Adventures In Yoga

I found out definitively yesterday that the data on my flash drive is unrecoverable.  Sigh.  Luckily I found out at the end of the day and I headed off to the yoga studio, to stretch, strengthen and forget.

The hot hatha room was packed wall to wall with people ready to unwind after their work days.  I was fortunate enough to have landed a space with a fair amount of room.  After the first warm-up asanas I was reveling in the ability to completely extend my arms when a latecomer cruised in.  A man of medium build and shirtless (so unfair) rushed in and rolled out his mat beside me.  No biggie, I can share space.  

While I try to focus on my own yoga practice I do tend to let my eyes wander at moments and check out the others in class.  It was on such an eye wander that I spotted Gumby Girl – a young, thin dirty blonde with Gumby like flexibility.  I watched amazed as she moved through dancer’s pose and other standing poses with her leg almost completely vertical.  Now, she wasn’t actually doing all of the poses correctly.  For example in dancer’s pose her hips were no where near square (which, I confirmed with the instructor afterwards are where your hips should be).  So I’m curious as to whether she’s actually getting the benefit of the poses.  Hmmm.

Standing poses over, it was time to move down to the mat.  While lying in corpse pose I discovered the disadvantage of my new next-mat neighbor – he smelled like feet.  As I turned my nose slightly in the other direction I almost laughed as this was one of the things that keeps a friend of mine away from hot yoga.  Mouth breathing quickly became my friend.

After 60 minutes of heat, aromatherapy of the wrong kind, and some good stretching I headed up to the locker rooms for a quick shower.  I showered, pulled out my sweats from my gym bag and discovered that my bra (or breast holder-inners as Jim calls them) was missing.  Indeed, it was back at the office with my work clothes.  Oh no!  Now to give you some idea of the size of the problem, I am a 32 DD.  That’s right.  Small back, big rack.  And yeah, even though I’m from Cali, they’re real.

Getting back into my sweat soaked exercise bra was not an option.  I had a tank top and sweatshirt so I thought maybe I could get away with it.  I got dressed, gathered up my things and started the walk back to the office.  At the first shop window I took a little side-long glance to see just how bad the situation was.  Bounce, Bounce, Bouncy, Bouncy, Bounce.  Yep.  For a 1/2 mile through downtown back to my office.  It made me think of the bra-burners back in the 60s.  And specifically, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?!  Symbolism be damned, support is the girls’ best friend.

So, what have I learned from today’s adventures: