It’s world cup time in Melbourne, and even I’m getting a little bit excited. SBS is the world cup channel, with stacks of neat little films on the soccer theme, games, and novelty shows like the one about the socceroos theme song, and of course, Nerds FC. Tonight was the final show (though you can catch it repeated every night at 8pm on SBS from Thursday on), and it was so exciting!
But perhaps my favourite soccer story is actually another yoga story.
My Wednesday morning class is really fun – I’m the youngest yogi there by about 30 years, and usually the least rowdy. We’re not just talking silly jokes and heckling. We’re talking people physically jumping on each other and doing physical comedy (isn’t yoga wonderful?).
One of my favourite people is Rosa, who’s pretty much representative of half the nannas in Brunswick – short, Italian, pushy, friendly and fun. Our teacher Frank is Italian as well, and excellently wicked. Rosa is just a noob yogi, but as per Frank’s general approach to yoga (whether you’re the 10 year old daughter or the 90 year old nanna) is ‘have a go’. It’s nice because he’s careful to work with you if you’re a little bit fragile or scared or cranky.
Last time I was in the class Frank took care to tease Rosa. With one leg up on a table, Frank exclaims “Rosa! You’re not swearing at me in Italian are you?” and she wasn’t – but Frank can lip read.
Then, as we did the kneeling thing (which I don’t like at all), she exclaims “Ah! I don’t even kneel down in church!” and we laughed and Frank responded “bit stiff there, Rosa? Too much world movies” and she swore at him again.
This week, once he had her balanced upside down on a pair of chairs in a headstand (truly amazing – Rosa isn’t young, and she’s pretty round – we were all suitably admiring and she was justifiably proud), Frank declared “now she’s up there, she’s going to make us all spaghetti” and we laughed, because none of us doubted she could.
And later again, doing the kneeling thing again,
“There Rosa, now you’ll be able to stay up later watching World Movies”
and Rosa said “if I can’t sleep tonight because it hurts…”
“ah, no, Rosa, we’re getting you into practice for when the World Cup starts – it doesn’t start til 1am you know.”
And more laughing.
I love that yoga class, because it’s not all quiet meditation and seriousness. It’s fun and friendly and with lots of laughing. So we all feel comfortable and brave enough to do stuff that scared us.
There are quiet times for being in our bodies, but there are also silly, laughing bits. And lots of partner work and hands-on stuff from Frank. There’s also only a small number of poses, but we make sure to do them properly and then hold them for ages.
… the only thing better than my yoga classes would be going to the kids yoga classes. Can you imagine?
and i’m not the only one who likes silly yoga jokes – so do the patriarchy and fussy
