entire weight on one arm.
I learn that Esak goes into full-body convulsions on occasion when he backbends. And that Kara, a financier from Chicago, goes into full-body convulsions every time she attempts her first backbend of the day.
I learn that the only reason either of them care about those seizures is that they can be slightly embarrassing and off-putting to strangers.
I listen when Brett, a lanky yoga instructor from Kansas, declares he doesn’t have the strength to eat the single thumb-sized nub of carrot he is holding. I learn he is being sincere when he drops the carrot and curls into the ground to go to sleep.
I learn the phrase “the beatings will continue until morale improves” has a completely nonsarcastic application.
I learn that even Esak can be unenthusiastic about training. But even more quickly I learn that it marks a difference between us. Where I start excited but grow tired from our endless sets, his energy increases the more we do. After a vicious set of lunges, promised as our last before lunch, I catch him looking around eagerly, desperate to squeeze something more in.
I learn that the face of someone crying is completely indistinguishable from the customary ruddy agony produced by backbending, but that the refusal to pause or make eye contact is a dead giveaway.
I learn that sometimes when given a forty-minute break, the smartest thing to do is just to lie still in your own sweat the entire time.
When it is over, after approximately fourteen hours of yoga-related activity, I find myself at a late-night supermarket. It is just before 1 A.M. My body feels limp and slightly beaten. My brain feels something like pavement right after a rainstorm. Thinking about repeating the process tomorrow is unimaginable, so I make a rule that I won’t. The trip to the supermarket is a necessity after the white protein shake I expelled earlier; and when I announced my intention, a number of other Backbenders enthusiastically jumped in my car at the opportunity.
As the rest of the group disperses into the empty grocery store, I sit down on the floor in the front, my back eased against a stacked display of beer. There is only one register open at this time of night, and the sadlooking man at the far end of the conveyor belt doesn’t even glance at us. I am sure we look utterly banal. But the abundance of food, color, and cold air feels overwhelming and dreamlike to me. I sit for I don’t know how long, taking it in. Eventually, Lauren, the weeper, bounces over to me, giddy. Sheis carrying a two-liter of seltzer water, a giant jug of no-sugar-added grapefruit juice, and a single Styrofoam cup. She announces they are ingredients for a magic potion that will get her through the week. Then she sits down next to me and proceeds to mix them in equal parts.
Moments later, Brett walks over with an ice cream sandwich and offers me a bite. I want to cry with gratitude. Not for the ice cream, which I somewhat insanely decline, opting instead for raw bok choy, but because I feel an overwhelming biological sensation of brotherhood. A similar emotion pours out triplefold when Fiona, from Ireland, skips down the aisle holding a can of Coke. She is agonizing over whether or not to buy it.
“Esak would killlll me if he found out,” she says, and then laughs and laughs at her own completely unfunny non-joke. “Wouldn’t he? He would killll me.”
I have no idea what Esak would think, but I am feeling so good and so bad at the same time that it occurs to me his judgment couldn’t possibly matter. It’s so much less complicated, so much less interesting. In fact, surrounded by a woman guzzling grapefruit juice so recklessly the front of her shirt has become a dark bib from the overflow, a grown man eating a contraband piece of ice cream, and can of Coke that is causing existential breakdown-style laughter in a woman who flew halfway across the world for the experience, the moment on the grocery-store floor begins to
I learn that Esak goes into full-body convulsions on occasion when he backbends. And that Kara, a financier from Chicago, goes into full-body convulsions every time she attempts her first backbend of the day.
I learn that the only reason either of them care about those seizures is that they can be slightly embarrassing and off-putting to strangers.
I listen when Brett, a lanky yoga instructor from Kansas, declares he doesn’t have the strength to eat the single thumb-sized nub of carrot he is holding. I learn he is being sincere when he drops the carrot and curls into the ground to go to sleep.
I learn the phrase “the beatings will continue until morale improves” has a completely nonsarcastic application.
I learn that even Esak can be unenthusiastic about training. But even more quickly I learn that it marks a difference between us. Where I start excited but grow tired from our endless sets, his energy increases the more we do. After a vicious set of lunges, promised as our last before lunch, I catch him looking around eagerly, desperate to squeeze something more in.
I learn that the face of someone crying is completely indistinguishable from the customary ruddy agony produced by backbending, but that the refusal to pause or make eye contact is a dead giveaway.
I learn that sometimes when given a forty-minute break, the smartest thing to do is just to lie still in your own sweat the entire time.
When it is over, after approximately fourteen hours of yoga-related activity, I find myself at a late-night supermarket. It is just before 1 A.M. My body feels limp and slightly beaten. My brain feels something like pavement right after a rainstorm. Thinking about repeating the process tomorrow is unimaginable, so I make a rule that I won’t. The trip to the supermarket is a necessity after the white protein shake I expelled earlier; and when I announced my intention, a number of other Backbenders enthusiastically jumped in my car at the opportunity.
As the rest of the group disperses into the empty grocery store, I sit down on the floor in the front, my back eased against a stacked display of beer. There is only one register open at this time of night, and the sadlooking man at the far end of the conveyor belt doesn’t even glance at us. I am sure we look utterly banal. But the abundance of food, color, and cold air feels overwhelming and dreamlike to me. I sit for I don’t know how long, taking it in. Eventually, Lauren, the weeper, bounces over to me, giddy. Sheis carrying a two-liter of seltzer water, a giant jug of no-sugar-added grapefruit juice, and a single Styrofoam cup. She announces they are ingredients for a magic potion that will get her through the week. Then she sits down next to me and proceeds to mix them in equal parts.
Moments later, Brett walks over with an ice cream sandwich and offers me a bite. I want to cry with gratitude. Not for the ice cream, which I somewhat insanely decline, opting instead for raw bok choy, but because I feel an overwhelming biological sensation of brotherhood. A similar emotion pours out triplefold when Fiona, from Ireland, skips down the aisle holding a can of Coke. She is agonizing over whether or not to buy it.
“Esak would killlll me if he found out,” she says, and then laughs and laughs at her own completely unfunny non-joke. “Wouldn’t he? He would killll me.”
I have no idea what Esak would think, but I am feeling so good and so bad at the same time that it occurs to me his judgment couldn’t possibly matter. It’s so much less complicated, so much less interesting. In fact, surrounded by a woman guzzling grapefruit juice so recklessly the front of her shirt has become a dark bib from the overflow, a grown man eating a contraband piece of ice cream, and can of Coke that is causing existential breakdown-style laughter in a woman who flew halfway across the world for the experience, the moment on the grocery-store floor begins to
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