About a month ago, I went home for a weekend with my oldest brother to surprise my Grandma and Mom in order to bring our family together with the Grams for the first time in a couple years. While home, we headed over to the local outlet stores in search of some clothing for the Grams. I had needed a few pairs of boxers, as my lucky ones had recently taken a wrong left turn in the bathroom and ended up reduced to even less than this. So, we arrived at the Hanes store, and I quickly went to the men’s section about the size of this room. I looked intensely over the selection of Hanes products, only to be left dissatisfied. They didn’t have the looser fitting boxers that I normally wear, nor did they have boxer briefs that could get the job done. But, I was a man in need of boxers, and a man in need of boxers succumbs to the pressure. I selected a 3-pack of some oddly designed pattern and called it a day.
Flash forward to yesterday afternoon. Yoga was my new activity for the day, and a friend of mine graciously came along with me. She had done yoga once before, but we were both clearly beginners for the traditional physical and mental disciplines. Little did I know that the class we signed up for was described online as, “experiencing the essential elements of Forrest Yoga: breath, strength, integrity, and spirit. Take your yoga practice beyond the mat and try one of the most vigorous and demanding yoga workouts around.” I’m in a search to find new passions; I’m not in a search to pull a hamstring doing something that is supposed to be “relaxing.”
Truth is, no hamstring was pulled, and, believe it or not, the “sport” actually is relaxing. Relaxing in the fact that you can’t really think about anything else when you’re struggling to hold the Chaturanga Dandasana with the yoga teacher literally so close that she is breathing down your throat attempting to help you. The instructor was a wonderful woman, who basically turned the class of 30 people into one-on-two instruction for me and my friend. But, at the end of the day, through all of her effort she just needed to realize it’s hard to make this do this.
However, she didn’t fully understand this, or at least she wanted to attempt the legal limits of flexibility for a man that can’t really sit Indian style. So, from the beginning of the session I began to notice that my boxers were more inflexible than myself. Every other stretch I had to sort of pull them up to act as boxer briefs, because they just weren’t getting the job done as boxers. About halfway through, we were all in the downward dog position (albeit, some were better than others). In yoga, the downward dog is sort of a starting position for multiple other stretches and exercises. In this instance, we were going from the downward dog into a lunge something along the lines of this. As I moved my left leg forward out of the downward dog, I felt some tension between my boxers and my leg. But, Minnie, the instructor, was still breathing down my throat so I pushed on through the tension to move the leg forward. I felt, I heard, and I was bended down enough that I could see, that the tension had been relieved.
I said nothing. As we left class a half hour later, I looked at my friend and we both were about as sore as this guy. As I sit here today, I am even sorer. I look back on the class and think to one thing: when we entered the fitness center and gave the registration lady our ID’s, she looked at us and said, “you’re going to find some muscles you never knew you had.” Well, so much for finding “some” muscles. Just about every muscle in my body has been found. And they don’t mind letting me know.
Attempts to Access Sports:
Internet: Seven; TV: Three; Phone: Zero; Discussions: Four
My Sports Free Fact of the Day: A dog may stretch (maybe downward dog style) just to calm a person, or another dog.
My New Activity for the Day: Paintball for the first time in my life.
