The problem with yoga

Now, we all know that yoga is a wonderful thing that enables you to contort into unnatural postures and develop long elegant limbs and imagine you too can have men salivating over you even when you're 50, just like Madge. Plus, there aren't a lot of exercise classes that include a gentle snooze at the end. But. I feel the drawbacks of this rather peculiar discipline are too often overlooked. So in case a yoga class is on your list of New Year's resolutions — sorry, "goals" — I'm here to remind you that the problems with yoga are manifold.

1. It's not enough to be bendy, or twisty, or balancey. You frequently have to do all three at once, while staring at the ceiling and following instructions in that special alien yoga language that go something like: "Open your shoulderblades! Extend your arm in line with your left leg! Rotate your hips! And remember to keep your body on a vertical plane!" I'm not even sure what all that means, but I'm pretty darn certain I can't do it without checking my posture in a mirror, and even if I had a mirror, it wouldn't be on the ceiling.

2. About that "open your shoulderblades" thing. Yoga instructors seem to have a completely different idea of how the human body works. Surely anyone with a basic grounding in anatomy would understand that "bring your left kidney towards your right knee", if it means anything at all, is impossible?

3. Also, yoga was invented by men. Ascetic men. Men who apparently tried very hard not to think about things of the flesh, especially things of that interestingly curvy flesh that belongs to the other half of the species, and hence they haven't really considered the implications of certain positions for those of us with certain endowments. Now, whatever you may think, drowning in one's own bosom is really not a sexy way to go.

4. Over the centuries I suspect the ascetic aspect has gradually given way to a certain level of prurience. Hence the universal guideline from yoga instructors: "Wear something loose and comfortable." If anyone were foolish enough to actually follow this advice, they would soon find themselves halfnaked as the loose folds of their clothing gathered around their ears.

5. So we all wear something tight and comfortable instead, which definitely also enhances the prurience factor, and has the added disadvantage for female students that for half the class we are staring at the lithe, lycra-clad, perfect buttocks of the girl in front of us, and for the other half we find our eyeballs approximately two inches away from our own generous rolls of adiposity, significantly enhanced by the unforgiving position we're in. (At this point, I find it helps to remind myself that nobody else can see any further than their own belly either, so this isn't quite the forum of public shame that it feels like.)

6. And then — I blush to mention this, but it must be said — there is the danger of farting. With all that buttocks to the ceiling business, if there is any gas in your body, surely it will out. Probably when you're quite unprepared.

See you next Wednesday, then?