Going to the mat -2

The floor was cold. When it's not much more than me and a couple of dogs I turn the gas heat down to under 60 and we get by on small, electric heaters for single rooms, but in the early morning, the heat was still down. The wood felt like polished ice and I could feel the lingering chill of the night coming up through the soles of my feet.

As the dogs watched, I turned on the television and then laid the purple mat out before it, as if I'd come to pray before it. I don't have cable. Fat chance of that.

The mat, at least, was some insulation against the cold floor. I stepped on, took the remote from off the coffee table and selected an instructional video from the list of saved yoga videos.

There were quite a few. Back when I'd decided I was going to practice yoga at home, I went on kind of a binge. I must have stacked a dozen different videos onto my saved list before deciding to ignore them for a couple of months. There were also some suggestive looking foreign language videos I didn't remember saving that had nothing to do with yoga.

I ignored them and picked out the most basic exercise video on the list, hit the play button and waited for it to run through the trippy, dated opening.

I didn't catch the name of the instructor, but she looked normal, wasn't willowy thin or built like Linda Hamilton in "Terminator 2: Judgement Day;" all ripped muscles and sinews. She looked like someone who probably taught French or Italian at the local high school and did yoga on the side for a few extra bucks.

She was polite, friendly, encouraging, and I felt like an ass.

I got lost trying to slow my breathing to match hers. She seemed to have the lung capacity of a blue whale, and all of the poses matched up with her breathing and the slow rhythm of it. She moved slowly, evenly, while I flailed awkwardly.

The dogs didn't help --particularly, the little one, a Jack Russel terrier mix. She jumped from her chair to attack. Apparently, "downward dog" is threatening and "Sun Salutations" were an invitation to jump on my head.

The poses were very basic, she said, but some of them were well beyond my ability. At one point, she laid back, balanced on her elbows and held her feet in the air. The video instructor, then moved her feet back and forth and showed off more advance poses for when I was ready.

That was going to be awhile.

I flat out couldn't do the thing with my legs and looked like a drunk man trying to breakdance, while a small, white dog licked his face.

That pose ended with a lot of swearing.

But I finished the show. It ran about 20 minutes when you deducted the dumb ass open and the legally required, but seldom appreciated closing credits.

I did it. I figure I'll try it again in a couple of days.

This is still not a weight loss blog.