Guest Blogger: The Return of Yoga Cop

Before we take leave of the Enchanted Mitten and head back to Cali, Let's hear from the Yoga Cop again......

FOLLOW UP REPORT...

Incident Number - 08-38417

Location - 200 S. Main Street

Date & Time - 02/07/2009 1000 hours

Crime - Embarrassment of Law Enforcement Official

Well, the holiday season was busy, and Officer Garbanzo doesn't need much in the way of excuses to be lazy and an overall slug. I made the mistake of stepping on a scale the other day though, and I need to get moving again!

My little sister Chuckette invited me over to watch the Super Bowl with her and her family (I thought the Cards would cover. I didn't place an actual bet so of course they covered). On the way out she mentioned that she was going to Yoga class in the morning, and that the main suspect from the last incident was teaching again. She also informed me that I was a bit off on my age guess, Mimi is apparently 82. Like my ego needed that much more abuse...

So, I bucked up and decided to go. The last time wasn't all that painful to anything other than my pride so I thought I would be safe.

Um, yeah. Not so much.

The class was even more soccer-mom slanted than the first time (sorry Chuckette). No other dudes there at all, not even an old one. I am guaranteed to be the red-headed step child of this class. The good thing though is that you are pretty much always supposed to have your eyes closed and concentrating on your breathing, so nobody will know, right?

So, before we even leave our cross-legged position, Mimi has us doing kegel exercises. Dude, seriously. I just never thought I would voluntarily sit in a room full of soccer moms and do such a thing. I mean, think about it for a second. Try to visualize what the room looked like. I am mortified all over again just thinking about it. I don't know if I am progressive enough for this.

Then Mimi went into a long discourse about our transverse abdominal muscles (or TA's as all the hip yoga instructors like Mimi call them). This is where the pain began. Who knew there were a jillion and a half yoga poses that crush that particular part of your body? Not me, although I sure do now. Compared to the standard military/police academy calisthenics, they were extremely effective even though they used much smaller movements.

Dolphin poses. They sure do sound fun, playful or maybe even cute, no? NO! They aren't. They are hard. They hit pretty much every muscle in your body. So we did a dolphin pose that was like downward dog, which was fun. I couldn't keep up and collapsed to the floor. A couple of times. It wasn't embarrassing or anything though. Shit. Then we did dolphin plane, which is basically a variation on the "front leaning rest". A favorite of mine during boot camp and the police academy. I thought I was past all that stuff, but my old drill sergeants don't have anything on Mimi. As I was sweating, grunting and groaning, doing my level best to not fall out again, there she was, talking through the whole thing. Like she was walking through the park. For some reason, I didn't fall out again. I guess my prior training paid off a little bit.

Before I knew it, the 90 minutes was up. I was pleasantly exhausted. After a quick lunch with Chuckette in yuppie-ville, I went home and promptly slept for two hours. I would highly recommend these sessions to anyone with sleeping issues. It flat knocks me out, but in a good way.

Until I woke up the next day, that is. That's when I felt like I got hit by a car. Every muscle in my core was sore.

I do think that there is something to this though. After practicing yoga (that's what the cool kids say apparently. You don't "do" yoga, you practice it), I feel exhausted, but in a really good way. I have a hard time describing it, but this kind of post-workout exhausted is much more pleasant than anything else I have tried (like running, walking, lifting or swimming).

I plan to take some of my tax refund and buy a package of classes. If I do, I will be sure to keep the Banasana up to date with any further ruminations I might have on the proceedings...

Until then, this is Chuck Garbanzo signing off.