I missed the next class because of a genuine scheduling conflict, but when I returned the following week, I felt my classmates’ assuming looks: they thought I’d been too embarrassed to come back. To add to my discomfort, we started on the breathing exercises again—popping our stomachs out and back in with great vigor—and I got the giggles once more, because all I could think about was how funny farts are. The teacher asked if I needed to take some time to gather myself, and my answer was “no.” I knew no amount of gathering could make the situation less humorous.
The biggest mistake I’ve ever made, as far as yoga is concerned, is enrolling in a prenatal yoga class while I was working a demanding job and moving houses. I was pregnant with my first—and only—child, and if I had to do it over again, I would choose instead to go see movies, read novels, and do all those other things you don’t get to do once you have a baby. I want those wasted hours back, darn it!
My classmates loved the end of each session, when the teacher would brew some kind of spicy tea and read “birth stories” that previous students wrote after having their babies. The ethos of the class was such that epidurals (and in some cases, doctors and hospitals) were evils to be avoided at all costs. I sipped the tea and listened to tales about the “ring of fire” and looked at my watch and thought I might never escape. I began to think of that teacher as Ms. Torture, because she seemed to want me to endure the worst pain on the face of the earth with no medicinal help.
Just hours after I decided to come clean about yoga, I received an email from my brother, who lives in Siberia and manages two silver mines. He announced to my family that he was enrolled in a yoga class in the city of Khabarovsk, and his email read: “I’m learning to speak in a soft, peaceful singsong. Next I’m going to start sewing my own clothes and drinking tea from tree bark.”
