Yoga: Third time is not the charm

So, I went to a third yoga class Wednesday night. I swear they just keep getting weirder and weirder. This one was a free trial class at the place which offers yoga and dance classes in the evenings. The center was just redone and looks really nice: the room for yoga had pillows and candles and the ceiling was a tent-like with tons of fabric hung from the perimeter gathering in the center of the room.

Because the class was a free trial, none of the other four women had done yoga before. Yoga is new to Priego, so this has been the theme in all of my classes. Before the teacher arrived I was sitting on my mat with my legs crossed. Not crossed in yoga position, rather crossed like we used to sit in gym class. The other women saw this as an amazing accomplishment and were shocked. I took that as a bad sign. When the teacher arrived, they told her about my amazing abilities and she immediately began to think of me as a yoga expert (which I am NOT).

She started the class (10 minutes late) by talking about her life and yoga as a way of life. We had to hear about her family and how yoga was not a religion, but a way of life and how yoga could change your eating habits and make you healthier. Some of her points were valid, except when she talked about cleansing her body by forced vomiting.

After listening to her ramble for almost 30 minutes, we tried to find our energy. We sat with our hands ½ an inch apart and attempting to feel something connecting our fingers. Then we tried it in pairs. I’m not really sure what I felt. I thought I felt something, but not quite enough to satisfy the instructor.

Next, we tried to see one woman’s aura. The teacher blew out most of the candles and turned off the lamps in the room so we could stare at this woman in the semi-darkness. I’m not sure if my eyes blurred so much from staring or I actually saw a glow forming around her head…The teacher wanted us to see her aura because “she’s been told she has a large aura.” I could not see anything around her. She tried pulling energy out of her, by bringing her hands near to her head, to see if we could see it connecting her hands and her head.

After all of this, she realized we only had ten more minutes in the class (no surprise there; she never shut up). So we worked on some breathing and relaxation. I was able to relax, which was nice, but I really don’t think the class was that worth it. Unfortunately, there are no more trial times and I would have to pay to continue.