I went to my very first yoga class today, with my friend who is a teeny bit of a fanatic about it. She’s very convincing about things – she got me to try some salad with barley in it once – and after reading about her adventures in Colorado yogaland, I was ready to try it.
In the interest of honesty I should tell you that I had a bit of a chip on my shoulder to start with. This yoga class – which is offered free, twice a week – takes place at a church here in town. Not the church I work at. Not a church I could see myself going to anytime soon. There’s a huge church in a neighboring town that Bryan likes to refer to as Six Flags Over Jesus, and while this particular church isn’t quite as large as that church, it could easily be the Dollywood of the local church scene. We get cards from them every so often, inviting us to a Christmas extravaganza or an Easter spectacle, usually involving a dramatic production paired with a carnival type thing going on outside, complete with rides and XBox giveaways.
It’s – how do I say – a little too WalMart Supercenter for me.
All this profound opinionatedness is based solely on those sporadic postcards, and my keen observations on the two times I had been inside the building, both times for community events that the church had hosted. Their building was bigger than ours, and they obviously had a lot more money to spend on all the things that go inside it than we do.
Not that I’ve thought about it a whole lot. Really.
Anyway, I go into class and as it turns out, the instructor is really nice. Really really nice. Nice enough that you sorta don’t even hate her for being really tall and skinny and pretty (that’s NOT all yoga. Some things just have to be chalked up to great genetics).
And perky. About every minute and a half, she would say my name in class, in a very cheery way, just to make sure I was getting it. The first time she said it – Sarabeth! – she scared me and I kind of fell over. Except that I was already on the ground.
This became a pattern. Sarabeth! we are going to start with a side stretch…Sarabeth! don’t worry if you fall off your bench, we all have…Sarabeth! you may actually die while attempting this next series…
Perky, very perky. And also very kind. She would say things like, that’s ok, just do what you can and beautiful, you’re doing great and you are enjoying this stretch of your lower back / quad muscle / insert any random body part here. These types of encouragements (or, let’s face it, flat out lies) are needed when you feel as though your body is about to betray you by throwing you face first onto the floor.
By the time we were done, I really liked her and I liked the class – this person who was a member of the superficial supercenter church. The same church which allowed us to use their room and yoga mats, blankets, blocks, benches, and bolsters. For free. That’s right, the church bought all that equipment so that this woman could teach her classes to people like me.
In related news, this evening I went to pick up my own new-to-me yoga mat from a fellow freecycler whose husband wasn’t using it anymore. I drove out to get it and ended up in the trailer park where they live.
Really? I thought. Yoga enthusiast lives in a trailer park? I would have never put those two things together.
It’s embarrassing, really, when I run up against these prejudices. Twice in one day – on both ends of the spectrum – my narrow view of the world, of trailer parks, of big flashy churches – got called out of hiding. These are not things I think about with my logical self, they are ugly, petty, jealous, prideful things that lurk in the corners of my heart. And they’re wrong. It’s not like I enjoy admitting this stuff, but my hope is – always – that if I can say this stuff out loud, pin it down on a page, that it won’t be inside me as much anymore.
Or any of us.