He's a man probably similar in age to my dad but as nimble as Bambi and as agile as a ninja. When he sits down he does it in one smooth motion which for a balding white haired man looks wrong. But a good advert for yoga.
So in yoga, apparently you can't do anything until you warm up. I've done warm ups before but in yoga, get this, you to lie down. And breathe. That's about it. No, really. This is the sort of exercise I could quite like. After a few minutes of breathing, BambiNinja started talking in a very low, slow voice.
'Just become aware of your toes.'
'Ok. Done. What's next?'
After about fifteen seconds of toe awareness he moved on. I swear, it felt like a minute. Aside from stubbing one I don't think I've ever been as aware of my toes.
'Feel your soles of you feet.'
'Sole feeling? Check.'
Another fifteen seconds later.
'Feel your ankles.'
'Yup ankles still there.'
And so with fifteen to twenty second intervals between body parts he moved on up the body.
'Feel your calves. Feel the muscle soften as you relax.'
This is when I realised, like I didn't know already, that yoga is a slow burner. We felt, became aware of and relaxed our thighs, our hips, our diaphragms, our lungs, shoulders, right arm, right wrist, right palm, right fingertips, then down the left arm to fingertips, our neck, our chin, our teeth, and our tongue.
And then the Communion Fly moment came. You know, those moments when you burst out laughing when you really can't laugh and the more you try to stop it, the more you think about it and the funnier it becomes even though (in most cases) it wasn't that funny to start with. I call it that because once David whispered to me in church moments before receiving Communion that the fly buzzing around the minister's head was going to land on his bit of bread.
But back to BambiNinja, what did he say to set it off?
'Feel your cheeks.'
'Feel my cheeks? Feel my cheeks? Which ones? Hee hee hee hee. He just said feel my cheeks. Is Karen laughing? Hee hee. This is too funny not to share with anyone else. Hee hee hee. Oh it's so quiet in here, I'm going to laugh out loud. Hee hee. I need to bite my cheek to stop this. Hee hee, cheeks.'
Needless to say the rest of the warm up was spent on concentrating on not laughing. Not sure that really counts. Thankfully it ended pretty soon and when I did finally share the cheek joke with Karen I seemed like a nine year old as she just raised a smile.
The rest of the warm up included more breathing and stretching and then we ripped into the yoga. I say ripped, but really it's just more stretching and breathing, this time in more circular motions you wouldn't really think of. Oh and they've got names. Great names like 'salutation to the sun' and 'peering to the moon' and 'doff your cap to Mars'. Ok so that last one was made up, but I may come up with it. It can't be hard. And the best bit of all these is if you get tired, you get to lie down again. Seriously!
Other great moves include the plough and my new favourite, the camel. Tonight, BambiNinja complimented my camel. No one has ever complimented my camel before. I suppose in fairness, I've never been to north Africa where I imagine people trip over themselves to compliment each other's camel. Hallmark probably even have a card.
Forty five minutes of exercise have never been so...relaxing. But then, like all good sportspeople in yoga you need to cool down. BambiNinja was on it. Turns out it's exactly the same as the warm up. I absolutely promise you, one guy started snoring through it. See, relaxing stuff. Not me though, from about the thighs up all I can think about it feeling my cheeks.
I think BambiNinja must have sensed it and so dragged it out even longer.
'Feel your right cheek.'
'Feel your left cheek.'
'Hee hee. Cheeks. Hee hee.'
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