Skip to main content

Getting Over the Stereotype and Giving Yoga a Go

My head fills with blood, pumping in a rapid thud, thud in my ears.  My shoulders and wrists ache, my hands are slipping toward the front of my mat, and my hamstrings refuse to budge further as I attempt to 'ground my heels'.  The bead of sweat that slipped down between my breasts during an earlier pose is now creeping back up my sternum, sliding past my throat and up behind my ear into my hair.  All I can think is how much longer, how many more breaths, oh right, breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth, breathe into the pose and try to relax because the next one will probably kill us.

"Don't forget to relax your jaw."  The tall, handsome yoga teacher's big paddle feet go past the edge of my visual field.  I try to remain in the moment but I can't help cracking a grin.  He's been telling us to relax our jaws periodically throughout this class and every time I react internally like a 13 year old boy.  Same deal when he has us open our hips in 'contented baby' and I look down at him through my wide-spread thighs.  I think I should only take classes from women from now on.

It may sound like a lie based on my behavior during this most recent class, but I love yoga because it forces me to stop thinking so damn much; I especially love the way it stops my body-thought process in its tracks and forces it to go in another direction.  When my quads are screaming out for 'child's pose' (or, as today's teacher called it, 'warrior four') and my arms are shaking in 'downward dog' it's hard for me to think about what anyone else is seeing of my body – I'm too busy feeling every inch of myself to focus on anything but breathing through the poses and surviving the hour and a half.

Plus, despite the pervasive stereotype of 'yoga girls' as being society's physical ideal, the people who surround me during any given class are all over the spectrum – from ripped young dudes so flexible it's almost a waste if they're straight, to slender older women in Lululemon (ick), to pregnant ladies in sweats, and, yes, there are also plenty of young hot babes with great asses...  I'm not the average size of my classmates, but neither am I a beginner-fatty monster.  And even the women who do seem to fit the stereotype at first glance are usually less two-dimensional than they look, like the beautiful lady who chatted to my friend Julia and me before class the other day, and whose hairy armpits surprised me later, popping out from her chic yoga top when we all went into 'warrior one'.  You never know, is all I'm saying!

Mostly, though, what I love about yoga is how little the other people matter.  Although I do take note of the people around me periodically (although I look at them less and less as I learn more of the names of poses and don't need as much guidance!), mostly I'm focused on myself, on being present and mindful and pushing my body in a healthy way.  And by the end of the hour I can feel a noticeable difference in my flexibility and strength, not to mention my mood.

There are a lot of exercise fads that I think are ridiculous; usually in my mind the most ridiculous ones are those that center around competitive weight loss or other visual goals rather than something personal, a challenge from yourself to yourself to be stronger, calmer, more flexible.  I like pushing myself to make invisible changes, differences I'll notice in myself and feel great about, rather than setting a visual goal I may never be able to force my body to meet.  To each his own, but for me that kind of exercise is dangerous, because it puts me in an obsessive, negative-motivation frame of mind.  Yoga does the opposite, and for that reason I think I'll stick with it.

PS Good pants make all the difference.  I am loving these Athleta ones (and so are some of the dudes in the Financial District, if my walk to class the other day is any indication).  Plus, they're not made by Lululemon, so you don't have to hate yourself for supporting the company founded by this douchenose.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Do fat women have it worse than fat men?

I've always said that being fat is harder on women than it is on men.  Not only is there a lot more societal pressure to be stick thin rather than just healthy, which men don't seem to get, but it's a lot harder to be seen as physically attractive if you're even ten or fifteen pounds overweight. Anyway, it seems I'm not the only one thinking these things.  There's an article in the NYTimes today about overweight and obese women doing worse than men financially, an interesting angle on the effects of obesity, and in it they say: Why doesn’t body size affect men’s attainment as much as women’s? One explanation is that overweight girls are more stigmatized and isolated in high school compared with overweight boys. Other studies have shown that body size is one of the primary ways Americans judge female — but not male — attractiveness. We also know that the social stigma associated with obesity is strongest during adolescence. So perhaps teachers and pee...

Memo to medical professionals: the 'weight' issue

I have a bone to pick with the medical community, although it's probably well hidden beneath layers of fat. Yes, I'm talking about the way that doctors and medical professionals deal with weight. A few months ago, I asked my friend if she liked her 'lady doctor,' because I needed to go in for my annual check-up and I don't have a doctor in SF. Her response was something along the lines of "yeah, I like her because she doesn't talk a lot. I mean, except to tell me to lose weight." At this point, she shrugged, as if this is par for the course. For the record, this friend, while not slender, weighs less than I do. So I went online to Yelp (otherwise known as the bible), and I chose a doctor who gets rave reviews. He's a man, unfortunately, but I figured I should just suck it up and give him a try. And I liked him, mostly. The only thing he did that bothered me was that he talked a little too much. Oh yeah, and that he kept slipping in comment...

I'm melting, meeeeeeeeeeelting!

Just a quickie: As a rule, I try not to blame society for all my self-loathing and such, because 'society' is such an undefinable, intangible entity, and plus I don't want to be a cliche. But the fact that I've spent the past 5 years HATING Ugg boots and the last 5 weeks cruising for them online tells me that something is leaking into my brain through the cracks between lobes and INFILTRATING. It's sick. For the record, I refuse to spend $300 on a pair of heinous sheepskin sacks. So I bought the £15 knockoffs.