Day 11. If I were to spend too long out here I’d lose the ability to understand what “cold” means. Everyone is bitching about the temperature. It’s about average early Spring London temperature, and yet I’m sitting by a heater. There’s a small dog attempting to burrow through my crotch, lemongrass oil diffusing into the air, and Bon Iver on Spotify. It hasn’t taken me long to start taking on the tropes of this place.
This morning as I was walking to Yoga I made a point of observing all the things that were different over here. The roads are comparatively huge, the stop signs take ages, the buildings are mostly bungalows or one story, there are pick up trucks everywhere, unfamiliar fire hydrants, odd signs for familiar things, Spanish as a second language, football is called soccer.
It doesn’t take long to stop noticing these small details, but they’re significant. I’m in a very different place and I can cement some habit changes. Like Yoga every day for a start. I’ve come to the conclusion that I should’ve been doing daily yoga for years. I talk myself out of stuff as I say I can’t afford it. But it’s great. My best friend does it daily and she’s my best friend. She knows things. There’s got to be a reason for it.
I go to Yoga Works in Larchmont. It was the first yoga studio in Los Angeles, opening in 1967. Which is nuts considering today there’s a different take on yoga on every street corner. I was leaving a coffee place called Go Get ’em Tiger. Great coffee, very LA name, dodgy internet. I’d been trying and failing to consult google maps for a yoga class and a woman with a mat walked right past. “Where are you going with that mat?” “David’s class, of course.” “Me too!”. Not technically a lie because I went. And David’s class is great. It’s Vinyasa Flow level 2/3 so my first class involved a lot of peeking at the people next to me. As it turns out I know a lot of it from back when I was at drama school and different teachers had assimilated different parts of it into their lessons. The body remembers even if the mind doesn’t. Now I’m addicted.
I’m one of the only men in the class. Sometimes I AM the only man. I wonder about this. The class is at noon. Maybe it’s that all the men are going to some crazyass martial arts yoga class in a different part of town where they can punch stuff and shout “Yah”. I’m not in a state of mind where I want to go to Cobra Kai right now. I want Mister Miyagi. David’s the closest I’ve found although the studio is in pretty good nick and doesn’t need painting or waxing.
I like the stricture of yoga, in that you’re essentially in a battle against your own cowardice, against your own mind. I’ve spent years letting my logical brain cripple my actions. It’s masterful at it. In this class I’m already finding myself doing things physically that I’d decided I could no longer do. And it’s coming from me, David is just facilitating. It’s a big class. Having moved my body in ways I thought were closed to me, I go back home and do things I’d normally talk myself out of, like make that phone call, send that email, ask for that footage. It only takes two weeks to change a habit. I have a month and a half left of yoga here. Once it expires I might find Cobra Kai and shout and punch stuff for the last two weeks. But this is just fine for now. Wax on. Wax off.
AlBarclay 