As a dedicated couch potato who would eat potatoes on the couch if my wife would let me, I firmly believe exercise can kill you. After decades of being ridiculously sedentary, I still have not only my boyish figure but, on most mornings, a pulse.
\nLately, however, I have begun to think that, at 55, I really ought to do more than what is now my main form of physical activity, which is to get up once a night to go to the\u00a0bathroom.
\nSo I recently took a yoga class.
\nI signed up for one very important reason: It was free. And, all modesty aside, I figured I was worth every penny.
\nAlso, I received great encouragement from my older daughter, Katie, who is something of a yoga guru. She has been taking classes for the past few years and once participated in a \u201cyoga challenge,\u201d which required participants to do yoga every day for a month. I would have been dead on Day Three.
\n\u201cAre you doing hot yoga or regular yoga?\u201d Katie asked.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the difference?\u201d I replied.
\n\u201cAbout 40 degrees,\u201d Katie said, explaining that regular yoga takes place at room temperature, whereas hot yoga is done at 110 degrees Fahrenheit. At that rate, I\u2019d have to be in either a sauna or Death Valley, so I was guessing, and hoping, it was the regular kind.
\nThen Katie said I had to buy a yoga mat.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d I inquired.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a mat,\u201d Katie said, very patiently, \u201con which you do yoga.\u201d
\nWho would have guessed? So I forked over $12 for a baby blue mat that perfectly matched the baby blue T-shirt I planned to wear to the class.
\nAfter all, sometimes a boy just likes to feel pretty, especially when he\u2019s sweating like a stuck pig.
\nThe first thing I noticed about the yoga class, which was held at work, was that there were 20 women and one guy. That guy was, of course, yours truly.
\n\u201cIs this your first time?\u201d asked Diane, who took a spot behind me.
\n\u201cYes,\u201d I said bashfully. Then I asked if anyone knew CPR, which I figured I would need, although I was worried that my T-shirt would blend in with my mat, and nobody would notice that I had collapsed.
\n\u201cYou\u2019ll do fine,\u201d Liz, another participant, said reassuringly.
\nI hoped I could say the same for the women around me, because the instructor, Dawn, suggested we do the session in bare feet. Fortunately, when I removed my sneakers and socks, nobody keeled over.
\nDawn began the class by talking about positions, none of which was third base or, the place where I am always accused of being, left field. Instead, she said we would be doing down dog, plank, cobra and warrior two. They involved gently stretching, twisting and otherwise contorting our bodies in ways I didn\u2019t know a body could move.
\nDawn instructed us to extend one arm while crossing the opposing leg over our bodies as we lay on our yoga mats. Then we had to get on all fours and extend one leg, then the other. I was so confused that I resorted to cheating by looking at the other participants to see which limb I was supposed to be lifting, extending or stretching at any given moment.
\nAt the end of the 45-minute class, I had a sense of both peace (the soothing music helped) and accomplishment (because I didn\u2019t have to be hospitalized). In fact, I seldom have felt better.
\n\u201cYou did very well,\u201d Dawn told me afterward. When I said I hadn\u2019t exercised in years, she said, \u201cYou look like you\u2019re in really good shape.\u201d
\n\u201cLooks can be deceiving,\u201d I noted, \u201cbut this made me feel great. I\u2019m not sore at all.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s because we did hatha yoga,\u201d Dawn explained.
\n\u201cWell,\u201d I replied, \u201chatha yoga is better than none.\u201d
\nDawn politely ignored the remark and said that hatha is the regular kind of yoga, while bikram is the hot version.
\nEither way, I had such an enjoyable experience that I definitely would take another class. Until then, maybe I can just be a couch potato on my yoga mat.<\/p>\n

Original Article on Jakarta Globe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a dedicated couch potato who would eat potatoes on the couch if my wife would let me, I firmly believe exercise can kill you. After decades of being ridiculously sedentary, I still have not only my boyish figure but, on most mornings, a pulse. Lately, however, I have begun to think that, at 55, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n