YOGA CLASSES

Tue, Oct 20, 2009

I am attempting to try out new things in an effort to keep myself busy and my mind calm. Somebody suggested that I go along with them to Salsa dancing lessons but it’s just not my thing – it’s meant to be a sure fire way to meet a man – but I don’t want to go out with a man that does Salsa dancing in his spare time. It would just be strange. Imagine – at the weekend we’d have to go off to nightclubs and dance about and I’d have to buy a whole new wardrobe of sparkly swishy dresses.

So. Anyway. I’m doing some yoga. My friend is teaching the class. She and I met when our first born son’s were at nursery and we’ve been friends ever since. We set up a flower business year’s ago although I don’t really remember actually selling anything. We certainly didn’t make any money. We used to go to the Covent Garden Flower Market at 5am in the morning with my daughter – who was almost newborn and wander around in a daze drinking tea and being amazed at all the life and colour and vibrancy you could find at that ungodly hour of the morning.

Because I then moved to Aberdeen (not by myself you understand – with my husband and two children) we’ve both subsequently retrained and she is now a fully fledged, ridiculously strong, bendy, yoga teacher. She goes on retreats and has been to Goa several times and has clearly managed to learn a new language – all those “chakras” and “ashtangas” and “vinyasas” she’s throwing into the conversation left right and centre. I have no idea what she is talking about.

I went with a friend yesterday morning to her new class and took my daughter too (I managed to persuade her to get out of bed before midday whoohoo!!). She is now nearly 14 and has never done yoga before. Unfortunately I can’t seem to upload the pictures I took which is a shame because she was like a baby giraffe during most of the poses – legs far too long and unstable and nowhere near the ground.

Here is my friend doing one of the poses properly:-

I was attempting to do something similar (only it didn’t look anything like the above) and what a strange moment it was to look through my legs at my now fully grown daughter behind me.

It was like my birthing moment all over again, only much scarier because she’s now taller than me with bigger boobs and lovely though it was to have a fleeting moment of being in huge pain nearly 14 years ago, I thanked whoever there was to thank that I wasn’t a female giraffe who would have had to give birth to something that size and start doing yoga immediately.

We all enjoyed the class hugely. Even my daughter enjoyed it – especially the bit at the end when we were given blankets and could just relax for 5 minutes. Lovely.