Saturday, July 28, 2012

I don't get yoga

Yoga has been prescribed or recommended to me by almost every doctor I've seen in the last five years. That might just be them being polite in saying I need to calm the fuck down. I'm perceptive sometimes and I get that.

I hate yoga. I do not understand what it's supposed to be doing for me. It mostly invokes an inner rage I cannot articulate. I am uncoordinated. Very uncoordinated. Never is this more obvious than when I'm attempting to perform yoga poses. Observe, all, the big dork of yoga class.

Sometimes, I fall over.
Sometimes, I burst into tears.
No, I do not understand what part of this is supposed to be calming and soul-centering. Mostly, it just pisses me off.

My conclusion is that yoga is for people who are very skinny, muscular, fit, and have already achieved inner calm. I am the only fat person in the yoga classes I've tried. It's humiliating.

Don't get me wrong--I do try to get through those poses, but the only one I have mastered is the child's pose and the one at the end where you lie on your back pretending to be relaxed. The rest of them leave me sweaty and confused.

Here is what I think about yoga:
  • It's really hard
  • There's nothing relaxing about it
  • It frustrates the hell out of me
  • It's very painful. Every pose is painful somewhere.
  • It's not good for wobbly people with poor balance.
  • It makes me fall over. A lot.
  • It's incredibly slow and boring. Oh. Dear. God. It is so boring. And self-important.
  • It makes my feet hurt
  • All that focus on breathing--seriously? Have these people not heard of the autonomic nervous system? Breathing takes care of itself. When I do all of that focused, butt-expanding deep breathing, I wheeze. It has to be annoying to anyone around me.
  • Yoga leaves me sore and ultimately feeling bad about myself because it highlights my lack of balance and coordination.
  • Yoga induces enough anxiety in me to make me cry while I'm attempting (and failing) to do it
How do people find this relaxing or Zen? It's so awful. It's so difficult. It's so painful. It's so  full of impossible body contortions.

Why in the world was this recommended for me? Is it that my doctors have not-so-secretly hated me and this is their revenge joke?

I think I'll check in when I weigh 105 pounds and have developed solid muscle from normal workouts. Which will be never.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I feel the same about yoga 0__o