I have completed my second day of yoga, and once again, it was interesting. As I guess is usual, I entered the room, and the room was dark. It reminded me of all the sitcoms or movies when the couple is about to copulate (that means sex, but I am trying to keep this blog PG for any young readers), and one turns on the light and the other gets all angry/embarrassed because she has beauty/ confidence issues. As a guy, I can see how that can be disappointing. I start making out with Natalie Portman, turn on the light, and it's really Mila Kunis. Actors lives are so hard.
This picture is hideous. I hope they never make a movie where the two make out.
So anyway, the low level lights just wasn't inspiring. What do these yogi have to hide?
And lastly, as I was in the locker room, basking in the smell of lavender and preparing myself for departure, I noticed there was only one shower with a shower curtain. Considering the number of men that do yoga (not a lot), I guess this serves the needs, but I just thought it was anti-yoga. I am not saying we need to go back to the India bathing in the river yoga, but I was expecting something more communal and efficient.
No worries about peeing in the shower here.
In high school, the communal showers were a place were teenagers could unwind, talk about there day, and as a freshman, feel embarrassed by the seniors. Sure there were some awkward moments when someone dropped the soap, but nothing terrible ever happened unless your initials were M.G., P.C., or C.P. (these were all unrelated to soap). And if your initials weren't there, the worse thing that ever happened was a heavyweight drinking Mountain Dew while peeing on a freshman's leg. And given how cold the showers always were, that pee might have been the difference between life and a hypothermic death. Instead, yoga decides to have only one shower and send the message of anti-bonding and anti-community.
Nothing promotes bonding like communal showers. Plus it's a great place to practice bikram karate.
In honor of my oldest brother, I'll start this with a comment he would make. "I like my women like I like my yoga rooms. Hot. Silent. And for no longer than an hour at a time." Having said that, today I completed my first yoga class at Core Power Yoga (corepoweryoga.com), and it was enjoyable. I went to the hot yoga session. I would say it was Bikram yoga, but I am not sure of the Bikram sequence, and I don't want to be sued by Mr. Bikram. Probably while causing offense, I have to say that yogi has dragged people into court for using his yoga sequence. "Namaste...just kidding. See you in court and wear something less form fitting."
The reason I started doing yoga is because after climbing, I tweaked my knee, and I was hoping to rehabilitate it. I asked my friend Summer, who is an excellent yogi and exudes energy, about where I can find a good yoga video preferably with a hot female instructor. She berated me and told me I should attend classes. So thus my exploratory yoga.
The last time I attended yoga was with Summer, and she told me that the guys usually wear form fitting clothing. I broke out my form fitting running tights compliments Josh McAdams and the Olympic team, but there weren't enough guys there to tell me that I didn't fit in. In hindsight, Summer may have only been looking for an opportunity to see me wearing spandex. Plus, when I actually looked at what Bikram wears, my tights made me look like a Puritan at a swingers party.
Bikram playing Jesus if Jesus rocked a black thong and preached the suffering of others for him.
Thus not wanting to unnecessarily emphasize my package, I texted a yogi/climber here named Lisa. Lisa advised me that wearing shorts is now acceptable, and I am glad I took her advise.
At yoga, I entered the dark, hot, humid room and began doing my poses. I handle myself alright, and I will admit that yoga has great benefits. The instructor is Dake, pronounced like Jake, but with a D. Nice guy. And he didn't touch my butt to emphasize correcting poses (look he has the lawsuit now Mr. Bikram). However, as the session went on, he told us to breathe out all the poisons and toxins, and he also told us to connect to the higher energy which is exactly what I wanted because eventually I was looking forward to becoming a bad-ass street fighter.
Twelve year old Andy's expectations of yoga.
My expectations didn't come true, and the closest I came to the whole purification was a deep breath. I was thinking I could really release the toxins, and if I sat in the right position, the force of the exhalation may make me levitate like Dhalsim, but I already think one of the ladies there was already giving me dirty looks. And if that levitation was to come through a higher power, it was Melanie's spaghetti with questionable beef and turkey.
Not shown: Hundreds of dead fish from him releasing his toxins.
And as a parting, yoga expectations vs. yoga reality
Today I had my first real Boulder, Colorado experience. Having met up with my friend Ian Buffington, we headed to Boulder Canyon to pull on some rock. After hiking around for a wee bit, we found our destination and began climbing at Animal World. Upon warming up, I experienced one of the phenomenon of the climbing community. Making her entrance into the crag was a young woman that looked slightly familiar, but because of the probabilities of her being at the same crag at the same time, should not have been there. Jenny Sherry.
Jenny Sherry is a strong climber that I had the opportunity to climb with a few times while I lived in Ohio. Apparently a wedding brought her out to Colorado for the weekend, and she decided to climb at the same exact climb I was at. To make the phenomenon even more improbable, Ian and I originally hiked up the other side of the canyon looking for the crag Avalon. After unsuccessfully seeking Avalon (not that hard to imagine considering it is an Arthurian legend), we changed courses to Animal World. And thus my meeting with Jenny Sherry.
Because of the nature of the climbing community, this has now happened to me twice. While visiting the Red River Gorge, I met Rio. Becoming good friends through social networking, I coincidentally ran into him again the following year. Thus is the nature of the climbing community that allows strangers to become good friends over single line of rock, and allows those good friends to meet happenstance and bond over more inanimate pieces of rock. Strangely odd, but oddly comforting.
To make this day even better, I stopped on my way home at Chipotle. Ordering myself a steak burrito, I asked the kind woman behind the counter if she can mix the ingredients together. She can and I had the best Chipotle burrito ever. Nate Mealy, try the unmixed followed by the mixed burrito, and you will defy the law of diminishing marginal utility function. And lastly, when Jenny discovered that I had to be home at six from the crags to babysit, she laughed. If I could climb half as well as babysit, Chris Sharma would have posters of me in his room.
Even before heading out to Boulder today, I changed a diaper. Upon getting home, I babysat. I entertained a fifteen month year old and watched three other kids under the age of six. Administer children's Tylenol, put on pull-ups for bedtime, read to and put Trevor to sleep, brush teeth, and all four in bed by 7:30. I may not be the best uncle in the world, but I am among the top one.
The beginning of knowledge is the understanding of ignorance. Upon reflection, I believe a primary purpose of a journal, diary, or any other personal memoir is to allow the writer to look back in time and discover his arrogance and also remind him of his ignorance. The link jumps to a collection of writings I jotted down during my sophomore year at Brigham Young University. For the inquiring mind, enjoy. For the indifferent, I at least recommend sporadic journaling.
Ernest Hemingway said, "There are only three sports: Bull fighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; the rest are merely games." While I have always climbed rocks, I rarely would ever summit mountains, and this was mainly for two reasons. First, the routes I climbed generally stop well below the summit, and second, summiting mountains is something I can do when I am older, as in, "He summits mountains because he is too old to climb them." Having hiked my first mountain that is over 14,000 feet in elevation, I learned that either a) I am not stallion athlete that I pictured in my mind (think young Arnold Schwarzenegger only with better endurance and English), b) I am delusional, or c) thirty is sufficiently old. Yesterday I hiked Long's Peak via the Keyhole route. I along with my brother-in-law Doug, and my now friend and Facebook friend Pie, started the hike around four in the morning and spent the next eleven and a half hours wandering through the wilderness. The route itself was a total of fourteen miles, with a 5,100 feet elevation change to top out at 14, 255 feet. I have hiked Half Dome in Yosemite that tops out around 8,800 feet, but nothing prepared me for the altitude. At times I staggered through the hike like a drunk man trying to play hopscotch if hopscotch consisted of giant boulders and the risk of being blown off a mountain. Nonetheless, it was either Alexander the Great or Captain Witwicky that said, "No sacrifice, no victory!" and I pressed on to the top. Summiting was awesome and I caught the fourteener bug.
I will leave the two people that read my blog a couple of lessons that I picked up along the way. One, you can have too much water...and food. Fearful of dehydration, I packed a lot of water as well as food. My pack was heavy, and I eventually felt every extra Teddy Graham cracker that journeyed with me. Two, capitalism is on the brink of annihilation. I only say this because the night prior to the hike I stopped at the supermarket, and it only carried mini Honey Teddy Grahams. For starters, Teddy Grahams are already miniature so having mini Teddy Grahams is an idiotic concept (unless Nabisco is marketing to the Daniel Neil Rodgers crowd). Moreover, of all the Teddy Grahams, why only carry honey flavor. Lastly, with only one size and flavor to choose from, I had to buy them. Thus my conclusion that the Spirit of 1776 is dying which is really sad considering most ghosts are already dead (if anyone can explain whether spirits/ghosts become ghosts after they die, I would appreciate that). On to three. It is not enough to not pee in the wind. Winds change. Find shelter, a crevasse, or anything else to block the wind. Four, while carrying out three, check those windstoppers before committing. And lastly, either Jack Dawson or John A. Shedd stated, "A ship in harbor is safe--but that is not what ships are built for." So go hike something.
