Peacock

photo via

I’ve been doing a lot of yoga lately.  I like it for a few reasons:

• Most of my exercise routine is cardio (running, swimming, (kind of) biking), so the change of pace is nice.
• Trainers and PTs have consistently told me since breaking my back that hamstring flexibility and core strength are particularly important for me to maintain.
• Since breaking my elbow I’ve been wary of weights, so I find this and TRX to be a nice alternatives for strength.
• It makes my arms look good.

There is only one class I really find challenging and worthwhile.  I love it.  And not just because the teacher, who is most definitely stoned all the time, plays music during class and every time a Grateful Dead song comes on walks by me and goes, “Hey, California!”

There is one drawback: his favorite pose is this thing called peacock.

That is peacock.  And, like most yoga poses, no, I have no idea how that resembles a peacock. At all.  And yes, it’s as ridiculous as it looks.   But he makes us try it every. single. day.

I’ve been attending this class regularly for about a year and a half.  That’s a lot of unsuccessful peacock.

The first year or so I mostly just worked on getting my fingers pointing towards my feet with my elbows and forearms touching under my belly, with my legs still on the ground (hard to do with my gimp elbow.)  That took a while.

Once I mastered just getting my hands in that position, next was me putting any weight at all on my hands.  This usually lasted about .0003 seconds before I face planted into the floor.  Over and over.  Until I gave up and just laid there, face down, defeated.

Last week I was doing my usual flopping around, doing my best to look like I was actually trying so the teacher wouldn’t come over and pay attention to me, and suddenly…my legs were off the floor.  Like magic.  Not up high in the air, like the dude up there, but OFF THE FLOOR.  I WAS FLYING.

…and then I promptly did something weird to my shoulder and had to take the week off.

And that, my friends, is my February Fitness success story.