BURGER SCOOT

I picked up my coffee order from a young, attractive female barista. She had noticed I came into her shop with a mat over my shoulder, so she asked how I liked the yoga studio in the same shopping center as the coffee shop. I told her that, aside from it being a chain—with the corporate trappings, its money-first approach (for example, being charged for canceling or not showing up for classes), and the seemingly nonstop promotion of classes you are not currently signed up for, it’s okay.

Still, the studio is as convenient as hell for someone who now gets around either by bike or on foot (only a mile from my house), and the teachers are experienced and pleasant. I took this moment, as I received my cold brew, to complain to this barista, as if she gave a shit, that I don’t receive adjustments even when I am clearly failing to hold certain asanas (yoga poses), even though many of these times, the teacher is adjusting practitioners all around me. Now, I know I’m a short, fat, old man with a skin problem and a lazy eye, but they’ve got to know I’m no threat. And even if I started getting handsy, there’s a whole studio of older ladies who would come to her aid and bludgeon me to death with Mandukas, Gaiams, Lulumons, and Zazzles.

Why is this? I am probably the stiffest student in all the classes I have taken. Virtually all the yoga teachers I have practiced with are younger (by a significant number of years) than I am, and many of my fellow students are as well. Almost all the students in each class are female, with only a few men besides me. I don’t know whether the one or two other men in the classes I attend receive adjustments — we males, for whatever reason, are spread out around the studio.

Dear reader, I don’t mean to give off the impression that this short, bald, obese, 68-year-old man joined a yoga studio so he could get touched all over by pretty, young, fit yoga teachers, but I can’t help but feel left out. I jokingly whine to my wife about this, and she laughs (hopefully proving I’m not a perv, folks). If my wife of over 35 years can see what I mean, I hope you can. Now, only to convince the yoga teachers short of wearing a t-shirt stating, “ADJUST ME, DAMN IT!”

Okay, there were two exceptions to this whiny post that I must discuss here. There is one teacher who likes us to perform a modified Fish Pose with a bolster under our chests (instead of our folded arms), our arms up around our ears like a cactus. The stiffness in my shoulders prevents the backs of my hands from lying on the floor. The first time I tried this, and nearly every time since, the teacher walked over to me, grabbed my two blocks, gently lifted my hands, and placed the blocks under them. I always whisper “thank you” twice — once for each arm. Damn it, I felt special and taken care of.

The second instance happened when I spent a couple of weeks trying out classes called Slow Flow that I was hoping to enjoy, maybe even switching all my easier classes to these more challenging ones. In pre-COVID days, when I was about twenty pounds lighter, I hadn’t had my gallbladder removed, I hadn’t had my traffic accident, and my testosterone hadn’t done a nose dive. I had been practicing a light version of Vinyasa (very similar to this studio’s Slow Flow) at a now-defunct fitness club.

Anyway, all the teachers (male and female) would walk around and adjust students, fat, skinny, ugly, attractive, me. The one time I received adjustments in a class at this new studio was the one above, and when I attended a particular Slow Flow class taught by a man named Adrian. He reminded me of Robert (see my interview with “Yogi Bob” here.

Unfortunately, Adrian ignored the “Slow” part of the class name. I ended up doing Mountain during the standing postures and Child during the mat poses. At the end of class, during Shavasana, I wanted to yell out, “Did anyone else think that ‘Slow Flow’ was breaking some speed limits?” The one and only thing I liked about Adrian’s style was that he made plenty of adjustments, spending less time on his mat and more walking around the studio while calling out the sequencing. It makes me wonder if the female teachers of this corporate-minded yoga studio are discouraged from touching male students. Hmm, I would ask the female owner, who is also a teacher, but then I would really feel like a perv, even if it is a serious question.

Though this wasn’t adjustments or assists, this subject reminds me of a Yin Yoga class I took back at the old gym I mentioned earlier. The teacher would walk around during Shavasana, gently rubbing eucalyptus oil on our third eye. I couldn’t help but be moved almost to tears, or maybe it was a mild allergic reaction to eucalyptus. Full disclosure: she was very attractive. On the other hand, Robert is a dude, and I can say I liked how he would adjust my poorly executed pyramid pose — shaking my upper arm to emphasize that the connecting shoulder is where I should focus my stretch.

At any rate, I don’t get adjusted much these days. I promise I’m not a perv, just someone who likes the sensation of a fellow human gently holding and specifically in yoga, adjusting my horrible form. And yet I keep going, keep wobbling through Warrior 2, collapsing into Child’s Pose, when necessary, but consistently nailing Shavasana! And if the day ever comes when a teacher walks over, places a hand on my arm to straighten that sagging Warrior 2, and gently steers me into something resembling proper form, I may finally achieve Nirvana.

A TOUCHING Postscript: Wouldn’t you know it, just before I pulled the trigger on this post, during a 90-minute yoga/meditation workshop, during Shavasana, the teacher bent over my still body, gently placed her hands on my shoulders, and gave me a brief massage. I don’t know if she was responding to what my physical therapist and my wife call a rounded back, or if that is the area she was attending to all of the small workshop attendees.

Also, after the workshop, the teacher wanted to commemorate what I believe was her first workshop with a group picture. We were milling around the studio when the class started lining up. Apparently, I was lagging back for no reason when an attractive young woman I had never seen before this workshop turned to this old fart and said, “Come on, Jack.” When I approached where she was standing, she placed a hand on the small of my back, pulling me close so all of us would squeeze into the smartphone’s screen. She kept her hand on my back until the phone flashed. I remember this because I was staring at the camera’s countdown and wished it would jump back another twenty seconds so I could enjoy this moment a little longer. It was quite innocent, but ironic considering all the above whining.