FASHION BRAIN • Home Styling
I chose a ladies only club to avoid those guys with receding hairlines and halitosis whose eyes are transfixed on the lines of sweat that form around your crotch after a spinning class, and those hunky manly gay guys who are a depressing reminder that only the guys with receding hairlines and halitosis are available to you.
I thought Hatha Vinyasa Yoga would stave off any future heart attack brought about by my extremely stressful lifestyle (what shall I wear today? for starters. Is apple green out of fashion now? Should I keep my highlights or go back to my natural hair colour? The list of stress triggers is endless).
Our sylph like yoga instructor, a pretzel in her previous life, glided across the studio roughly pulling our stiff bodies into awkward positions. "Relax your face, relax your face" she kept saying to me and my expression of pained torture. She smiles serenely "You'll get wrinkles like that!" I immediately relax my face - I've come here to retain my youth after all!
The class is made up of Tai Tai's, bored housewives, pampered mistresses, and yours truly, the hard working impoverished writer. The ladies wear immaculate DKNY leisurewear while I'm wearing the same leggings I wore throughout University ten years ago.
I figure the odd hole is very BoHo nowadays, unless it's in the privates area. Oh I love the idea of a ladies club - the ladette culture has taken over the world except for here. At this moment the lady next to me wearing a gold sparkly headband lets rip an enormous fart. Yuck! And how embarrassing. I look at my fellow participants to see if they're as flabbergasted as I am and everyone looks like nothing's happened. How positively unladylike!
I feel the need to say "It wasn't me. Really! It was her!" But at school we were taught 'The one who smelt it dealt it' and 'The one who denied it supplied it' (funny how you can't remember a word of French but can remember the rules on farts).
Fartypants next to me lets rip another loud stinker. I can't cope - I'm supposed to be relaxing and breathing deeply. Instead I'm wound up and trying not to breath at all.
The yoga instructor talks smoothly to us "Relax, breath, go ahead and release your gas. It's healthy to release your gas." Release your gas? Since when was yoga about farting? I spend the rest of the class dying of embarrassment as my fellow participants proceed to become a wind orchestra!
The frog chorus no less. Doesn't the instructor realise I'm from a classy, civilised family where farting anywhere except the bathroom (with all the taps turned on full blast to dull out the noise) meant a clip round the ear and ongoing punishment?
I'm an English lady - this is just rude! If I joined in I'd have twenty years worth of farts stored up to expel. The newspapers would report a strange gas explosion happening in an exclusive ladies gym. Hmm, payback time - now there's a thought. Finally, my advice to you - for the sake of your health, avoid yoga classes hence forth. Over and out.
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To me she's the hip incarnation of the never-ending New Age fever, with her love of faux Indian Buddha statue props.
The same attitude can be seen in the trendy yoga clubs of contemporary Singapore.
Two and half years ago, I signed up for a one-year membership at a sleek mega-yoga club occupying the entire floor of a stylish downtown shopping mall. Its interior was furnished modern eclectic minimalist style.
To up their sales, perks like showering facilities replaced the usually more basic amenities. Juice bars and complimentary massage services have all become typical features of these big-name yoga clubs.
But there is a catch. Faced with regular classes of 15-20 people, sometimes even more, instructors can only teach by demonstration. I have a cautionary tale to tell about this method of teaching yoga. Six months into the annual membership, I began to feel pain in my lower back. At night I tossed and turned. I had to sleep propped up on cushions. My lower back had started curving inwards. Yoga lost its appeal.
So I switched from the corporate world to a private teacher who runs a small fitness boutique in Holland Village. With a solid grounding in physical therapy and Pilates, the teacher makes a conscious effort to introduce these disciplines into his yoga sessions. A smaller class size, never more then six students, enabled my teacher to give me more attention and aid my recovery. Finally I got my torso back to normal.
Granted, yoga is good for health, but only when it's done the proper way. Most instructors forget that the human body is unique; they make all students perform the same rotations, occasionally causing more harm than good.
For instance, headstands are a definite no-no until you've built up strong abdominal muscles. At the big yoga club, instructors chanted in a mystical Buddha-like way that the fetus pose is good for the kidney. At the fitness boutique, my teacher explains that, more importantly, it helps balance earlier forward bends, which is why it's saved for last.
At first, the movie character Cora was a pure commercial pop figure obsessed with chart ranking. But later she became true to her art, deciding not to sing a kinky yogic remix. Cora's final rendition was straightforward - no more exoticism - yet her image was still captivating. Learning yoga should also be about discovering the genuine art behind the trendy obsessions.
Shantih, Shantih...
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