A Dude Review: Yoga

Johnny Hilbrant
Aug 23, 2017 · 3 min read

These are my observations from a few intense yoga “sculpt” classes I recently attended

The first upsetting part of yoga is before the class begins while some people invert their bodies and others rest ON their faces with their legs twisted up and around their bodies as if they are trying out for Cirque du Soleil. I feel like reminding these people that class hasn’t started. Doing anything but sitting on your mat patiently waiting for the instructor to enter the room feels like sitting in your driveway with your foot on the accelerator and your car in park before a cross-country road trip. These wannabe Lady Gaga backup dancers don’t seem to understand that.

The calm nightmare continues when the door opens and a gentle voice greets the room while she clicks the thermostat from “hot” to “piping hot, exit-the-room, the-building-is-on-fire-hot”. Her name is usually something fun like “Khammy”, “Ahhmanda” or “Charlottessa”.

“Karoline” asks us to “meet” her in downward facing dog. I know I can do this because I’ve been to yoga before and it’s super easy! I press my hips up towards the ceiling and that’s pretty much it! Apparently not. Gentle Karoline comes over to “correct” my posture. She asks the class to take a deep inhale, places both hands on my lower back and pushes me deeper into the pose. Both of my Achilles tendons are about to snap and I whimper like a child in distress. I collapse to the floor and Karoline moves on to break someone else’s body.

The class progresses and I am sliding around on my mat sweating like a pig. A pig who lives in an apartment with no air conditioning. We are roughly halfway through the class when I determine that all of this activity, the one legged gravity fighting, and pulsing every half second has me in a bad place. I need to fart. Not like a “I just farted and no one noticed” fart. I’m talking about all of the air inside my body exiting at once. I know I can’t. I would blow a hole in my yoga mat. It’s not even my mat. I’m borrowing it from my sister. She would be upset. I wonder if everyone else in the class needs to fart. They sure look like it. Some of them look like they are going #2 in their pants already! Those are expensive pants. Lululemon pants are going for like $125 these days.

Just when you think it’s over, the instructor asks you to sit down and warns the class that it’s time to “work those abs!”. Despite the temperature in the room being at a hellish 95 degrees, the lady next to me is not sweating at all and still has a smile on her face. I wonder what kind of probiotics and uppers this gal is on. I still have to fart and every crevice of my body has become a small reservoir full of my sweat. I can’t tell whether my eyeballs are sweating or I’m crying. Either way, I am not prepared for “yogi bicycles” or the hip thrusting while chest pressing dumbbells to the ceiling.

When the class is almost over, my captor turns the music from insane One Direction remixes to quiet, sad music that makes me think of every funeral I’ve ever been to. She dims the lights which falsely signals that it’s time for that nap I’ve been wanting to take all day. It’s actually time to stretch our bodies out in more unnatural ways that will make me want to barf. THEN when that is finished, the instructor lets us lay in final “shondarhimes” or something like that. Often, a cold towel (that has been drenched in the same stuff they spray the bathrooms with) is gently placed on my forehead. We are finished now. The room smells like the Dallas Cowboys locker room if some raccoons burrowed in the dirty laundry bins and died. This can’t be healthy.

)
Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade