Category: Yoga

Cat’s Arseholes & Camel Toes

(a year of online yoga teaching)

Well… nowhere in the yoga teacher training courses I have done mentioned anything about how to deal with the last 12 months…which to be absolutely frank, has been one hell of a shit show!

I signed up to be a yoga teacher, at no point did I want to learn anything about lighting, sound engineering or camera angles but low & behold a baptism of fire was heading our way in the form of 2020.    

Don’t get me wrong, I doubt Joe Wicks has had the problems I have with his professional camera equipment, I’ve been crawling underneath the dining room table every week since March with the iPad and plugging it into the TV (my first techie purchase, after about 3 weeks when I realised there was no way I was able to see things clearly on a 6 inch screen 2 metres away).  Followed by a very quick second purchase of a headset which cuts out all of the other sounds in the house, so Richard can clash, bang & fart his way around, happy in the knowledge that I’m not recording it!

To be honest I was late to the Zoom party as I’d been doing online recordings of classes and just letting people do them in their own time…what was I missing???  Well, quite a lot actually.

Zoom is perfect for having a nosey into other people’s houses, I think for the first couple of classes as soon as someone logged in, I immediately looked over their shoulder to see which room they were in, what the wallpaper looked like, what furniture they had and those who put a virtual screen up well, you can only assume that they either haven’t tidied up or have a boyfriend / husband sitting on the couch behind them scratching their balls.

Speaking of balls, only a couple of weeks in I realised that it was going to be everyone’s pets that were going to be the stars of the Zoom classes.  Lovely Rocco the Cockerpoo was so confused one morning (I didn’t help, as I did keep repeating it just for my own amusement) he heard the word “ball” about halfway through and then spent the remaining 30 minutes of the class trying to find it clambering all over his owner.  

At the beginning of each class I mute everyone, as it makes life an awful lot easier, however, Basil the cat was obviously having none of this, on glancing at his square all I could see was his arsehole then the microphone switching back on!  You have no idea how challenging it is to explain to humans when they first use Zoom…look at the picture of the little microphone…now tap on it…no tap on it a bit harder…no harder…nope, it’s still not right.  How the hell did the cat manage to do it with its arsehole???

I’ve had a steady stream of photos sent following a class showing cuts and scratches where pets that have just decided that they have been calm all day and now was the right time to attack.

When we first started, I treat it like I was going out as normal to the studio, matching leggings & top, hair done, some make up & perfume on however, now they are lucky if a flannel has touched my face and sometimes in Downdog when my nose is next to my armpit I seriously wonder what the hell I have eaten the night before, the smell coming out of my pores!  Actually, I know what I’ve eaten…too much!

Apart for the random crap that I have bought from Amazon over the last 12 months the only essential purchases have been high waisted leggings…they are getting higher by the month, I swear by the time I do eventually get anywhere near a studio again they will be up to my sweaty armpits.

Now depending upon how close or far away peoples screens are from them, this can give a very different impression on how hard I think they are working in the class.

We have the ‘point up to the ceiling‘ angle which, unless they are standing up with their arms in the air I have no clue what they are doing, to be honest they could be sitting down with a glass of wine and cheese board for all I know. 

There’s the ‘my eyesight isn’t brilliant so I’ll have the screen really close‘ angle so every time they lie down on the mat all I can see is a very red face and I have to debate do they need me to ring 999? “unless you have a cat who can switch your microphone on just give me a thumbs up to confirm you’re not having a stroke!”

Then there’s the ‘I think I have this just right‘ angle not too close, not too far away, you can see most of my body but I may just keep moving it throughout the entire class just in case you think I’m slacking. 

And that’s not to mention the ‘I’ll just put it there and hope for the best‘ and all I can see is crotches and camel toes…I have seen enough now to last me a lifetime!

Now I know Zoom isn’t for everyone, and it genuinely looks like a really boring game of Guess Who?

“ Is your person at home?” – Yes!

“Do they have a yoga mat?” – Yes!

“Are they wearing leggings?” – Yes!

“Does their expression say I’m pissed off with lockdowns?” – Absolutely!

But we’ve had fun, it’s kept us smiling, waving at each other week in week out, asking how each other are and who knows how much longer we’ll have to do it for but I am so grateful as they have kept my business & sanity going…I can guarantee one thing though… I bet the camera angles will be tweaked this week.

Namaste x

Speed bumps & Butt cracks

 

And so as we come to our final full week I think the cleaning staff may know something we don’t by the number of toilet rolls they have left in the bathroom,  so as none of us were at the point where we needed to be within a 50 metre sprint to a toilet, a trip to Palolem it was. After bartering over 50p (yes I’m so over haggling) we shoe horned ourselves into the Tuk tuk – now remember there are no real rules to driving here and I swear these drivers see the speed bumps more like ski jumps, it’s just as well you’re wedged together so no-one disappears out of the window as they fly along the road.

Arriving, at what was my last place of Goan heaven “peaceful Palolem” – not so now – really we should have listened to Sudhir when he said “you go to Palolem and it is so busy, so noisy and too many Indians” so after narrowly being kneecapped by a man carrying a concrete pillar crossways across his moped and a bird shitting right in the middle of my flip flop I thinks it definitely time to head back to serene Agonda, and what else to do on a sunny Sunday afternoon except lie on the sand watching a beach full of people doing yoga poses shouting “quick take my picture for Instagram”. The highlight being one group trying, and failing miserably, to spell out YOGA with their bodies – seriously, they ended up looking like a dyslexic version of YMCA.

Anyway as we started the new week poor Rowie had to contend with the Monday morning faces in yoga practice, luckily there wasn’t a marker pen handy or I think there would have been more than a few foreheads with F*** This written across it but, as always, you forget after a little while that you’re knackered and go with the flow.

And so the week continues until “Ashtanga Day” – now after doing it I’ve realised why I’ve never really done it before or have any desire to do it again. Anyway it was with bouncy self practice girl, I’m really hoping that sex sounds aren’t compulsory – we’ve shared a lot as a group during this course but that would just be a step too far. So as the practice gets more complicated in a very casual manner these words are uttered “just put your legs into Lotus pose, thread your arms between the gap of your thighs and calfs” (the marker pen could quite easily have come back out again) – Well seriously, not even a wafer thin mint was going through mine! and then grand finale, whilst in Savasana (relaxation) “take any organic or orgasmic move that you need”, I wasn’t entirely sure that I had heard correctly…so I thought the safest bet was to do neither.

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We were then told not to miss dinner as it was going to be a special one…ooooh treat time in my mind I was hoping for cheddar cheese and biscuits or a food parcel of cheese scones had arrived from the UK (I’m really starting to think like Wallace & Gromit) one can live in hope.
So arriving at the dining area you do have a glance around the plates to see what’ son them and then the judgement comes…for gods sake just because you’re in India it doesn’t mean you have to eat with your hands…Get a fork Man! then I realised there were no forks or knives or spoons for that matter, so hoping that soup wasn’t on the menu, time to eat.

Sitting next to lovely germ phob Sam, who has happily placed her anti-bac gel next to her plate, getting sweatier at the sight of all these people shovelling food in with their fingers it did make me smile to think that no amount of anti-bac is going to remove the shite that has probably been on our hands for the last 3 weeks.
Anyway, it was a special dinner – up to the point where I went home and had to take my contact lenses out and the choice of spicy sauces didn’t seem to have been the wisest.

Getting towards the end of the week and even though the F*** This faces have disappeared we were all ready for a slow/relaxing yoga practice…Restorative it is then!
Blocks, blankets and bolsters and that’s where it became a bit unstuck – relaxing on your mat, gently folding forwards, softening your breath, resting your head onto the bolster…and about 10 seconds in you realise that your face is exactly where someone’s sweaty crutch has been for the last 3 weeks. So for the next few minutes I was wracking my brain thinking what do I have within arms reach to put over this bolster so I’m not nose to butt crack – sarong it is, to be fair it didn’t smell much better.

So after 3 weeks of Planks, Dolphins and Downward facing dogs the blisters are disappearing and the carpet burns on my elbows have scabbed over – there has literally been blood, sweat and tears on this yoga mat, so time for a little TLC in the effort to try and make my hobbit, cow shit covered feet look like a girls again.
Off for a pedicure – a lovely little tin hut but it did have a fan, happy days, and Blossom (I’m not convinced that was her real name but let’s roll with it) and she sets to work just occasionally glancing up at me and sighing as she looks back at my feet so to break the sighing I ask “do you do massages too?” to which she replied “yes I do massages” then frowned and said “I also do facials..they are good for wrinkles” hmmm what’s she getting at? “yes I do good facials, good for very dry skin and it smoothes out the wrinkles”. Ok Blossom Pet I get the message!

I might just take my new feet and wrinkly, dried prune face back to Sampoorna in the hope that tonight’s Mojito may just plump out my skin instead.
(Yes, over 3weeks we deserve a drink!)

Finally, never forgetting Sudhir, now the funniest part of the week doesn’t really translate onto paper, so just for those reading this who were there, I only have one word for you…Wave!

Here’s to the final few days of this amazing, crazy, weird & wonderful journey.

Namaste x