Heart Full

I’ve finally decided to make this blog official. Thank you all for reading. I’ll continue to post at:

**** http://www.chaiyoga.net ****

Ipanema Beach, Rio de Janiero – June 2008

It would be tough to imagine anything more beautiful than the beach landscape of Rio. Until I saw her people. My cellulite screamed in agony. For several caipirinha induced hours I believed that this place inspired Eden. Wishful thinking. This is not the cradle for all human kind, just supermodels. And it’s easy to see why. The beaches virtually all 6+ km of it are teeming with activity, and not the sun-bathing kind, but futbol, volleyball, and jogging. Starbucks doesn’t exist here, it’s door to door juice bars, McDonalds is sasquatch rare, and no one smokes. Top it off with a healthy tan, good-looking genes, and you have your average Brazilian.

So it’s easy to see why I slithered into my first Brazilian yoga class. The fact that the only yoga class I could find within a healthy – NYer walking radius of my hotel was in a gym was no comfort. My mind had me mat to mat with Adriana Lima, or any other Victoria Secret Model (since they all seem to come from Brazil nowadays). It would never matter how stable I was in crow or tree, all of my poses would be marked by dimply, pudgy and squat.

But Adriana Lima wasn’t there, to be kind, the class was upper middle aged, and mildly out of shape. I shamelessly admit, I was pretty relieved. But a big part of me was disappointed too. I thought that since Brazilians were so in tuned to their health, and ecological environment, they would have discovered the benefits of yoga a long time ago. But I guess, they didn’t.

For an hour class the instructor was close to 10 minutes late, and then spent another 10 minutes trying to fix the music. She had us do about 10 minutes of pranayama (breathing exercises), and then she talked us into peacock . The HORROR! The mis-alignments were gruesome. And it was personally upsetting to see people’s painful winces as they rolled their wrists. Worst of all, she managed to mangle me into the pose, I couldn’t dodge her, and my attempts at “no, thank you” weren’t understood. Not wanting to be the center of attention any longer, I wrestled into a shaky see-saw (see peacock).

In this paradise I thought yogis would thrive, but even in paradise I guess you have to realize that being into your body, isn’t the same thing as being in tuned to your body.

Consuming Carefree Caipirinhas