What you think when you do yoga again for the first time in 100 years

The delight wants me to have just gotten over my second hernia. Yajaja, let me make this pun. This time I lay flat on the couch in blind panic and solemnly promised myself that I would be kind to my body for at least a year. And that's why I'm now doing yoga.

Yoga and I have a complicated relationship. We love each other, but it never goes completely smoothly. With the vigorous yoga, I feel like I'm breaking in two, and with a calmer yoga, I'm lying on the mat judging myself. ‘Is this even a sport?’ is just one of them. It works out well that I've agreed with myself to move, so not to hit it hard in the gym. And you can say a lot about yin yoga, but you do move. Every few minutes, when you're sitting in one position for an impossibly long time indeed. What I thought when I first stepped back into a yoga studio.

1. It smells so good here. If I were to light all this incense at home at once, my boyfriend would never come home again, but I can even breathe in it in a sort of nice way.

2. I'm already hot and I haven't even taken off my shoes in the changing room. Honestly, yogis and yogas, do you intentionally set the heating so high and what on earth does that do to your gas bill?

3. Namasté. Is it okay if I just lie on my back on this mat for the whole class? I would gladly pay tuition for that, yes. At least they can't reach me here, and then I can honestly say that I was at yoga afterwards.

4. ‘Stretch your arms and place your left foot next to your hand on the mat in one movement.’ Completely blacked out on the left feet and right hands.

5. ‘Now bring your elbow to the floor, stretch your right leg a little further out and look over your right shoulder back.’ First gets a significant error again and then looks over at the neighbor. ‘Oh, I can do that.’ Folds herself into a complicated position. ‘Aaaah, my groin. I can't do this. I CAN'T DO THIS.’

6. If she says one more time that I need to breathe through my discomfort, then... Of course, I wisely keep my mouth shut, because I don't hear anyone else complaining. But for heaven's sake, what a burning misery there towards my groin.

7. Hears a soft snore next to her. Wááát, can someone sleep in these twisted-spine positions? Stop it with me. Would the rest now think that I snore? Moves a lot so that everyone knows I'm awake.

8. Ooh, quite nice, those tinkling singing bowls at the end. Maybe I should also take a singing bowl class soon. Sees herself meditating on a mountain surrounded by singing bowls.

Namasté, again next week. It surely gives me an extra whole centimeter in my spine and an hour for myself.