J's Story Shot: Ricocheting Kneecaps

I’m not sure what made me think that yoga would be an easy workout. Today was my first day and who would have thought, that 55 minutes ago, I was so proud of myself for making it to the ridiculously early 5 am class. Now I’m hurting in places I didn’t even know I could hurt and I’m hating on these flexible demons who are taking the class with me.Do you know when I knew I was in trouble? I saw others roll out their yoga mats, kneel in the middle, then sit back on their heels.Looked simple enough. Yeah, right. I rolled my mat out with ease, and kneeled with ease, but when I tried to sit back on my heels, baby bye.The muscles in my thighs cursed at me in several different languages. My knees, my poor, poor knees felt like they were about to pop off and ricochet around the room. I was ready to yell out “Duck, you’re in danger of being clipped by a kneecap.”The smart thing to do was to get out of that pose as soon as I could, but before I could lift myself up, my thigh muscles caught fire. Preferring tobe embarrassed than in pain I rolled onto my right hip and used a hand to push my legs from under me. All that and the class hadn’t even started. I should have exited the premises immediately, but I decided to stick it out cause it couldn’t possibly get worse. It did.Let me name a few of the poses I created during my first yoga class: The falling tree pose, The wobbling warrior pose, and the stuck downward dog pose. I’m sure I was a sight to behold the entire class.Who knew I couldn’t even sit and touch my toes? I didn’t, but now I do.There was one pose that I absolutely loved and mastered easily. In fact I loved it so much I learned it’s name Savasana, also known as the Corpse pose. Yep, I was completely able to lie on my back with my legs and arms splayed out on the mat with ease.My only wish was that we would have ended with this awesome pose, but we didn’t. During this awful torture session we were told to roll to our sides, push ourselves up and then sit with our legs crossed in front of us. “Focus on your breathing, in and out, steady and controlled.” The yoga teacher instructed us in a soothing voice that now irritated me to no end. “Focus your mind, and clear all negative thoughts away. Focus on something positive,” she continued. Though I was totally annoyed by her now, I took her advice and focused on the clock on the wall that said I had only 5 minutes of this madness left before I could go and never come back.After the class was over I made my way quickly to the door when I heard one of the flexible demons say to another, “Another one bites the dust. We won’t be seeing her anymore; she can barely limp out of here fast enough.” They snickered a bit and I wished that my ricocheting knee caps would have taken them both out. I thought yoga would be an easy workout. Yeah, right!