Nataraja

I made a decision.  I'm not going to use the internet as a means to gain understanding about anything yoga.  I'm doing this for two reasons: (1) I want my yoga practice and understandings to be more organic, and (2) relying on my yoga instructors and fellow yogis (this is becoming my new favorite word), as opposed to the internet, will force me to take my practice more seriously lest I should look like a fool for confusing pigeon with half-moon.  Speaking of which, there is a downside to this choice.  Without the ability to check positions and phrases, etc. online, I'm undoubtedly going to get things wrong--this will be especially problematic when I get into learning Sanskrit.

On Tuesday, I attended my first heated-room yoga session.  It wasn't bikram, at least I don't think it was.  It was called Nataraja.  Anyhow, before I signed up, I looked at a brief description of the class (this is before my no-looking-things-up policy was in place).  The description included something about practicing all eight limbs of the yoga practice (nope, I don't know what those limbs are).  At the time, I was using a $25 Gaiam yoga mat that had a tree with falling leaves on it, called the Tree of Life (wow, how cliche--I am the reason why people say yoga is a fad).  As I would come to realize, my yoga practice was going to need an upgrade.

So I came into class and made sure to take a spot in the back corner--I know yoga is a very individual practice, but I'm absurdly self-conscious, and I tend to sweat a lot, so I always look for a spot in the back of the room.  Honestly, before every yoga session I go home and take a shower so I'm nice and clean and smell like Dove extra fresh body wash for men (don't worry, I don't cover myself in cologne)--my mat was probably about three feet behind the girl's mat in front of me, and four feet from the girl's mat to my left, both well out of the way of any potential beads of perspiration (seriously, you guys have no idea how much I sweat).

The instructor for this Nataraja class was a guy.  This was a change from what I was used to, but it definitely helped me focus on the postures and pay attention to detail, whereas with female instructors biology takes over and I find myself checking them out (I am but a man).  Now, this isn't to say that I'm disrobing my female instructors with my eyes.  I'm just pointing out a reality--attractive girls in spandex present a distraction to me.  Case in point, just the thought alone distracted me.

Anyhow, because of my limited yoga-vocabulary, it would be impossible for me to describe the practice itself.  It would sound like, "well, we were in downward facing dog for a while, and then we did some other pose, and that pose was hard, and then after a little while later we came back into downward facing dog.  Oh yeah, there was also this other thing we did right before going back into downward facing dog where we laid face down on the mat."  Despite that vivid description, I can say this about the practice.  It was intense.  Like, seriously intense.  I was so exhausted at one point that I just decided to go into child's pose--where you sort of lay with your knees tucked and face down, admitting to the world you've been defeated while the rest of the class, most importantly the girls surrounding you, continue with the routine and just look at you and laugh (alright, that last part is a bit exaggerated, but they might as well have been).

Now, I'm no Olympic athlete, but I would say I'm in decent shape.  So why was I so exhausted?  Well, earlier I mentioned that I sweat a lot (like beads of sweat dripping off my face when I get done running on a hot day sweat a lot).  By mid-practice of Nataraja , when I would go into downward facing dog, I would have sweat dripping off my face comparable to a faucet at it's lowest setting without individual droplets.  My mat, which, as it turns out, was a relatively cheap mat (way to research yoga mats before purchasing, Tyler), wasn't designed to hold up to the monsoon-like volume of water that my body was shedding.  Consequently, I couldn't even hold my grip while I was in downward-facing dog.  My hyper-saturated, previously grippy mat might as well have been a freshly waxed lane of a bowling ally, which, if you've never made the mistake of crossing the line while rolling the ball and came crashing down (cause: alcohol), is pretty damn slippery.  

And not only was my mat insufficient to retain any grip, it was also insufficient to absorb all of my sweat.  By the end of practice, I was pretty much sitting in a pool of my own perspiration, on a water-logged green island, surrounded by visible sea of water stretching about two feet in every direction.  How my body did not shut down is miraculous; how much my body sweated during Nataraja was just embarrassing.  Needless to say, I did not ask out either of the girls who were seated beside me.  Not that, "hey I'm Tyler and the puddle you're standing in my body's perspiration" isn't a great opening line, but I just wasn't feeling up to it. 

Now, this practice wasn't a completely failure to me.  Instead, it presented something more of a crossroads.  On the one hand, I could settle for just being the guy who sweats so profusely in yoga class that the business downstairs complains of a leaking water pipe.  On the other hand, I could take this as an opportunity to upgrade my yoga gear and, while still looking like I have a thermo-regulation disorder, maybe avoid some of the shame that came along with using deficient equipment.