Shavasana - Image via Wikipedia
Mr P liked yoga. He could go on and on about the delights of yoga.
Like most yogis, he also liked talking about the goodness of being a vegetarian.
And if you ask me if Mr P is a vegetarian I would have to say
yes.....when there is no non vegetarian food available. Mr P justified
himself that though he craved to be a vegetarian, “the spirit was
willing, but the flesh made him weak!!!” One can only wonder whether Mr P saw the pun here when he slightly misquoted the original saying.
Anyway, coming back to the topic of yoga, Mr P had a yoga teaching certificate under his belt. He had obtained it from Shivananda Ashram probably when they were going through a period of severe shortage of students
learning how to teach yoga. Still, it was a Yoga Shiromani certificate
giving him the eligibility to teach yoga. After obtaining the
qualification, Mr P used to do yoga once in a while. Whenever he noted
that his physique was expanding much faster than the progression of his
spirit, he would turn to yoga. The Asana that Mr P liked best was Shavasana or corpse posture
where one lies flat on the back with arms and legs kept straight and
relaxed and eyes closed. And of course Mr P fell asleep quite often
while doing this posture. Mat time was nap time for Mr P. He would wake
up finally and look at his watch and be happy to see that he had spent
at least two hours doing yoga! He was very puzzled why the girth of his
waist never seemed to decrease!
It was while thinking about focussing more on yoga that Mr P had the brilliant idea of starting a yoga class.
He believed that if he taught yoga, he would be doing all the postures
with the students rather than just fall asleep on Shavasana. So Mr P
spread the word around and soon had a class started. There were five
students on the first day. Mr P started with his favourite posture - the
Shavasana. He demonstrated it for his students.
Lying flat on his back on the yoga mat spread on the floor he began with “Relax your toes.”
More
than any yoga stretches, what Mr P was good at stretching was the word
"relax". He believed that stretching it out was an integral part of yoga
and so he said "Relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax your toes!"
“Relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax
your feet,” followed after a while. “Relaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax your
thighs, stomach, chest, hands, face, eyes,” and so on he went upward
slowly in a gentle, sombre voice.
When he woke up, he saw that his
students were sitting up politely waiting for him. Someone mumbled
about Mr P’s snoring being so noisy that they just could not relax. To
cover up his embarrassment Mr P gave them a pep talk on the importance
of listening to the instructor absolutely. He had not asked them to get
up from the Shavasana pose, then why did they?
The next day there
were three students in the class. Mr P began with some breathing
exercises. When he said “Inhale”, the students had to breathe in deeply
and hold their breaths. They were to breathe out when Mr P said
“Exhale!” Things were going fine and Mr P had just said an “Inhale” when
Mr P’s mobile phone
beeped indicating that a message had arrived. He got the phone out of
his pocket and checked it. The message was from a friend about a dinner
date. He texted his reply back and then turned his attention back on his
students. They were red and blue in the face and seemed to be
struggling. Can you guess why?
He had not asked them to exhale yet!
In
the next class Mr P started with his favourite Shavasana posture, and
slept off like usual because .................... he was all by himself on the yoga
mat once again!
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