I am a manly man. I like 80s hair bands and muscle cars. I used to own a Mustang. I’ve owned 3 in fact. I like burgers and beer. I like my steaks medium rare and my bourbon neat. I go to the gym and pick up heavy things; cardio is a four-letter word. But, like most manly men, I’m getting older.
The “minor” injuries that I’ve had over the years of high school sports, karate, military service, overdoing it at the gym, and random accidents, have all started to take a toll. I used to be able to walk it off, but I realize now that it wasn’t that my body was healing, it was just delaying the problem. But the bill always comes due, and often with interest.
I injured my knee in high school, which meant that I favored my other leg. Even after the knee got a little better, I’d already developed the tendency to lean in one direction or put more weight on one side. That meant that one leg got stronger, leading to an imbalance that eventually caused me to throw out my back. My shoulder injuries have limited my range of motion enough that I have trouble putting on both straps of a backpack. I look around and see members of the generation before mine, now in their 70s, limping or hobbling, often walking hunched over, and I see my future bearing down on me like a freight train. Something has to change, or I’m going to be one of them.
I have tried yoga in the past. It sucked. It’s tedious and boring, not to mention painful and I’m bad at it. I’ve done classes in person and I’ve tried videos online. During the covid lockdown, I think I managed to last 3 days of online classes before giving up, and even then, I was absolutely half-assing it. I like lifting weights because I can focus for 10-15 seconds of intense effort, then do whatever I want for the next few minutes. Trying to hold a pose is completely different. Plus, as a former “gifted” child, I expect things to come easily. I’m smart and I’m fit, so I can do most things. And if I can’t do something reasonably well on the first try, my inner child (who clearly still runs the show) gives up.
So I decided that I needed a different approach. Rather than bringing yoga into my life, I decided to take my life to yoga: I signed up for a week-long yoga retreat in Gran Canaria, Spain. Often known as a favored destination for Brits, the Canary Islands are a warm and beautiful paradise that attract yogis and surfers alike.
First of all, the yoga studio appears to be situated between two other yoga studios. Clearly there’s a theme going on here. When I got there, the instructor confusedly greeted me. She apparently didn’t know she was going to have a second student today. A little voice in my head suggested that I could leave; after all, I didn’t want to disrupt her plans of having only one student. That would be rude.
I ignored that voice and it went off into the corner of my mind to pout. I introduced myself and the instructor showed me where the mats were and where to set up while I told her about my yoga experience (none) and my stretching practice (next to none). She seemed surprised that I would come all the way from the US to do a yoga retreat here since I have no yoga experience, but she took it mostly in stride, reminding me several times that the point is to be present within your body, to go as far as your body feels comfortable, and to listen to your body. The voice in the corner of my mind perked up and suggested that I would feel far more comfortable back at the Airbnb and that it wasn’t too late to leave. I ignored him again, and off he went, pouting. The other student arrived, got set up, and off we went.
The instructor explained, presumably for my benefit, that the vinyasa class that we were about to do was more about flowing from one pose to the next. Hatha yoga, another popular style, was more about holding a pose for several minutes at a time. I had no idea what kind of class this was going to be when I signed up, but constant movement seemed far more interesting to me than standing still for 5 minutes.
The first thing we did was to close our eyes, take a deep breath, and set our intention for the class. What is it that we wanted to get out of it? I guess it’s a lot like psyching yourself up before the big game, just far more mellow. I gave it some thought and set my intention.
I was happy to hear that we were then moving on to the sun salutation, a series of postures that flow from one to another, often done first thing in the morning to help wake your body up. In my limited attempts to incorporate stretching into my gym routine, I had learned about the sun salutation and I would sometimes do it after my workout, cruising from one pose to the next, finishing the whole thing in under a minute. Since we were starting the class with what I knew, I felt pretty comfortable. Until we actually started.
We held each pose for a few breaths; which is a few breaths longer than I usually do them. After a few breaths, the instructor would look around, stand up and come to each of us to correct our form. Every minor adjustment she made in my form was painful. Then she would go back to her mat and tell us that we were going to hold the pose for three more breaths. (“The faster you breathe, the faster we get to move out of this!” the voice in my head said. “He’s not wrong,” said my thighs.)
As much as possible, I watched the instructor to try to match my pose to hers. I was often way off simply because my body doesn’t bend the way a professional yoga teacher’s body does. At one point we clasped our hands behind our back, leaned forward, and raised our hands as high as we could. The instructor was in the textbook “this is what this pose should look like” position. My hands, however, were barely 3 inches off my back. Ever helpful, the teacher came over and tried to raise my arms some more. My knees buckled and she quickly let go.
All in all, we probably did less than a dozen poses, but we went back to each of them several times. None too soon, the class was over. The final pose had us laying on our back on the mat, breathing deeply. This was a pose that I could hold for hours if necessary, but that wasn’t to be. We ended the class as we began, with a deep breath and closed eyes, thinking about the intention that we had set. Trying to remember what I had wanted 60 minutes ago, I smiled inwardly when I realized that I had reached my goal: I had survived the class.
I decided to celebrate by treating myself to some Advil.
