Sunday 4 May 2014

120. No Gravity?

28th April 2014, Virgin Active Broadgate, City of London

When the skinny bitch in pink lycra tells you that you can't fall on your face... She is lying her perfectly shaped ass off.

I, possibly the most ungraceful human being on Planet Earth, have been to anti gravity yoga. Funny enough, if there was one thing I did experience during these 60 minutes, it was gravity. In the shape of several crash landings.

The thing is - I don't even like regular yoga. Whether is the Ashtanga, Vinyasa, Anusara or something else that sounds like a curry, it is guaranteed to bore me half to death. I already know how to breathe, I can not identify with a tree or a frog and quite frankly - I think relaxation is overrated. Now, Bikram yoga I'm slightly more on board with, but that is primarily because it feels a bit like a sauna. And I like saunas. However, eventually the instructor will still ask you to get up and be a tree. I will never be the tree.

Someone suggested that anti gravity yoga may be for me as you actually have to make an effort beyond breathing and stretching. Plus the swings you hang from look kind of fun.

So, there we are, me, the skinny bitch in lycra and a bunch of bankers who look like deep down they believe in all this inner peace crap. I think they should find new jobs.

They make a big selling point of the fact that everyone will complete a head stand during their first class. And I'll give it to them, I did do a head stand for the first time in my entire life. The head stand per se was not the problem. No, the problem was getting back up from the head stand. At that stage, when you are hanging there turned upside down, all the blood rushing to your head and you really want to sink through the floor without necessarily hitting it - you really don't need a pep talk from the skinny girl in lycra:

Skinny Girl In Lycra: You in the back, do you need some help?
That Girl In The Back: Nope.... I'm good.
SGIL: It's only that... The rest of us stopped doing head stands five minutes ago.
TGITB: Yeah I know that.
SGIL: You know what, I'll pop back there.
TGITB: There's really no need. Really, I'm fi..... Oh you're here.
SGIL: Now, use your inner core strength to pull yourself up.
TGITB: Trust me, all my strength is pretty shallow.
SGIL: Now, stop being silly and stop clinging on to the rope.
TGITB: I like the rope.

I stopped clinging on to the rope. And that initiated my first close contact with the studio floor. I knew that skinny bitch was out to hurt me.

After another three crash landings, I decided on a different approach; Spinning around.

These anti gravity thingy bobs are basically awesome grown up swings. That spins. And spins and spins until you kind of want to throw up. Just awesome.

Spinning around, minding my own business, skinny bitch interrupts me yet again:

SGIL: You in the back... I get that you're having fun, but could you maybe keep it down a bit?
TGITB: WEEEEEEEEE.... Wait, what?
SGIL: Could you perhaps stop making that noise so loudly?
TGITB: Oh yeah. Totally.
SGIL: Thank you.
TGITB: WEEEEEEEEE....

And, at the end of the class, there is finally something I can get on board with. Nap time. So strictly speaking, it was apparently time to gather ones' thoughts. But when you are all tucked in the massive red swinging cocoon in the very dark room - how are you suppose not to fall asleep? And to wake someone up mid snooze is frankly really rude, even if there is a CXWORX class just after the yoga class.

Spinning or no spinning, I think I'll stick with body pump class and somewhat butch, scary instructor.

Swings!

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