Guess what we went to see at midnight! Squee!
Some of the review have been pretty savage, but I think it’s still a fun movie. Not as good as the first, but I was bracing myself for acute disappointment so I was pleasantly surprised*. The movie spends too much time referencing old jokes and not making new ones, there are too many action scenes and not enough plot**, and it’s the first half of a really long movie instead of a self-contained story. But hey… pirates!
Returning to land, I’ve decided to definitely change yoga venues. Last night’s class felt like it could have ended with me in a wheelchair. The instructor’s lackadaisical teaching might be acceptable when you’re just trying to touch your toes, but this involved weight-bearing on the neck with no description of technique. I don’t know for sure*** what the position is called... it wasn’t The Plow... it looks like “The Bridge” variation of The Wheel. All sorts of danger flags. Looking at this website, I can see now that I was right to ignore what she was telling us to do; it looks like your weight should be on your shoulders but she never actually said that. From her vague description it sounded like she was telling us to support our weight with our heads.****
Also, all you yoga-takers out there, could you describe how Salute to the Sun should look? Not pose-by-pose, but overall impressions? I’d thought it was a relaxed, flowing series of moves, a bit like T’ai Chi. In our class, we jump between postures with explosive changes of position accompanied by barked instructions (“Right leg back! Left foot forward! Chest out! Chin up!”). Odd. Bootcamp yoga?
Anyway, that class and I will part ways. Leaving aside the potential of physical damage, when the only reason I’m doing something is because it would make a good blog story I think a little bit of me dies.
On the weekend, a knitting post! With pictures! Yay!
* The key to happiness, right there.
** Yes, I know… “too many action scenes?” But how many kraken-fights does one really need? Sometimes less is more. And the whole cannibal thing, while funny, was too long in proportion to its plot importance (= none).
*** Another complaint I have is that she rarely mentions the name of any position. I have to browse through yoga sites to find out anything, and almost always discover warnings and tips that would have been really good to know, oh, say, IN CLASS! Oh, and in addition to thinking the solar plexus is below the navel, she also thinks we have 27 vertebrae.
**** Not that I tried that for a second before the self-preservation instincts kicked in or anything. Because that would have been very stupid. Ahem. Because she’s doing the poses along with us, it’s sometimes hard to see exactly what she’s doing if the angle is wrong. The class is enough people in a small enough room that it’s hard to move to get a better view.
I've done Salute to the Sun at the same yoga studio with multiple instructors and all were different. I remember one instance of the cardiac version we went through for 10 minutes... anyway, some of them have more flow than others, but all that I went through did have occasional jumps to get into position for certain poses (like to get the feet to the back of the mat for downward-facing-dog). I could always feel the flow to the movements though, even through those repositionings. Is that what you were wanting to know?
Chris: Well, OK, but I think it's far more likely that she's just talking through her hat (or something else round and inappropriate, as Bill Bryson puts it)
Alan: I can see the need for some jumps. I guess it's just that the way we're doing it seems like yoga freeze tag, if that makes sense; it's so... sudden. I'm not feeling any flow.
27 is a pretty weird count, though. There's pretty well always 7 cervical, 12 thoracic and 5 lumbar vertebrae, which makes 24. If you count the sacrum and the coccyx as 1 each, that makes 26. If you count the 5 sacral vertebrae that fuse to form the sacrum, and the 4 coccygeal vertebrae (usually - it varies from 3 to 7, but 4 is the most common) that fuse to form the coccyx, you get 33 (that's where Answers.com gets that number from). If you count the 5 sacral but only count the coccyx as one vertebra (which some textbooks do), you get 30. How the hell do you end up with 27??
I will always treasure my one and only yoga experience. Lying on the floor with my legs tied to my waist, a heavy blindfold over my eyes, and sand bags pinning my hands to the floor thinking "Do I tip?" Ah yoga, the entry level activity for bondage.
I'm also of the opinion that you should make warning posters and wallpaper the place with them to try to save the others. Or at least something subtle like "Anyone who goes here is a slave and an idiot!"
...Bne, I don't think that was a *Yoga* class you were taking...
Arh! Glad to hear you're having your yoga instructor walk the plank. (/end attempt to be witty and work in pirates)
Re: Saluting the Sun - I pretend I'm flowy because it just seems like one should be flowy and organic when saluting the sun. Note I said "pretend". (sigh)
I've been using the "Ali MacGraw - Yoga Mind & Body" DVD Salute to the Sun section. Really melodramatic sun crossing the sky in riveting colors, people with very apparent inner peace on the sand bar looking so lovingly able to greet the sun, lots of musical tension.
It's actually really funny video if you're not *doing* it. And the hot abs on the topless men are a definite plus.