Yoga: Zen or Foe?

I'm pretty sure this guy invented this pose after night out with the guys and the old adage: "If I could lick my own balls, I'd never leave the house." So be it...you're almost there champ.

Nothing says "Lard Ass" quite like yoga. There's mirrors, and I'm told to relax, but I see myself chafing as I contort. It's a bit awkward. I was on a yoga sabbatical for a while, but have returned. And my re-entry into zen and breathing is anything but graceful, relaxing or flowy.

I look nothing like the zen master when she does the poses.

What's the big deal with downward dog? Like it's the center of yoga or something? My ass is high in the sky, should I get a glance in the mirror it looks as though God took my top half and possibly mis-assembled with my bottom half. My favorite is when zen master tells me, "Deep cleansing breaths, as though you're light and pulling up with your body, rather than pushing down. Relax those shoulders."

My inner self: "Did she just say effn relax my shoulders? And focus my breath where the strain is? Did she just say that? Tell her to come over here and say that..."

I was shocked and horrified that my body, which I was under the sneaking suspiscion was looking better, actually looks worse. In yoga, it turns out, you can find fat pockets you never bothered to look at before. Thank you zen master for pointing that one out to me.

This is Warrior 2. I don't look quite this graceful.

For all my yoga peeps out there, I'm rocking out some Warrior 2, and I see two butts. Both butts are mine. Where did I get double-butt on top of my pear-shaped butt I'd learned to accept? And can I breathe that out? Breathe it away. Just breathe my ass away. That's what yoga should really do.

I don't look like this either in this pose. Even this easy pose. I look like a lazy loaf and my butt just floweth over. It's weird. That's why they have you put your head down...so you can't see what's really going on with your badonka-donk.

On occasion, we move to child's pose. That's what I'm talkin about. Ahhhh, there's my zen...right there! Yay me! Yay yoga! We are told, while in this position that this is where we go if we need a rest or a break and that no one is competing against anyone else. But then, no one goes back to childs pose. I know, because I'm watching them all and comparing myself to each of them. And dammit, no one goes to childs pose for a break, and therefore, it cannot be me who goes down first. Dammit. Someone break the seal already!

It's inevitable that zen master asks if there's anything we'd like to work on. And like a song with familiar lyrics, I raise my fat arm (noted when we do Warrior 2 - "Gazing down the barrel of your flabby gramma's arm....woops, I mean, gazing down the barrell of your left arm.") I raise my arm and suggest an hour of continual flow from corpse pose to child's pose. Only to be laughed at. What? We can't do that?

So, I'll continue to go to yoga and get my zen on. But for now, there's no zen, no flow, and yet, something happened, because I'm sore. Well, fat doesn't get sore right? So, I must be all muscle.

That's how my rolls roll.