An Unnatural Position

Okay people….minds out of the gutter. We’re talking about yoga here….at least, I’m pretty sure it’s yoga.

I’ll have to check my channel guide to be sure. I am truly amazed by the stuff you can find on teevee these days. A very good friend of mine (it’s Jackie) showed me months and months ago how our cable provider had workout videos just sitting there…free for the asking…if only I can remember what channel they’re on. Once I found the channel, I had to look under “freebies” and then I was lost again. For the life of me, I could not find these videos. The logical thing to do would have been to call Jackie, but I’m nothing if not tenacious…and admittedly, somewhat stubborn as well. I was going to do this ON MY OWN. All by MYSELF. (Said with the foot stomp of a petulant two-year–old)

They’d artfully hidden it under “Sportskool”. What would have made me think to look THERE? Ultimately, with no other options left, I clicked. There I found a virtual plethora of choices:

• Abdominal strengthening (Otherwise known as “If you can’t close your pants anymore, you’re in the right place.”)
• Knee/Hip Pain (“Whipper-Snappers Not Welcome.”)
• Ultimate Guys Workout (“A place where men can be manly men and learn how to burp the alphabet; balance a full mug of beer, a bowl of pretzels, walk and ogle some woman without spilling; and how to surreptitiously rearrange oneself whilst in a four star restaurant.”)
• Yoga for golfers (You cannot make this crap up. Seriously.)

And finally, my favorite:

• FLEX. (Defined as “regenerate your body and recover from exercise.”) 29 minutes. Can't I just omit the workout, hit the mall, grab a bite to eat, park my car really far away from the stores and have the end result be the same? I'll "recover from the exercise" on the way home in the car, dinking my smoothie and chomping down on my cinnamon/sugar pretzel from Auntie Annie's…yum.

Okay, FINE. So, here’s the thing. I’m at a great weight (due to the unhealthy fact that I’m basically too stressed to eat very much) but I’m not toned, probably because I’m not 25 years old anymore. Are you shocked? Welcome to my mirror.

Anyway, I’ve been saying for the last few months that “if I could just tone up, I’d be in pretty good shape”. (I think what I actually said to Jackie was “I’d better start exercising if I want to make it through another year without catching another cold and almost dying. Remember? The one that almost killed me? The phlem? The sneezing? Me sounding like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer when his dad put the fake black nose over his red one? Remember?? ("Id's nob bewy comfable!") I do believe her only response was, 'Well doll, if you worked out every now and then, your resistance might be a bit higher' or, something to that effect. I know she said it with love, but geez. At least she was smiling when she said it, probably 'cause she was remembering Rudolph and comparing his red nose to mine.

So, I decided to start with the “Ab Strenthening”. I figured “How hard can it be? I’ve seen the actress who plays Charlie’s mother on Two and a Half Men doing something called ‘downward-facing dog’, and she’s WAY older than I…

…so surely I can do THIS.”

Okay, so it’s a little harder than I'd thought. Within the first five minutes, the host basically informed me that I’ve been breathing incorrectly since the age of 3. The next ten minutes were spent re-teaching me how to breathe properly…then she got into the heavy stuff. She sat me in the lotus position and then reprimanded me for not sitting up straight. (I believe she suggested I pretend I had a spikey steel rod stuck down the back of my tank top, pressing against my spine to keep it straight. My thoughts ran towards somewhere else she could put that spiky, shiny, steel rod. Grrrrrrr.) And, how did she know I wasn't sitting ramrod straight, anyway? Unless everyone's in the sitting-question-mark position...and then maybe there should have been another option under Sportskool called "How to stand STRAIGHT so you're not always looking at the floor and your shoulders aren't so hunched that your 'ta-tas' have met up with your abs and are leaving smiling-face-marks there from the underwire in your bra." (Of course, this would just be for us gals....I'll leave the guys alone....for now.)

Then the REAL WORKOUT began. She had me folded in more positions than a cloth napkin at Daniel.
Not only was she assuming positions that seemed anatomically impossible, but she was talking whilst doing them...a feat I found downright impressive, awe-inspiring, infuiriating.

She was SO showing off.

I did my best…really. I found some semblance of the positions she assumed…not always so easy when you can’t take your eyes off the teevee (mounted a good four feet up the wall), lest you inaccurately parrot her practiced movements and punctured a lung, or something.

I almost didn’t start it at all, after seeing this disclaimer prominently displayed:

Sportskool is not liable for any injury or accident befalling any viewers of this programming.

So, in conclusion....

...Yoga may/may not be for me. Starting with this particular torture "workout", may not have been for me. Maybe I'm just one of those people who can get away with telling my doctor that I have "an active lifestyle"....

Or, maybe I've got to try again tomorrow. Right now, I'm in the mood for one of those pretzels....