A Note From The Author: Up to this point, I have tried to keep the main thread of this blog chronologically linear while keeping each chapter focused on one particular activity. This format is not great for demonstrating that many of these activities were happening concurrently but is better when trying to keep each chapter of a serialized story self-contained. This chapter does not follow that format. This chapter is that episode of your favorite TV show that does not quite jibe with the format of the rest of the series (Breaking Bad: The Fly; Twin Peaks The Return: Episode 8), the one song on your favorite album that was written by the weird guy in the band (Sgt Pepper’s: Within You Without You; American Beauty: Operator), or the chapter of your favorite novel that reads as though the writer was on acid for just that one chapter. This chapter is The Piper At The Gates of Dawn.
It is 2009, I am in the apartment, above the bike shop, in Normal, Illinois, that I shared with three friends. One of my roommates yells, “Let’s stretch!” and we all sit on the floor stretching. It is weird, but it happens.
It is 2013, sometime between midnight and 2 a.m., and I am in my apartment in Palatine, Illinois. An On-Demand yoga for runners instructional video plays on the TV in my living room. A few months from now, I will aggravate an old injury and will use this as an excuse to go years without working out again.
It is October 24, 2014. I am at Venice Beach, and a large group of yogis are practicing in the grass, only a few hundred feet from the ocean. I walk past and think, “I wish I could do that.”
It is July 27, 2018. I am in the upper ring of The Forum in Inglewood, California, waiting for Phish to take the stage with my friend Sean. I comment on how much weight he has lost. He says he was running and doing yoga. This is the first time I hear a man talk about practicing yoga.
Shortly after I started riding my bike regularly, I went to the store and bought the most economical yoga mat and yoga for beginners DVD that I could find, and I committed myself to practicing twice a week. I have probably worked out to this video 100 times. So my first year of yoga only ran me about $13 in total.
At first, it was incredibly difficult. After only a few seconds of plank position, my entire body would shake. In Warrior II, I had difficulty keeping my arms parallel to the ground for very long, and my quads would beg me to stop. In Reclining Pigeon Pose, I was not able to clasp my hands behind my thighs. In Tree Pose… I was not able to do Tree Pose.
With a year of practice and a considerable decrease in weight and circumference, I showed incremental improvement, eventually being able to clasp my hands behind my thighs. Tree pose is still very challenging, but now there are occasionally days when my balance is fantastic.
As I stated in Chapter Four, in September of 2019, I was feeling isolated, and when I told my therapist this, he suggested that I take yoga classes, because it would get me out of my house, interacting with people who were of my ilk. (This guy loves suggesting that I take classes. A few years back, he got me to take a bluegrass guitar class. In retrospect, this was ridiculous, but now I can play Old Home Place on the guitar, so…)
In early October of 2019, I signed up for a yoga series called “Raw Beginner” at Sama Yoga in West Dundee, and the second I met the instructor, I knew I was in the right place.
He was a rather jovial middle-aged man, who (like me) had lost a considerable amount of weight, and whose enthusiasm was infectious.
The first class of the series consisted mostly of concepts and poses that I had learned from my beginner-level yoga DVD, but it did introduce me to Cat / Cow Poses. I find the DVD’s omission of these to be odd, as they were one of the first things taught, and nearly every class I have attended since has started with these.
All the classes after the first one consisted almost entirely of poses that I had never attempted.
One Thursday night in November, I showed up to what Sama’s online calendar billed as a meditation class that was to be led by a Buddhist monk. Upon entering the studio, I was “greeted” by a large dog. I love dogs, so I immediately attempt to pet this giant dog, but he was not too keen on me and started growling. This got the attention of the dog’s owner/owner of the studio (Kim), who told me that Ollie does not like men who haven’t given him treats. So she gave me a handful of dog treats, and now Ollie and I are best friends. I signed up for a month membership then and there. Hanging out with the dog is worth the price of membership — but I digress.
That night, there was only one other person who attended class. At the beginning of the class, Kim that we would need two blankets, a strap, and two bolsters. She then proceeded to turn off all of the lights. I had never meditated before, so none of this raised any red flags. After Kim guided us through some gentle yoga moves for a few minutes, and the monk had not yet shown up, I started wondering what was going on and honestly thought that she was an “opening act” and that he (a Buddhist monk) would come out after the crowd was warmed up — for meditation.
After half an hour of incredibly gentle yoga, I started to think, “I don’t think this is a meditation class at all.” Fifteen minutes later, the only other person in this class (an elderly man, also named Tom) had fallen asleep and was snoring. The sound of him snoring, coupled with me concluding that I was not in a meditation class, but was actually in a geriatric¹ class, gave me a sudden and severe case of the giggles.
As I left, Kim asked if she would see me the following week, and I said, “Maybe,” but was thinking, “No way in hell.”
I went home to check to see if the calendar was wrong or if I was wrong. It was the calendar. Upon waking up the next morning, I felt better than I had in months, so I went back the following week.
In December, I finished the Raw Beginners course, started taking all-levels classes, and upgraded my mat from the cheapest mat on Earth, to one that meets my specific needs (I sweat like you would not believe, so a mat that prevents slipping is important).
So far, the only thing I have not seen incremental improvement in is final savasana, a period of meditation/reflection while lying in a supine position. My mind does not do well with silence or reflection.
Whenever people ask for advice on how to lose weight, my best advice is always, find a physical activity you will not dread.²Â So far, that has been yoga for me. I look forward to it every week. It was for this reason that I gave my parents my old beginner-level yoga DVD, and I signed them up for the Raw Beginner course as a gift. I truly believe practicing yoga can be a life-changing thing.
¹ The next week, when I was registering, I found out that it was not a geriatric class, but a restorative class.
² I have to bite my tongue because my initial thought is always to ask if that person likes him/herself, and to tell that person to stop if he or she does. It is remarkably easy to change yourself when you hate yourself.
One Man Wrecking Machine 