posing

On Thursday, I took a yoga class.

I like yoga, sometimes, as long as it doesn't stray too far into the pseudo-spiritual realm where people think that clogging the room with incense and chanting will somehow make you feel not only good, but miraculous. Enlightened. I like exercise that makes you focus your brain in your body. I like it when you have to think really hard about what you're doing and not much else. It's a relief. I get that.

What I don't understand is when people gush about how relaxing yoga is, how energizing, how serene and centered and peaceful it makes them feel. Every time that I've taken a decent yoga class, I emerge spectacularly exhausted. It's like all these alien muscles are forced to quiver for ninety minutes and then they barely have the strength to prevent me from falling on my nose when I roll up my mat. My shoulders think that I dropped a brick on them, multiple times. My hamstrings feel like they got stretched away from their bones, and then let go so they smacked their dear little selves into them.

This doesn't make me dislike yoga. Getting sore fools me into thinking I'm accomplishing something.

It does, however, make me wonder if I am doing something wrong when I'm teetering in some pose with a thrillingly polysyllabic name, dripping sweat everywhere, and pondering whether I might just not make it through this one, if my muscles might actually all fail at once and throw me on the floor.