Yoga with Korean Characteristics

Through the years I’ve taken gymnastics classes, dance classes and pilates classes but I’ve never taken a yoga class. I’ve been curious about all the yoga-hype over the past few years and have even perused my mother’s yoga books from the sixties (before I was born my mother was a yoga-doing-vegetarian and my father played the flute barefoot on the roof of their apartment – suddenly a lot of things make sense, eh?).

Flash-forward to January 2, 2008 at 5:00pm. On my left is my Korean co-teacher, on my right is Kelly. We are surrounded by a dozen or so middle-aged Korean women in various types of yoga-garb. One women still has her sunglasses on. Another decided that polyester dress pants are most comfortable for yoga. Before I can take any more in, the class begins.

My Korean co-teacher acts as translator.

“Breath in through nose and…. (loud sighing noise) out through mouth…. And in through nose… (loud sighing) out through mouth… Now, close eyes and…. Roll eye balls in eyes… roll left…. Roll right…. Left…. Right…. Roll eyeballs up… down… up…. Down….”

After 20 minutes of this I thought I was done with yoga class forever but things were, as they say, just starting to get interesting.

The instructions were to roll back from a seated position with knees bent in front towards your right shoulder, roll up and then roll back towards your left shoulder. I was completely incompetent and almost backwards rolled into the small woman behind me. My Korean co-teacher gasped, jumped up and proceeded to rock my body like a small child to show me the motion I was suppose to go in. When I finally became semi-vertical again I looked over to see Kelly completely red faced and splayed on the ground shaking with laughter. We will be, quite obviously, the waegookin comic relief of the class.

After the rolling came the difficult part of the class – foot massaging. For the life of me, I couldn’t manage to place my hands correctly to apply pressure to the ball of my foot while bending at the ankle. I cupped my hands over my foot and went to the left when I should have cupped under and went to the right. Foot massage position after position, my Korean co-teacher would jump up, grab my foot and hands and try to show me the correct way. The yoga instructor sent a few pitying glances in her direction.

The last 10 minutes of the class were spent trying to put my body into impossible positions. I held my leg in front of my body, with my foot in front of my face, with relative ease. When I had to bend my leg behind me and simultaneously lean to the side, I almost took out the small Korean woman behind me again.

The class ended with a rousing slapping of legs, backside and arms in true Asian fashion. Kelly and I walked out thanking my co-teacher for her translations and not knowing if we’re quite willing to head back on Friday.