Yoga - the good, the bad and the just plain laughable

I practice yoga because I find it restorative. Like most gyms, mine maintains the standard where the majority of attendees are female but there are about eight devote male attendees to the Sunday yoga session, less on a Tuesday night.

While I love yoga (the swirl of energy you get, the peace and calm as well as the known benefits), there are parts that I hate (the inconsistency - one day I can perform a pose to perfection and others I am unable to balance with my two firmly grounded feet; plus there are those that tout the risks of yoga) but there are also parts which just make me giggle.

While I have never personally experienced escaping anal air during yoga there are plenty that do. I, like a six year old child, find it amusing but there are some that get quite aggressive when other people pass wind in yoga. It disturbs their chi or something.

Personally I go to yoga because, like Zumba, it is an escape. Like Zumba I sweat (not as copiously) but, unlike Zumba, I come out of yoga with a sense of peace rather than a euphoric high. The meditation at the end is my most restful sleep in the entire week, if only for a few minutes. There's something special about lying still under a blankie after having worked my body beyond its limits. I liken it to sleeping after a rigorous sex session. My heart rate slows, my body temperature drops and my mind lets go. Rather than escaping by filling my mind with something else, yoga is the only time where I find peace in nothingness. My mind clears because I have challenged it and my body simultaneously and it needs to rest. Nothing else does that for me. Yoga is my rock that pulls me through the week. I do everything I can to make sure I go every Tuesday night and every second Sunday. My sanity depends on it and I can notice a drop in my ability to cope with life's unpredictability when I skip a session.

Yoga is a place where I process so much of my mental anguish. It is a time when the washing machine spin cycle stops and I find I have something clean. The quiet, peaceful nonjudgmental observation is so important in my life.