One thing I love about living in a big city is that there’s so much going on and so much choice; whether it’s restaurants, bars, hip coffee shops, music venues, karaoke bars, exercise classes … just scroll through the options and you’ll find one that’s just perfect for you.
Having spent the past ten years in a tiny, provincial town where I was lucky to find one yoga class, I was very excited to find that in KL there are hundreds classes, and you can practise every type of yoga you’ve ever dreamed of – or had nightmares about, depending on your perspective.
I found a studio within walking distance and signed up for the Newbie Special, which allows you to take as many classes as you want to for the first week, so I decided to get my money’s worth:
Class number 1 – Vinyasa
This involved a lot of complicated sequences of movements, and I was at a distinct disadvantage because the girl next to me appeared to be made entirely of India rubber, and was twisting herself into the most outrageous shapes, so there was no way I could follow her.
Plus I was distracted because I’d seen a cockroach disappearing into a hole in the cloakroom just before the lesson started, so I kept peering around anxiously, hoping that it wasn’t about to emerge from the woodwork and make a beeline for the top of my t-shirt – which was what my previous cockroach had done.
I did enjoy climbing backwards up the wall though, despite a bit of an issue with free-range cleavage, which this man obviously didn’t suffer from –
– no wonder he found it so much easier than I did.
Class number 2 – Ashtanga with the lovely Valerie
If Madonna can do it, I thought, then so can I. But I think the lovely Valerie was rather disheartened by the end. She took to adding ‘even if you can only …’ to the end of every instruction, and I knew this was directed at me.
We started with the lotus position
which wasn’t the pose in itself – it was just the beginning as we worked towards something even more challenging.
‘Even if you can only manage the half lotus that would be good,’ she said, hopefully.
Wanting to please her, I grabbed my foot and forced it onto my leg, gritting my teeth. But my knee wouldn’t lie flat like smarmy Miss Yoga’s does in the picture here –
mine was sticking right up in the air, with the bottom leg objecting furiously and trying to straighten itself by twitching wildly, while I tried to balance and pretend that everything was fine.
‘Now touch your forehead to the floor,’ said Valerie.
You have got to be joking, I thought. The only way my forehead was going to touch the floor would be if I passed out.
‘Even if you can only move an inch that would be good,’ she added, looking at me.
Cunningly, I moved my arms backwards, hoping to make it look as though I was bending forwards, but it just made me look like a desperate, dyspraxic spider.
Class number 3 – Restorative
I felt much in need of something restorative after the Ashtanga, so trotted along yesterday morning at 8 am to see Dr Birgit.
Restorative yoga involved a lot of breathing, while Birgit chanted ‘vun, two, vun two, vun two …’ and invited us to look at the white light in the chakra in between our eyes. I couldn’t quite manage that bit, but I did manage to breathe, thankfully.
Birgit was very thorough and pulled me into the right position several times, and tutted at my downward dog. But when I toppled sideways off my mat onto the floor during a failed attempt at pigeon pose
and then got a fit of the giggles, I could tell that I’d disappointed her.
Class number 4 – Hatha
This morning’s Hatha teacher had big glasses, and because the light was behind her, I couldn’t see who she was looking at when she was talking … and it was usually me. So she had to keep repeating herself, and quite clearly thought that I was half-witted as well as inflexible.
She also had a strong accent which I found difficult to understand and I was sure that she’d said ‘now work your pancake’ at one stage during the class.
Then, towards the end, I thought she said ‘press your vagina into the mat’.
At this point I was reminded of a class I took in Cambodia with a heavily accented instructor who I thought had said ‘and now massage your vagina’. I glanced surreptitiously at my neighbours, neither of whom moved a muscle, so I didn’t either. I asked about it afterwards and they explained that I hadn’t misheard, you just massage it mentally … phew.
Assuming that this was a similar instruction, to be done mentally, I ignored it. But then she repeated ‘Louise, press your vagina into the mat’, got up and pulled my shoulders back and pushed my pelvis down.
‘There – this is how we do cobra – can you feel it?’
I certainly could.
My only quandary now is which classes to sign up for permanently, and which instructors are going to have the thrill of seeing me turn up to their class every week.