Cringeasana

I’ve been waiting pretty much my entire life for a stranger with a skateboard to talk to me on the street.

Well guys, it finally happened!!!

Except, it wasn’t exactly how I dreamed it would be. Sigh. Like they say: be careful what you wish for; you just might get humiliated on the street by a pack of boys with skateboards because of your yoga mat.

So, the backstory: Reader, I have started doing yoga. It’s Bikram, aka Hot Yoga, and I’m obsessed with it. It’s sort of like a cult, but in a good way. A cult of people who have really amazing bodies, like. You tell me what’s wrong with that.

Bikram was invented by a dude named Bikram Choudhury, who is super-rich and lives in Beverly Hills and has balls made of platinum or whatever. To which I can relate, because my gonads–which are internal–are also pretty awesome. Plus, he has a Jesus complex, and seems pretty fucking creepy. We’re practically twins!

Every Bikram class is the same 90-minute sequence of the same 32 poses, or asanas, done in a room heated to 105 degrees with a humidity of 40%. (Maybe I should give this post the math tag… check out all those numbers, yo.) So basically: an hour and a half of thinking one might cry, or even possibly die. But one is a little bit of a masochist, perhaps, and one feels really great afterwards! And there’s the eventual prize of a really awesome body. So I try to go at least four times a week. And maybe someday I’ll up it to six.

Not everyone is as enthusiastic as I am about this. I speak of Lefty! She is soooooooooooooo snotty about it. Whenever she calls me and I’m not home, she sighs and goes, “You’re probably at Bikram,” in such a bratty voice.

But I get where she’s coming from. Yoga is for hippies. I know. Have you ever heard of my childhood??? My father was constantly on the floor, arching his back like a cat.

Is there anything grosser than that?

All I can say is, Bikram is different. I LOVE BIKRAM. Sometimes in my head, I call it “Biks” for short. Also, the cat pose is not one of the 26 asanas.

So, about those rangy skater boys. Over the weekend, I was walking to class with my mat under my arm. Potentially embarrassing, sure, but these are empty warehousey streets, not Bedford Avenue or something.

Except, guess what empty warehousey streets are perfect for?

There were a half dozen of them spread out over the middle of Dobbin Street. I saw them and winced. Two dudes were sitting on the curb, and I had to walk right past them.

“Hey girl,” one said.

All eyes on Pistol. Or at least it felt that way.

I forgot all about the yoga mat. Wow! I thought. He’s talking to me! And he can tell I’m a girl!

But then he was all, “Where are you going? To do yogurt?”

His buddies snickered.

AUGH.

“Yep,” I muttered, eyes on the ground. And I scurried away as quickly as my legs would carry me.

When I told Lefty about it later on, she said, “SEE? THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS. FUCKING BIKRAM.”

Not if you pay the fifty bucks it costs to store your mat at the yoga studio!

Phew!

by Pistol Whip | 27 September 2007 | hopes and dreams, haters | Comments