I am told encouragingly by the instructor to contort my body into some unnatural shape and I’m craning my neck to see what the hell she’s doing  because I don’t know the pose by name like all the other people.  I look and think, “How the hell is she doing THAT!?!”

Then I try to put my body like hers and I look down and have to stop myself from laughing because my attempt looks Nothing Like Hers.  Then, I try to refocus and I hear her say something like, “Now, hold that pose.  Go deeper into it.  Notice your breathing.”

Meanwhile, I’m precariously balanced on one foot that is shaking.  My calf muscle is twitching, and my arm that is nervously flailing around in the air and I grimace to myself, “How can I fucking concentrate on my breathing, I’m going to FALL OVER!”

The perfectly balanced people must be looking at me with compassion for the Noob (which I hate), but the thing that I like the least is that all of the poses HURT.  Like, REALLY Hurt.  I know that it is a workout, but still, it BUUURNS.  And then you have to stay stuck that way forever.  I hate it.

Before I left California (still willing myself to like yoga) I decided to try HOT Yoga.  I walked up to meet my friend who swears by yoga and I looked menacingly at the words on the glass, ‘H O T’ painted all fire and wondered WTF I was doing there.  Don’t I hate Yoga?

I went into class, or rather, the pit of Fire and Doom, and immediately started gasping for air.  It felt like inhaling fire.  So there I am inhaling fire and hating my life, holding another shaky pose with the holier-than- thou instructor looking perfectly muscular, balanced and skinny rattling off unnecessary phrases like, “Ok good, now go Deeper into the stretch.  Doesn’t that feel GOOOD?”

I’m convinced she’s mocking me by her invincible flexibility.  “What is she made of, bendy rubber?” I’m seriously sliding in my own sweat and thinking I want to kill my friend for making me go to bendy hot hell.

After class, my friend looked at me with excitement, hoping she’d converted me over to the Yoga Lover’s Club and asked me,

“How did you like it?”

“I HATED IT,” I answered, immediately feeling guilty from the look of disappointment on her face.  I’ve seen that from other Yoga converts before, so I tried to brush it off.

“Sorry,” I pleaded.  “It’s just not my thing.  Let’s go eat.  I’m starving.”

During dinner, she had me convinced that Yoga has changed her life and how good it feels and that it is just the first part that hurts.  And then you get all perfect and bendy just like everybody else in the class.  She was so Happy when she talked about it, I wished I could be that way about it.

“Just come to one more class, OK?”

“Alright,” I said reluctantly, immediately wishing I hadn’t.  I HATE YOGA!  What was I even thinking?!?!

It took me forever to make it to that second class, but it hung over me like a guilty cloud.  Why on earth had I agreed to go to sweaty bendy hell instead of just agreeing to meet for a meal or something sensible?

Here is how that class went:  Horrible. Every toxin in my whole body must’ve decided to come out that day, all at once because I was like a shaking drug addict or something.  I couldn’t get it together.  Even the easy poses were fucking nightmares and as I failed around dripping sweat and glanced at the other freaks that loved this, I hated them all.  *Especially* the eighty year old man that decided to wear Speedos and showed all his furry bits to me.

The instructor was nice enough to remember my name, and even this turned out to be bad.  She kept saying things to me like,

“Ok, Brooke, can you go a bit deeper into that pose?”

The answer was always NO. But I could at least keep it in my head.  Maybe it was the heat, though because at the second time she asked me, it became slightly audible.

And then, every time after she asked (which seemed to be every frickin’ pose) I started saying it for real until finally it was loud, “NOOOOOOOOO!”

Everyone turned to look.  She finally stopped asking me.

I walked out of there a shaky, sweaty, miserable mess wishing to god that I could keep my inside voice to myself.

I’ve never done Yoga since.  And I still hate it.