Child's pose, please!

I woke up on Monday morning and decided it was time for some public humiliation. In other words, I attended my first yoga class in over two years. Taking new classes can be scary; I personally can find 100 reasons not to go..."I haven't tried that class before," "I'm running 5 minutes late and don't want to interrupt," "Downward dog makes me feel awkward," ect. But luckily for me, I was meeting my friend Lisa and felt the obligation not to bail on her, so I forced my full-of-excuses-butt out of bed and headed to A Sante.

I forewarned the instructor that it had been a while since my last yoga class. I didn't want to cajole her into taking the class down a notch, but rather wanted to constrain any laughter she may have felt when I attempted Utthita Trikonasana or extended triangle pose.

The first ten minutes I was starting to feel pretty arrogant about my yoga skills, but then again we were sitting cross-legged on the floor, breathing in and out. 'I could do this all day,' I thought to myself with a narcissistic grin stretched across my face. Of course, I wound up eating my words.

30 minutes into the hour-and-fifteen-minute class I was sweating like a nymphomaniac in church! Every time she instructed us to return to forward-bend pose, I would finally remember to breath - the one thing I thought I was actually good at in yoga! Turns out when I'm not sitting cross-legged on my mat, breathing becomes far too complicated to add in the mix of twists and bends.

I kept giving Lisa the "I'm dying over here" stare-down and thankfully she gave it right back because I don't always like being a fish out of water all by myself. Around 9:40 I glanced at the clock thinking to myself, 'shit, here we go, it's almost time for the cool down, but I know this elastic broad is going to push us to do something crazy before we get there.' Much to my dismay, I was right.

"Now we're going to enter upward plank pose," she said with a calm, tranquil tone as though we were about to get a massage, not contort our bodies in mysterious ways.

'You've got to be kidding,' I thought to myself. 'Who can actually pull this off?' At that point I finally acknowledged the 10 people to the left of me that I had forgotten about ever since the cross-legged breathing ended. I looked around at the different sizes, ages and ability levels. About 15 percent of the class (that's approximately a person-and-a-half to be clear) looked as graceful as the instructor, the other 85 percent looked like they wanted to hear the words "child pose" just as much as I did!

When it was finally time to relax and wind down, I started to feel something rather unexpected. I know what you're thinking, I probably felt a sudden urge to run for the door screaming murder never to return, but it's quite the opposite. Endorphins were clearly releasing inside my body, creating a euphoric feeling in my brain and I actually wanted to do more yoga!

That afternoon as I proceeded with my day, I felt accomplished, gratified and most importantly, more limber than when I awoke that morning. I can't be certain, but I think I've caught the yoga fever...Lisa and I have plans to attend next Monday's class for round two! Here's hoping I remember to breath past the first 10 minutes.