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Yoga, Day 1
by Dawn Mundy
Today was the day. I was going to do it. I had free time and nothing urgent to do – unless you counted the piled up dishes in the sink, the piled up laundry in the bedrooms, and the piled up dust bunnies staging a coup in the hallway. I don’t like counting, so instead I got out my dust covered yoga DVD. Time for some exercise, some breathing, something healthy for my sagging mind and body.
My oldest daughter, Asia, was in school, my hubby Rick was napping, and my youngest daughter, Harper, was playing a computer game. No one would bug me, and I could breathe and relax in peace. I popped in the DVD, selected the workout I wanted, and waited on my fleshy purple yoga mat. Peaceful music wafted out. Breathtaking desert vistas soothed my eyes. Then Denise, my thin and serene yoga instructor, began to gently explain things. She kept talking. And talking. Calmly and serenely, but she wouldn’t shut up. And I couldn’t fast forward her. Five solid minutes of telling me how yoga could help me permanently lose weight and change my whole life. Yeah, yeah, I thought, get on with it. Blah blah blah, where’s the workout? So much for peace and patience.
Finally we got started. Mountain Pose. Standing tall, hands clenched in a praying position in front of the heart. No, don’t clench, relax. Breathe. Thin Denise guided me through stretching and arm lifting, all the while encouraging me to breathe...breathe. The soothing keyboard music gently swelled and ebbed – and was punctuated by the kid centric music and commentary of Harper’s computer game. “Sproing!! Oops! That was close but TRY AGAIN!”
Slender Denise continued, breathing in the desert air and stretching just a little too perfectly. “Feel your feet rooted into the earth,” she intoned. I did. No, really, I did. I was standing on my carpet and I could feel actual earth between my toes. Or maybe it was sand from the sandbox. Gotta vacuum , I thought.
Skinny Denise and I now had our legs spread far apart and were bending forward from the hips as far as we could go. She bent flat backed like one of the mesas behind her. I bent-ish and was glad no one was behind me. She told me to inhale, and I did – at the exact moment my cat paraded her fuzzy butt right under my nose. “Sproing!! Try again!”
Then we did some twisting things. As I tried to open my chest, align my spine, keep my feet rooted, and yet honor any signals my body was giving me about going too far, (of which there were a lot), Bony Denise explained how twisting and breathing like this squeezes toxins out of our bodies, which will escape through our skin and breath. I hope those are the only things squeezing out nasties into the air, I thought. And I was supremely glad I was alone in my workout today, just in case.
[Insert carnival music and manically happy cartoon laughter here.]
Next we moved into Child Pose, seated and folded over our knees, hands out front, face on the floor. This is the most relaxed position. Or so Emaciated Denise said. I was to breathe...breathe...and I breathed, breathed in sand and a coco puff, I think. Vacuum...vacuum...vacuum became my mantra.
Cruel Denise somehow got me upside down and began to extol the virtues of these inverted positions. How they stimulated and energized the brain. My brain ganged up with my spring-suffering sinus cavities and together they tried to beat their way out of my head via my face. "I have one bucket of slime, but my monster wants 3 buckets of slime! How many buckets of slime do I need?!! Terrific!!"
I wasn’t breathing so well at this point. Then we twisted into Triangle Pose – although I suspect mine was more Trapezoid or Blobby Thing Pose. Mean Denise encouraged me to relax my eyes, my face. Hard to do when you’re sideways in baggy sweatpants in front of the picture windows hoping that the mailman doesn’t decide to show up right then.
It sounds like a silly thing to say. Relax my eyes? But if you stop, right now, and pay attention to the muscles in your face, you’ll find all kinds of hidden tension there. It takes a concerted effort to find those muscles and to tell them to relax. You can feel a difference, though, all over. You feel lighter, more, well, relaxed. "If you’re happy and you know it then your face will surely show it..."
I decided that relaxing my eyes and my face would be the one thing I could take with me throughout the day. One gift I could give to my family and myself. Hard to do when you’re faced with infinite kid questions, cat puke, and dust bunnies that fight back. Nevertheless.
Evil Denise and I were now some 25 minutes into the workout when I suddenly realized that we were still in the warm-up. There was another 45 minutes or so of actual workout to go. No way could I do it. I had to go pick up Asia at school, find out if I had a meeting, tackle the dishes, dispose of the laundry, and vanquish the dust bunnies. All serene thoughts began to flee. "Sproing!! Try again!!" I decided to finish the warm up and feel good about doing at least that much. Wicked Denise would probably gently disagree with me and try to encourage me to nurture my body and mind by finishing the entire workout and to inhale...exhale...inhale...oh shut up, already, I’ve got things to do.
But I shall do them with a relaxed face.
Dawn Mundy is the mother of 2 girls and a freelance writer based in the Kansas City area. She and her husband are owners of The Wordsmiths, a small company of freelance writers. She’s written a wide variety of materials, from teen devotionals to national ad copy to children’s literature. She and her husband have also written/co-written nearly 100 creative and theatrical performance pieces.
Dawn has a B.A. in Communications from Florida State University, and an M.A. in Film Studies from Regent University.
She loves cooking, gardening and researching family history. Her girls are in school now, so she actually has some time to write about her crazy little life in the Midwest.
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