directly in front of Ms. Vicki's podium, unable to find the peace and tranquility I desperately crave at 7th period. Shane on the other hand, is three seats behind me, completely blocked out from her view by David Gaffney-Rosenfeld's hulking body. Its not so much that Ms. Vicki is boring. Ok, that's not true, it is. But I feel guilty saying so because I truly admire her.
Ms. Vicki was one of my favorite high school teachers. A short roly poly Jewish woman with pointy breasts like the nymphs from Zelda for Nintendo 64, Ms. Vicki was unimposing, but universally loved. There was just one problem, though. She had the nicest voice. Not nice in the traditional, put that voice on vinyl way. But rather nice in the your-head-snapping-down-wakes-you-up-from-your-5 second nap kind of way. For the two years that I had her, I always told myself that I was going to tape record one of the lectures so that if I ever found myself suffering through a bout of insomnia, I would have the remedy in hand. I happen to be a solid sleeper, but if I had any problems, I'm sure I would have been spurred into taking action.
So there I am in the front row, no more than 4 feet from her face, nodding off in the most typically cartoony of ways. Head lolling, eyes narrowing, face peaceful, then my head reaches the apex, and starts to plummet. My eyes burst open, my face shows my disappointment. Damn, if my head could have only reached a resting position safely, I say to myself.
I look up, and there is Ms. Vicki, continuing her monotone lecture on the importance of the Tenth Amendment. She looks at me, slightly shakes her head without breaking stride, and looks away. We've been here before, about ten times daily. She's the last teacher that I want to break down in this way, but when someone's voice is so soothing, they really should take it as a compliment shouldn't they?
Map of Antarctica