I hit the pool today after work and – fortified with some pre-workout oatmeal – I swam like crazy. I plowed through 30 laps like it was nothing. Well, I was still a slowpoke compared the high school team, but I still kicked ass, dang it.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw a guy a couple lanes over that looked like he was struggling a bit – and also didn\u2019t have goggles. He was still going when I got out and I stopped to his lane to try and give him my goggles – telling him that I had an extra pair at home and the chlorine was intense. He thanked me, but declined, and I headed to the locker room to change.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From there, I headed north. \u00a0One of my friends had suggested a yoga class in the Cleveland area and though it had been a while since I\u2019d done any yoga, I was game.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I got to the venue plenty early and followed a guy in that was carrying a yoga mat. Seemed like a safe bet. He guided me to the third floor of the church and to the yoga room – then introduced me to one of the female instructors.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wait, what?
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had thought this was naked <\/em>yoga and a mixed gender class seemed, welllllllll, a little odd. \u00a0I took off my shoes and the instructor gave me directions to the restroom to change. Now, a lesser man might have panicked, but I had also brought yoga clothes in case things went off the rails. Which they appeared to have done so. My friend had decided not to come, so I was winging it. I got changed, got back to the yoga room, and got introduced to the other female instructor. It was then that I asked, \u201cWhere\u2019s Dan?\u201d – who was listed as the contact instructor on the MeetUp app. \u201cOh,\u201d she replied, \u201cYou\u2019re here for the other<\/em> yoga class. \u00a0That\u2019s down the hall,\u201d I thanked her, gathered up my gear and headed to the other class – where there were 2 other male students and a male instructor waiting. We introduced ourselves and chatted a bit while we waited for the start time and got out mats set up. When it was clear that this was it for the class, the door was closed and we stripped down. Each guy had his own mat and we started the class with some deep breathing. Cool, I can breath, no biggie. Then the first half of the class had us mostly in a push-up pose and I didn\u2019t fair so well. My left arm, ever since the break\/surgery\/plates\/screws is no longer a \u201cload bearing structure\u201d and I was hurting pretty quick. When we finally got to stand up, we did a bunch of poses that had our feet in a wide stance. And the bottoms of my feet kept cramping up. The instructor had a couple of heaters going – which was good at the start (cause we were all naked in an old and drafty church) but soon became too much. We did a lot of stretching and my back is now a little sore as I write this, but I otherwise recovered in a couple of minutes. The class ended with the \u201ccorpse pose\u201d where you just lie flat on your back and relax. \u00a0On literally better ground, I did fine with that too. There was a hearty round of \u201cNamaste\u201d from everyone and we wiped down our mats and got dressed. \u00a0 Not confident I could find my way back out, I waited until one of the guys was ready to be my guide – then made my way to my car and headed home. I tried my best with the yoga – doing some parts well and faltering in others. The nudity was pretty much irrelevant – we might just as well been wearing clown costumes or the traditional yoga gear of the folks down the hall. And I think that disappointed me a bit. As men, we\u2019re literally all buttoned up all day. Holding back our emotions and feelings – and playing things close to the vest, as it were. I had hoped that, without the buttons or vests, we could maybe get in touch with something a little deeper within ourselves. To reconnect with who we are as men without all the trappings – and use some yoga stretching as the guide. I guess I was expecting too much. It was a fine yoga session and I\u2019m sure I would get better at it over time if I kept at it. \u00a0The drive to Cleveland was a bit long for as short as the session was so I may try to find a location closer. \u00a0Likely with pants. The trip made for a good adventure, but I think I\u2019m going to stick with swimming as my main form of exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, Namaste – and good night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I hit the pool today after work and – fortified with some pre-workout oatmeal – I swam like crazy. I plowed through 30 laps like it was nothing. Well, I was still a slowpoke compared the high school team, but I still kicked ass, dang it. I saw a guy a couple lanes over that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2482,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions\/2482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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