Ninja Prerequisite

My main athletic goal for next year is compete in the Fitness Division.  Judging is based on two rounds.  The first round is like the Figure Division in that you wear a V-shaped bikini with crossed straps in the back and 5″ heels and do four quarter turn poses.  Your physique should have shape to your muscles, but not size or vascularity (no worries there for me!)  This portion of the judging counts for 1/3 of your total score.  The second round, a/k/a the fun part, is where you do a two minute dance/gymnastics routine, which counts for 2/3 of your overall score.

Great, except for two things:  1- I don’t know how to do gymnastics, and 2- I can’t dance.  But do you think something as silly as “qualifications” is going to stop me from being a Ninja?  Heck no!

I asked my trainer, Mel, if I should start taking gymnastics classes.  She said yes, but only if I wanted to injure myself 🙁  She said I have to work on my flexibility first.  Bummer.  I wanted to start with the Ninja moves.

Every other night I’ve been doing a Pilates DVD after the kids go to sleep (but before watching Breaking Bad,) but I wanted to step it up, so yesterday I took a yoga class.  Everyone had their own mats and foam blocks and I had a water bottle.  The teacher loaned me a mat and we had to sit cross legged and breathe, which hurt.  How is that even possible?

Then we were stretching our backs out while the yoga leader (Yogi?  Isn’t that plural for more than one instructor?) started leading us through visual exercises.  “Pick a color and see it enter into your body through your toes.  Feel it fill you up and enter inside you, traveling through your legs and shooting out through your anus and genitals.”

I had to pause there for a minute.  I mean, do I really want royal purple shooting out my a**hole?  Maybe I should go with a different color?

She moved on and we were doing poses that were surely designed by someone as a joke.  Hey, I dare you to put your leg up like this!   But I am determined to become a Ninja so I do the poses as best I can, and actually feel pretty good.  Until the yogi comes over to correct my form.  She presses down on my lower back and forces my hips straight then moves my leg three inches higher.

Yelping is not a term I typically use, but in this case it seems to apply, as I yelped in pain.  “Feel the difference there?  Yeah, it sucks, doesn’t it.”  I found it interesting that the “sucks” part was a statement and not a question.  I guess my purple face was response enough.  But at least purple was coming out my face and not the other end.

Namaste.

How about you?  Do you do yoga?

Lisa

 

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