marriage

I asked Michael to write me some notes to describe how he felt going to hot yoga class with me on Saturday, and this is what he posted on Facebook:

Turns out it isn’t always about me.

So today Shelly and I were lounging about having a mostly lazy Saturday. It had been a hectic week for both of us and we needed some down-time. Which in my case usually means sleep more than the cats do, play computer games and generally avoid anything that resembles work, thinking, or in the best case scenario avoiding exercise at all costs. I have this down to a science.

Out of nowhere she asks if I want to go to Hot Yoga at noon with her. Every urge in my body screams to say no, to avoid this and continue in my state of denial of the advanced atrophy my muscles have succumbed to from sitting in chairs all day long at work and generally being a bum when I get home.

Then something strange happened, I am convinced I was momentarily taken over by some supernatural force, the words “yea, I could do that.” escaped from my lips. I tried to pull them back. I hoped she hadn’t heard what I had just uttered. She heard me. I was doomed. I would have to exercise. My only hope was for a tornado, or sharks attacking or a Sharknado.

Alas, I was not to get that lucky. Oh well, it might be good for me. But I sure was going to go into this kicking and screaming the entire way. How dare she take an interest in my health or attempt to make my aching back not hurt so much. Typical selfish woman I thought as I begrudgingly stomped to the closet to look for the shorts I wore the last time I went to hot yoga.

Mind you I had been with her before to hot yoga. It had been at least six months for me. The last time we went I probably looked like a complete idiot, albeit a sweaty and rotund idiot.

At least she didn’t know much more than me back then so I figured I would do ok this time also. The problem here was she has been going four or five times a week for the last six months, and, well, I have been educating my mind by looking for funny cat pictures on the internet when she is at hot yoga. This was a task I undertook with an exceptional amount of pride. However, by comparison I suspect her going to yoga was more beneficial than me finding funny cat pictures.

When we went before I remember we both had some confusion on what the poses meant, how to do them and how to not fall over in front of a room of people. She was in better shape than me back then (and still is) and had lost a lot of weight, but was still a relative beginner at the yoga thing. I had some hope that I would get lucky again and not look like a total moron.

I am about to be in for a rude awakening. As they say “out of the fire, and into the hot yoga room” or something like that.

We get to hot yoga right before noon when it is scheduled to begin. I think I was still hoping maybe they changed daylight savings time and I would get out of this. Or maybe the Mayan zombie apocalypse had occurred and we would be able to go home and maybe get a pizza on the way back to make ourselves feel better. Pizza is much better than exercise I think I mumbled to myself.

Nope, they were open, we were on time and there was lots of room to put down our stuff. To make matters worse the temperature wasn’t bad. The last time I did hot yoga it was around 110 degrees Fahrenheit (I said Fahrenheit for my Canadian friends that might have thought I meant Celsius). It was probably around 95 degrees inside this time. Mind you that is still hot and you are going to sweat, it just isn’t nuclear or the surface of the sun and you are going to die kind of hot as it was previously.

She puts her mat down and grabs another one that is evidently for me. She brought me a large pink mat with cat pictures on it. Not sure why, but evidently my obsession with cat related things has finally rubbed off on her. I go get a wet towel and stick my head into the shower in the men’s locker room so it is a little cooler for me and go back into the room of hot death and forced exercise. I am dreading this, on the outside of course, because I sure couldn’t admit I needed this. Hell no, I would lose my He-Man woman haters club card if I admitted that I needed this.

The girl teaching the class is young, blonde, cute and six months pregnant. Awesome I think to myself, the pregnant woman is going to be able to do all this strange stuff that I can’t and she has a basketball size stomach to contend with. The only good news is so did I. She says the name of the first pose. I think she said it was either Kielbasa or Chewbacca. I don’t know. But I figured if it was Kielbasa I would get to eat and if it was Chewbacca maybe they would cut the class short and we could watch Star Wars. Turns out it wasn’t either one of those.

The class begins.

So I look over at my partner in crime assuming she doesn’t know much more than me. When it hit me. She knows how to do all this stuff now. And really knows how to do this. I also check her out in the yoga pants and my thoughts drift to a place that I can’t write about in this forum because it would end up as a “Yoga Pants Erotica” story. But it was a great view, trust me. I stared for a moment at Shelly and thought “…wow has she come a long way…” She has lost a lot of weight and really is looking quite hot. For a moment I feel like I am cheating on my wife by having these thoughts, then I remember she is my wife, so I can have these thoughts.

She is starting to sweat, it’s hot and it isn’t easy to do all the poses without sweating. My yoga pants fantasy fades away and I of course move north and start my Sports Bra fantasy before the pregnant blonde calls out a new pose and interrupts my inappropriate thoughts of my hot and sweaty wife.

I don’t know what the next pose was, but it should have been called “Crouching Tiger, Breaking Walnuts”. Because if you are a guy attempting to bend over, keep your knees together and lift your arms over your head, trust me, the walnuts are in danger of being broken.

I decide that for self-Preservation I am going to modify this pose a little and not try to squeeze my knees so close. I doubted I would get much sympathy, but I didn’t want to start singing like Jimmy Summerville (most of you won’t get that reference, look up Small Town Boy by Bronksi Beat and you will understand).

Some other poses come up that make no sense what so ever. Something called Tree or Swinging Banana Hammock, then something about a Dog, a Downward Dog or maybe it was Snoop Doggy Dog Style, I didn’t know. I was just watching Shelly and trying to do the stuff she did. I had a success rate of around 42%. Which was 12 percent better than what I had initially calculated I would get.

I keep looking over at her amazed at all the flexibility she had. This was the same woman I knew a few years ago that was glued to a chair playing World of Warcraft and the only stretching we did was to reach for a wine glass. Of note, I am still really good at that pose. For the record, I think it is called a “Forward Fold, Cabernet Lift”. Also I keep going back to watching her bend and thinking about getting some wine out later and pouring her many glasses and seeing if I can get her to show me those poses again, if you know what I mean.

I was really proud of my wife. Of what she has accomplished and what she drives herself to do every day. I was also amazed at how hard this was and how she did it so effortlessly now.

I would try to balance in some strange pose and fall over. She did the same thing and was lunging forward and kicking her leg back at the same time.

I am hoping this motivates me a little and I keep going back. If they can keep the temperature at the same place it was today I could do it more. We shall see, but one thing I know is Shelly is going to keep going back and I love the results, so I support this. That and I may buy her some yoga pants, to try on, at home, after we do the “Cabernet Lift” a few times.