I’ve Been Trying Yoga. It Has Me Tied Up in Knots

No, I cannot put my toe in my ear.

No, I cannot stand on one foot, body parallel to the ground, arms stretched in front of me.

No, I don’t bend that way or this way.

Merely lying flat on my back is hard.

Truth is, I nearly fall over putting on a pair of shorts.

Add in 43 years of desk work and family life and suddenly I should be a warrior?

Self-indulgent prattle continued for a dozen more lines until I ended the poem with “Namaste, my ass.”

And yet I returned a few days later. One of my parental mantras to my sons has been, “It’s easy to be good at what you are naturally good at; more impressive is becoming good at something you are not good at.” For a change, I decided to listen to my own advice.

I tried, I really did. After a few more classes, my Warrior 1 pose became respectable. I breathed deeply and slowly. At the end of every 60-minute class, I was sweaty and tired and muscle-wobbly. The yoga instructor said I was “doing great” and urged me to keep coming back.

But after another 10 or so classes, it was clear that competency at yoga wasn’t my destiny. I certainly don’t blame the instructor, who was caring and well-trained and led what seemed to be well-conceived classes that triggered warm applause and hugs and lingering conversations after the lights came on and music turned off.

Even at its most basic, yoga presupposes a level of flexibility and balance that I lack. When everyone else was sitting on the ground, legs straight in front of them, hands reaching over their toes, I could barely stay seated upright, my back all curved and zero percent chance of my hands getting past my knees. Any yoga pose requiring standing on one foot had me next to the wall for support, yet still frequently stumbling. I was a bumbling walrus in a sea of graceful dolphins.

I appreciated yoga’s focus on deep and slow breathing; that, I fully agree with and could follow. Conversely, I couldn’t appreciate yoga’s focus on soul-lifting monologues by the instructor. I’m too weather-beaten, too male, too self-aware to need to be told to be in the present, love myself and smell the flowers while exercising.

So I gave it up. Or so I thought. Turns out the yoga gods weren’t done with me.

Some six months after moving on from yoga classes, I partook in another retirement first: a full-body massage. It had been about 30 years since I had one, and a lovely trip to a mountain resort for a few days seemed a perfect moment for the indulgence. It was an exquisite hour … until I asked the masseuse how I was doing afterward. “I’m glad you asked,” she said. “Your body has very little flexibility. Do you stretch? It’s not healthy to be that inflexible as you age. You really should try yoga.”

And so I’m back on my back a few times a week, decidedly in the back of the room, making sure I don’t swear or grunt as the instructor befuddles me with pose name after pose name (can’t they give you a flyer a few days before the class so you can figure out these poses in advance?).

Maybe I’ll get the hang of it. Maybe my back will unlock a little. Maybe I’ll find my namaste. I’ll never be a graceful dolphin, but who knows, maybe I could at least get to sea turtle level?

Until then, I recommend picking a spot in the room far from me, in case I suddenly fall over and take out the back row.

AARP essays share a point of view in the author’s voice, drawn from expertise or experience, and do not necessarily reflect the views of AARP.