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The weekly Yoga class that I go to at California Fitness has changed its schedule. Due to ‘overwhelming’ requests for mind and body type classes (Yoga, Pilate, Body Balance) at 7.40pm on weekdays, they have changed the 9.40pm Yoga class on Wednesday to 7.40pm. Frankly speaking I think that wanting at “7.40pm on weekdays” is a stupid excuse for changing the schedule. Lazy buggers can’t even stay till 8.40pm to attend the Yoga class. No commitment whatsoever. Need the class to come to them. But that’s really besides the point.

The change in class schedule also means a change in class type. It was previously beginners Yoga (I fall under a special category that I created for myself called pre-beginners). Now it is a multi-level class. What this means is that I get to see Anna (the guru) show off her flexibility in as she demonstrates the various poses at different levels of difficulty. What this implies is that my jaw hits the floor more often than I would have liked it to. Let me illustrate with an example.

There’s this one pose called Eka Pada Rajakapotasana (I’ll simply refer to it as the Pidgeon Pose or PP for short) that focuses on the thighs, groin, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and neck. If you refer to the link that I gave you above, you’ll see what the pose should look like at the advanced level. During last week’s lesson, we were introduced to the pose at a beginner’s level where we worked mainly on leg flexibility without all that flashy arm stretching and back arching. So I was thinking to myself, “Hey, I know that pose. Tried it last week”. Man was I in for a surprise.

Basically Anna started off with the beginners position with the right leg curled up front with the thigh flat on the ground while the left leg was stretched out behind. Once the legs were in position, she squared her shoulders and straightened her upper torso, leaning back slightly so that the body weight was squarely on the hips and arms flared out to the side. All I could manage was to get the legs right. I still needed to prop my body up with my arms. So comparatively speaking, this current position is already too much for me to handle. But even so, I maintained a smile because I could at least try to achieve this :)

She proceeded to show the intermediate level where she bent the left leg at the knee, turned her torso slightly and grasped her toes with her right hand. I definitely couldn’t do this. My facial expression had changed to this :o

Third phase, she told those who were comfortable with the position to square their shoulders, reach back with their other arm, and hold their toes with BOTH arms. Now I’m like :O

As the coup de grace, she took it a step further. This is where it starts to look really painful. She started off in the beginner position. Bent her left leg and grasped her toes with her right hand. The difference between the current position and the intermediate position is that her right elbow was bent and tucked inwards, pointing slightly towards the ground. From this position, she rotated the right elbow counter clockwise until the elbow was pointing straight up. Squaring the shoulders, she reached over her shoulder with the left arm to join her right in holding her toes. Finally, she leaned back, arched her back, threw back her head, and brought her left leg forward until it touched the top of her head (refer to picture in the reference site). x.x

That’s the Pidgeon Pose for you. Seeing that picture is difficult enough to imagine getting into the position. But after seeing it broken down step by step, I am lost for words. It is both impressive and depressing at the same time, especially after trying out the beginners pose and finding out my limits.

Still think that you’re flexible? Try going to a Yoga class and be humbled by it. You don’t know the meaning of flexibility until you’ve tried i out yourself.