Yoga: Making my mind say nothing and act casual, not easy.

Never will I ever look like this.  BUT I will have the inner peace to accept it. 

I have started doing yoga once a week.  For inner sanity and general stretchiness.  Known in the trade as flexibility.

I have tight hamstrings, long legs and a short body (proportionally speaking). Overall, I'm just short.  I can't and have never been able to touch my toes, put my head on my knees, or any of those fancy pants things you see ultra yogic, fit, stretchy, show off people do.

It's tricky stuff, even the slow Hatha style we are doing.  Which involves lots of slow stretching and pose holding.  You have to focus and work really hard to get it right.

And most of the class, my friend C and I have to work really hard at not catching each others eye and falling about laughing.  Because that would really spoil the concentration and karma and peacefulness.

It's held in our little row of shops, our wee local village.  I regularly and happily attend this village to visit the butcher, baker, candlestick maker oops sorry wrong century, coffee shop, newsagency and do yoga.  In the right environment, with the right companions, also do a fair bit of chatting up here.

The yoga studio is in between the bakery and the butcher.  The butcher is next to the coffee shop. It's 10:30am and busy.  For 1 1/4 hours we are inside the studio in the dim light with the door shut and the blinds down getting our bodies into uncomfortable poses.  And during this time you might hear:

• The butchers chopping the shit out of some poor dead cow (oh the irony).
• An entire conversation between two people right outside, covering all manner of subjects, some of which you wish you couldn't hear.   
• An argument between the Australia Post guy and the hapless shopper who parked in the Australia Post designated parking spot without realising it.  
• Someone's Cavoodle attempting to have intimate relations with someone's labradoodle and both owners frantically trying to pull them apart.   
• The voice of the person you've been trying to catch at school for ages to give them money for the teachers gift/talk to them about their builders and would they recommend them/ask if their kid wants a playdate with your kid.  And you're trapped and the moment is lost.  And you're supposed to be zen and internally focussed and you're not.  More shame on you (me, actually).

Silencing the inner voice is the hardest part of yoga, add to this difficulty a whole lot of external voices and it can be hard to concentrate.  But bizarrely I love it.   I would like to do it once a week forever.