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It always happens during Warrior One pose. There I am, happily Downward Dog-ing, when the instructor begins the directive I know all too well – and have come to fear.
“Now, move your foot up to the front of the mat… ”
Oh god. No. Please no.
” … and turn your body.”
It’s OK, it’ll be OK, I can DO THIS.
“Lift your arms and bend your legs…”
IT’S HAPPENING. IT’S HAPPENING.
“Go into Warrior One.”
Ptttshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
(Noooo)
Psssh, psh, psh
(Tighten your ass, make it stop… )
Psh psh psh psshh
(OK, OK, at least it’s over now)
Pshh
(Shit… )
Welcome to my life as a new yogi—and specifically, a new yogi who has so far learned one salient fact about this ancient meditative practice: It makes me fart. A lot.
Actually, wait, it doesn’t just make me fart. It also makes me shake like unset jelly, sweat like a hog in the summertime, and, on many occasions, expose my elevated butt crack to total strangers.
Isn’t yoga supposed to be graceful? Am I not supposed to be connecting with inner peace or whatever? And if these are the aims, why the hell am I farting so much?
In other words: What’s wrong with me?
For a long time, I simply refused to do yoga, a practice that - in my hometown - is both obnoxiously ubiquitous and ubiquitously obnoxious, something akin to "trendy" sour beer or slow-pressed coffee that takes 15 goddamn minutes to prep.
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But as happens with so many yoga defiers, the lure of the practice eventually got to me. Yes, it primarily got to me because my office offers a free weekly class, and you know, FREE! But there's more to it than that. It also got to me because, for a long time, I've secretly coveted being one of those girls. You know, a yoga girl—that lithe and lean woman who walks down the street in a Lululemon ensemble with a fresh mat tucked beneath her arm, looking at once pretentious and somehow ethereal.