Yoga Woodlands Style

 

This Texas heat is killing me guys.  My wants and needs are minimal…..an icy wind and  a heartfelt shiver starting  deep inside my chest cavity would  feel so good.  Heard we are making the big trek back to Telluride in a couple days….oh boy, I can’t wait. Damn!…I’m naked? Shivering will be on my agenda for sure, won’t it. 

 

 

Well to be perfectly fair to owner she does put her heart into everything.  Take her and her yoga practice for instance…she tries.  She’s been trying for three years now and she still can’t scratch her head with her leg.  For Pete’s sake I’ve been doing that since I was a puppy and I have never been caught in a yoga class yet. I’m not against instruction in principle just don’t particularly believe it is necessary.  Yours truly can also do a pretty quick twist and catch a fly on the  end of my tail…bet she can’t do that either.

 

Recently she had a huge breakthrough.  She managed to get from  an anticipatory “standing on  head” position, to the tripod near the wall, to the tripod away from the wall, to actually standing on her head…oh crap, near the wall. Was she content…no! Instantly she was working on the anticipatory pose for manipulating herself feet first into a handstand.  She doesn’t fool me for a minute. Figured it out yet?  The only way this woman can have her boobs sit anywhere near where they sat twenty years ago is when she’s upside down. You are likely to see her getting her groceries as she walks on her hands, upside down and dialing her phone with her toes, oh the list goes on.

If her pictures didn’t exist it would be hard to prove she’s ever been to a class.  True, not as much moaning and groaning takes place as she crawls out of bed in the morning – perhaps the word should be “slithers” as she’s really getting up only to look for  another dark place to hide. Morning person she is not. (note to self, Christmas idea….giant rock for owner) And for those who are curious…no she’s not a night  person either.  She’s always admitted freely she’s an 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. person.

Every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday she’s been leaving me in charge of curly haired while she goes to Sam’s.  This is a nice time of year because he has jasmine growing up the telephone posts, up trees, in his garden,and  the back door. The heavenly odour wafts in the windows as the students sweat their way through yet another Ashtanga class. Who wouldn’t enjoy that?   Sam says he did it to make the place look nice and to enjoy the scent ….pretty sure he did it to disguise the incredible body odours that result in his studio. Me…I’m into stinky.  My advice would be  cut the jasmine increase the B.O. 

 

 

Once you remove your shoes, you are welcome inside.  Be warned, Sam is a certified torturer from some secret sect of yogis.  He can work on you mentally as well as physically.  Apparently you can be in a tortuous position and he will come over and move your knee more to the right or more to the left and then twist your left shoulder so it thinks it’s your right shoulder….or, hey, why not have him push your shoulder under your kneecap (don’t laugh….he’s the man for the job!).  He looks like a gentle soul, amiable, encouraging but it is all a big facade.  Owner tells me that she has heard  muted evil chuckles  from his lips after he’s done a particularly nasty torquing of yet another uninitiated student. But hey…they go back and they go back and they go back and NOT ONLY THAT….THEY PAY.  You couldn’t ask for a more reasonable price though is what owner says and she should know…she seems to love giving Curly haired’s money away.

 

To be fair, Sam doesn’t let himself off lightly.  If you can get one shoulder under your knee, he practices to get two.  If you can balance precariously in a side plank with your arm up, he can do it and hold the other  leg in the air and gently grab his toe with his fingers.Plus, he looks peaceful.  It’s the peaceful bit that confounds me about humans.  I can do my downward dogs  with a sad frown or employ an angry stare; peaceful doesn’t really enter into my thoughts. Owner tells me you have to keep breathing calmly and deeply while all this yoga posturing is taking place.  I, on the other hand, sometimes  hold my breath while I scratch, just because I can.    Rosena apparently never holds hers.  It looks like that girl could be related to my aristocratic canine lineage with the way she can place her leg behind  her head.  She’s very in touch with her animal side. GRRRR!

Pretty much all of these moves, from what I HAVE OBSERVED AROUND THE HOMESTEAD are down the road for owner, a lonely windy hundred mile road. For  Curly haired….HA!!! never in a month of Sundays but then he can run better than I can (mind you I AM SEVENTY in HUMAN YEARS…and so what if Jim Braden can still run like the wind, I’m just a normal old dog.)

 

 

So on owner plods.  She’s working hard on shoulder to knee stand.  BIG MISNOMER she says since it is really KNEE IN FRONT OF THE SHOULDER STAND.  There are many components to the asana but she is at step one….get the feet up, breathe, and then manage to sit back on her ass without falling like a ton of bricks and cracking the studio floor.  From what I hear…..well, i can’t tell you everything!

Must add, however, that owner is perplexed at how two other Ashtanga students , Sue and Marti, conveniently managed to miss photo night. And  Wojtek? Where were you…don’t give some cokcamamy story that you were on a plane to Paris for fifteen hours…no one buys it!  See ya later.

 

 

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