{"id":4667,"date":"2019-03-25T06:40:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T05:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4667"},"modified":"2019-04-22T14:29:15","modified_gmt":"2019-04-22T12:29:15","slug":"yoga-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4667","title":{"rendered":"Yoga Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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al….most…. there <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s 5:30 am. The cat has heard me rouse and meows at me\nthrough the door, where I assume she has been waiting since around 4:15 am. We\ntrip and kick our way into the kitchen (neither of us has gotten used to\nsimultaneously roaming the slighter narrower hallways of the new flat). There\nare bites and meows, a squeak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once I bribe her quiet acquiescence with food, I pour a tall\nglass of lemon water. And I start my day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since awakening and moving, my body has been incrementally\nbecoming less stiff. A more mobile knee here, a crack in the neck there. The\ndissipating spasm in my lower back. Who knew sleeping on your side could hurt\nyour cowlick? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is all part of what I have come to define as the physical\nreality of being in my forties. There are other physical realities. The mamba\nroutine that goes on between my arms, my eyes, nearby lights, and the\ndirections on a box. The mystery box game that my gastrointestinal system plays\nafter digesting pizza, Mexican food, or, well, basically anything that isn\u2019t\nlettuce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wee morning hours, before starting to work, I move\ninto the living room and work out the physical kinks. Work on the aches. I do a\nfew stretches that I learned in aikido and a couple I learned in various other\nsports. And then I sigh, open my phone to the links I researched the week\nbefore and, swallowing my pride, begin the Dolphin Pose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Full disclosure. I did yoga for a short while. Short. This\nwas seven years ago and I was convinced to do it by my boss, who was the\nteacher. She is also a masseuse and was working a serious knot out of my left\nshoulder when she said, \u201cyou know, you should really try yoga.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYoga?\u201d I cried. To be clear, \u201ccry\u201d isn\u2019t a reporting verb\nin this case. I cried because of the pain shooting down the left side of my\nbody in electric horror. She went on to persuade me by arguing that yoga would\nimprove the back and neck issues I had been having. She mentioned that her\nclasses were usually void of men and filled with about twenty young women stretching\nin yoga pants.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For my body\u2019s sake, I went. It was interesting, it was hard,\nand it was surprisingly sweaty. It\u2019s possible that my sweat was attributed to the\neffort of keeping in the gas that desperately sought expulsion from my body in\nfront of twenty young women stretching in yoga pants. I lasted two weeks and opted\ninstead to add swimming to my weekly routine. The women in yoga pants were\ntraded in for lounging fat men naked in the sauna, but any farts in the water\nwere largely ignored.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have never been a yoga guy in any sense of the word. This\nis not because of any issues with masculinity. Readers may remember that I have\ndone Zumba, I wear a nightshirt, and I enjoy sewing. I am not afraid to embrace\nthose activities deemed (erroneously or not) \u201cfeminine.\u201d I just never\nconsidered myself a yoga guy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And before you angrily shout at your computer, perhaps as\nyou are a guy who does yoga (hark, a Yoga Guy) that I am a walking fallacy and that\nmy understanding of what a yoga guy is like is so laden with classic misconceptions\nthat I might as well be in a 90s sitcom. I know. But I can\u2019t shake the mental image\nof a Yoga Guy. A guy into holistic health and the current trends of clean\nliving. A man who uses the verb cleanse regularly and who carries a small vial\nof flax seed wherever he goes for emergencies. One who knows the current\nconversation of phalange resuscitation and fascia flexibility. A man who knows\na great deal about new age spiritualism. One who can talk confidently about chakras\nand misplaced energy and the dourness of someone\u2019s aura. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I never thought I was that guy. My gastrointestinal\nsystem got in a fist fight with flax seed, I already have a president who is an\ninflexible fascia, and the one and only time I said the word \u201cchakras\u201d I thought\nwe were talking about an unusual sexual position. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is, like many other things I ignorantly discount\nwithout giving fair due, yoga works. Since starting a morning regimen, my back\nand neck are less stiff. The electric spasms that grace my lower back occur\nless often. My knee feels stronger and, plus, that disconcerting click has\npetered out. These are all problems I figured to be chronic. I was looking\nforward to forty plus years of complaining about back, neck, and knee pain to\nmy friends. Pbbt. Thanks yoga. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, it\u2019s helped mentally. It has helped clear my\nhead first thing in the morning. And I can concentrate on my writing better\nthan before. I feel less rushed and less cluttered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Great.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s next? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

People are bound to find out about this thing (I mean, I am\nblogging about it), but they\u2019ll piece together other things too. My penchant\nfor avocados and breakfast casseroles. Drinking warm lemon water, smoothies,\neschewing sour cream for white yogurt. A belief in the power of positive\nthinking. And what are they going to do when they start putting the pieces all\ntogether? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t want to change personas. I have spent a long time carefully\ncultivating a persona just short of literate caveman who is mildly lovable and\nwho knows how to cook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, by the time I get to Inverted Puppy, I know that I\u2019m\ndoomed. On the bright side, my head is clear and my focus strong. I piece\ntogether a great breakfast casserole. With avocado. It\u2019ll be good for my\nchakras. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

al….most…. there It\u2019s 5:30 am. The cat has heard me rouse and meows at me through the door, where I assume she has been waiting since around 4:15 am. We trip and kick our way into the kitchen (neither of us has gotten used to simultaneously roaming the slighter narrower hallways of the new flat). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/chubby-yoga.jpg?fit=720%2C340&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1dh","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4669,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4667\/revisions\/4669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}