what to write about... what to write about...

at first i was going to write about the nature of children as seen through the eyes of a t-ball coach. but then i decided that the parents of those children might resent the fact that their kids were being used as fodder for a post by a second-rate blogger like myself. then i thought i would use tonight's entry to tell someone at school what it is that i have been trying to tell that person going on two days now. but then i decided that the message i wanted to deliver was too important to communicate via any means other than good, old-fashioned face-to-face dialogue and so that conversation will have to wait until tomorrow (if at all). which leaves today's impromptu tai chi lesson at school as the eventual inspiration for tonight's entry.

a few months ago, i participated in about a half-dozen yoga classes at my local community centre before calling it quits for a number of reasons to be discussed shortly. this morning's crash course in the ancient art of tai chi provided much the same recipe in terms of grumbling and griping.

to begin with, why do the names of the poses in each of these traditional practices have to be so out-and-out silly? downward facing dog? sparrow's tail? extended puppy pose? diagonal plank? look, just call it what it is, would ya? lower back pain half stretch. hernia-inducing leg extension. i-could-do-that-when-i-was-18 spinal twist. now we're talking.

furthermore, what's with all the goofy preambles and prologues used to introduce every single stretch and pose and exercise throughout the lesson? jeez, my yoga instructor spent fifteen minutes at the start of our initial class more or less deifying the founder of the yoga movement she belonged to. fifteen minutes? on a gushing biography of some nut who lived in the mountains of nepal for six years before moving to san diego to open up a yoga studio? san diego?

and finally, why do adherents of ancient practices like tai chi and yoga and aerobics always seem to take themselves so damn seriously? there is a woman at my daughter's school who was telling me about the benefits of hot yoga the other day. apparently she had just come back from a weekend retreat where she had spent the better part of 72 hours seated in the lotus position inside an oversized sauna with a hundred or so dim-witted followers of some fellow named bikram sweating profusely and chanting mantras. when i told her that it sounded like she had joined a mind-control cult, she became enraged and suggested that i lacked culture and sensitivity (which, of course, i do), but still, why so hostile, lady?

namaste.

"if you keep giving off signals that you don't want to belong, people will eventually make sure that you don't." - pretty in pink (1986)

"if this is where it has to happen, then this is where it has to happen." - jerry maguire (1996)