YOGA FOR KNUCKLEHEADS #3: "TERRITORIALISM"
BY DELL FRANKLIN
A week and a half in (4 lessons under my belt) and I am becoming somewhat accustomed to the atmosphere and preparation ritual of padding lightly on barefoot on the cork floor and laying down my mat and yoga paraphernalia and assuming a pose or position instead of sitting there with legs splayed before me like a lame stooge without a clue. After observing most of the women lay back smothered in blankets, and the few men squatting with eyes closed as if entering a pleasant trance, I copy a woman who is on her back with feet balanced high up on the wall.
Samantha so far seems thrilled I have signed up for a month and attend regularly and smiles at me as if I am now a member of the local yoga coterie, even if I am the least supple and coordinated participant in her class, and perhaps in all her other classes and those taught by all other teachers throughout the week.
I have learned to come early and lay my mat down beside a 4 foot wide partition in front of the back wall, so I am relatively secluded from others, just as I was all during my schooling years. Here I can hoist my legs against the partition and few can observe my embarrassing struggles with most poses, and especially those having to do with balance.
I have also noticed that several of the ladies come early so as I stake out the same areas every session, and that the woman who had previously staked out my position had to move over and up from me so she is scrunched against the wall. Last lesson Samantha announced we needed 3 blocks and since the woman who had previously held my spot was smothered in blankets on her back with eyes closed, I fetched her 2 blocks and placed them beside her and she opened her eyes and issued me a fleeting feint smile and a barely audible thank you before closing her eyes.
I understand, she is transcendental about her yoga.
Across the room, to my right, against the smaller wall in the rectangular room, four women usually set their mats beside each other, like a club, and I wonder how they would react if I arrived here before they did and placed my mat in the middle and made the usual mess of things with my blocks and blankets and belt and cushion, etc, sort of invading their space, as it goes. Of course, I dare not carry out such a strategy as all four of these 40ish ladies are cheerful and excited about their yoga companionship and one even smiled at me and said hello when I showed up in the little office-like room in my flip-flops.
Everybody has been exceptionally nice to me and I am not used to it, am rather disoriented from such treatment.
Two of the men, one around 50, the other at least 65 and white-haired, both in baggy shin high pants and pajama–like shirts, lay their mats down along the opposite wall, across the room, closer to me, but seem not as engaged in the territorial imperative. The 50 year old has a way about him indicating he might have been to an ashram in India, but what do I know?
The third regular male, a guy around 30 who is beyond supple (he does the splits during certain poses) is clearly so deeply into the spiritualism of yoga that he doesn’t care where he is, and last lesson, when the woman now beside me showed up late, and HE was in her new spot, and the room was packed with almost 20 people, he quickly picked up and set up beside Samantha in a sacrificial gesture I found classy and generous of soul. Clearly, he has probably been to India and finds American petty alpha territorial tactics and aggressive behavior moronic and gross and I cannot blame him and feel like a real lesser man in his presence. My instincts tell me he sees “the big picture and eschews our viciously competitive money-grubbing and is at peace with himself—if humanly possible.
Also, he is such a thoroughly obliging and considerate person he seems almost unmanly, though that may be because my judgment is clouded by associating yoga with femininity in the case of men—a way of thinking I should surely abandon and probably will after I am further indoctrinated into the culture. Already I’m mellowing, and see this gentleman as a normal good guy though still somebody I could never get drunk with at the Schooner’s wharf and discuss baseball and Donald Trump and other scabrous subjects discussed by bar reprobates like myself.
Yes, as I look around, and Samantha has out her little hand-size computer so as to consult poses, and welcomes and addresses us, I fold my legs down from the partition and sit up on a cushion Indian-style and instead of listening to her talk about being in tune with our inner selves and our hearts as we feel our breathing, it occurs to me that more than half the 18 people in here have staked out territory.
I’m hoping they realize that with the exception of religion, love and money, territorialism is the reason people fight and have wars and kill each other. How does this equate with such a non aggressive exercise and philosophy like yoga?
Hmmm…
A week and a half in (4 lessons under my belt) and I am becoming somewhat accustomed to the atmosphere and preparation ritual of padding lightly on barefoot on the cork floor and laying down my mat and yoga paraphernalia and assuming a pose or position instead of sitting there with legs splayed before me like a lame stooge without a clue. After observing most of the women lay back smothered in blankets, and the few men squatting with eyes closed as if entering a pleasant trance, I copy a woman who is on her back with feet balanced high up on the wall.
Samantha so far seems thrilled I have signed up for a month and attend regularly and smiles at me as if I am now a member of the local yoga coterie, even if I am the least supple and coordinated participant in her class, and perhaps in all her other classes and those taught by all other teachers throughout the week.
I have learned to come early and lay my mat down beside a 4 foot wide partition in front of the back wall, so I am relatively secluded from others, just as I was all during my schooling years. Here I can hoist my legs against the partition and few can observe my embarrassing struggles with most poses, and especially those having to do with balance.
I have also noticed that several of the ladies come early so as I stake out the same areas every session, and that the woman who had previously staked out my position had to move over and up from me so she is scrunched against the wall. Last lesson Samantha announced we needed 3 blocks and since the woman who had previously held my spot was smothered in blankets on her back with eyes closed, I fetched her 2 blocks and placed them beside her and she opened her eyes and issued me a fleeting feint smile and a barely audible thank you before closing her eyes.
I understand, she is transcendental about her yoga.
Across the room, to my right, against the smaller wall in the rectangular room, four women usually set their mats beside each other, like a club, and I wonder how they would react if I arrived here before they did and placed my mat in the middle and made the usual mess of things with my blocks and blankets and belt and cushion, etc, sort of invading their space, as it goes. Of course, I dare not carry out such a strategy as all four of these 40ish ladies are cheerful and excited about their yoga companionship and one even smiled at me and said hello when I showed up in the little office-like room in my flip-flops.
Everybody has been exceptionally nice to me and I am not used to it, am rather disoriented from such treatment.
Two of the men, one around 50, the other at least 65 and white-haired, both in baggy shin high pants and pajama–like shirts, lay their mats down along the opposite wall, across the room, closer to me, but seem not as engaged in the territorial imperative. The 50 year old has a way about him indicating he might have been to an ashram in India, but what do I know?
The third regular male, a guy around 30 who is beyond supple (he does the splits during certain poses) is clearly so deeply into the spiritualism of yoga that he doesn’t care where he is, and last lesson, when the woman now beside me showed up late, and HE was in her new spot, and the room was packed with almost 20 people, he quickly picked up and set up beside Samantha in a sacrificial gesture I found classy and generous of soul. Clearly, he has probably been to India and finds American petty alpha territorial tactics and aggressive behavior moronic and gross and I cannot blame him and feel like a real lesser man in his presence. My instincts tell me he sees “the big picture and eschews our viciously competitive money-grubbing and is at peace with himself—if humanly possible.
Also, he is such a thoroughly obliging and considerate person he seems almost unmanly, though that may be because my judgment is clouded by associating yoga with femininity in the case of men—a way of thinking I should surely abandon and probably will after I am further indoctrinated into the culture. Already I’m mellowing, and see this gentleman as a normal good guy though still somebody I could never get drunk with at the Schooner’s wharf and discuss baseball and Donald Trump and other scabrous subjects discussed by bar reprobates like myself.
Yes, as I look around, and Samantha has out her little hand-size computer so as to consult poses, and welcomes and addresses us, I fold my legs down from the partition and sit up on a cushion Indian-style and instead of listening to her talk about being in tune with our inner selves and our hearts as we feel our breathing, it occurs to me that more than half the 18 people in here have staked out territory.
I’m hoping they realize that with the exception of religion, love and money, territorialism is the reason people fight and have wars and kill each other. How does this equate with such a non aggressive exercise and philosophy like yoga?
Hmmm…
