Hybrid Yoga

My husband and I were at IHOP yesterday when I realized that at the table next to us was a trainer from the gym that I go to. I should say, “used to” go to because it has been months since I have even set a foot in the door. Anyway, we started chatting, and she explained to me how she is able to eat off the senior menu so that she can get smaller portions of an egg white only omelet. That’s nice I thought, I wish they would let me order a smaller portion of my chocolate chip pancakes as I look over to see the giant plate of sugar and calories, topped with enough whipped cream to garnish 10 ice cream sundaes. Oh well. Before she left she mentioned that she was doing a yoga class that night and I should really come and check it out. “Yeah, I think I might do that” I replied. This is the surprise intervention that I needed to get back in the saddle again.

So I show up and the schedule says HYBRID Yoga. Little did I know I was going to be doing “yoga, blended with the rhythmic moves of tai chi, toning, and ballet” So I walk in and the class is packed! The instructor tells me that there is a place for me in the front and I reluctantly head closer to the gargantuan mirror up ahead. I had forgotten just how run down I looked. My bare feet exposed chipped toenail polish that had been there for at least a month. My work out pants broke all the rules of visible panty lines, and all that topped off with the most faded, worn out, cardinals baseball t-shirt in existence. It was all I could do just to make it to the gym, I never promised it would be pretty.

We begin with lowering ourselves to the mat. Throughout the hour the instructor is spouting out cryptic directions all the while some kind of foreign new age music is playing in the background.

“Let your sitting bones become heavy within you.”
“Now raise yourself skyward always being in tune with your center”
“Put your brain into your feet”

I was perplexed. We start swaying our hands left and right, and then she says in that same calm soothing voice “ Be a woman”.

Be a woman? Okay, I thought to myself. That I can do. I was born a female and now I am a grown woman. I think I might be getting good at this Hybrid Yoga! I left with a sense of accomplishment.