Last night around 7:15 Sylvain walked me to my Yoga class, we arrived 20 minutes early, and Sylvain said a toute and went home to do work on his powerpoint while I sat on the couch and then took a tour of the duchas and the banos and the noticia board. Eventually Pedro Aguilera rocked up and the check in woman told him I was there to join his class tonight... what her?! he asked with some surprise. He brought me upstairs to another room only large enough to fit two students and a teacher and 15 minutes later he came back wearing some lose white garb and traditional hand knit socks that every Chilean Yoga enthusiast young or old I've met thus far also wears. Pedro was short with a round Santa belly on maybe a smaller scale and was about 60. When given a starting time, I have a need to start at said time or just after and so when my my one and only classmate, and Pedro started to fiddle with the clock I was like, come on guys lets get started already- but of course I didn't say that, because frankly I wouldn't know how- then I changed my perspective and figured the 2 hour class would be long enough, they should take their time. When finally we did start Pedro asked me if I did Hatha yoga and I confirmed that I did, but he asked about another, and I replied that I was a student of both Hatha and Vinyasa but otherwise didn't know what he was talking about. Since it was explicitly written on the large banner outside- Hatha Yoga Studio- I didn't think there would be a problem, but Pedro seemed smug and said something like "Fine he'll do whatever Yoga, and you'll do Hatha, that'll be just great."
He started me out on another series of what seemed like nice stretches but completely foreign to any Hatha Yoga I had done before. In my New York yoga studio Hatha yoga practice held poses for longer and Vinyasa was about flow, both emphasized breathing. For most of the hour we actually practiced I did really odd squatting postures and arms circles around my ears (which were harder than you might imagine) and later we ended up doing things that were slightly more familiar: strange hybrids of downward dogs and push-ups, weird inverted backbends that included rocking back and forth on your rib cage, and some really strange belly breathing that felt more like belly dancing and my embarrassment was only heightened when at that moment a potential student joined to watch and he laughed and said, sure join us, we have rambo a serious yogi student over here and some gringa--- I mean North American who doesn't know her left foot from her right, you might as well join our Motley Crew. I had no idea exactly what he wanted me to do, his knees were bent and he told me to inhale making my belly full and then exhale and to either keep my hips straight or to move them like an exotic dancer I wasn't sure- with an audience and having just been called a gringa, I was dealing with mortification of expanding and emptying my belly and jolting my hips sideways when I didn't seem to be meeting Pedro's expectations.
As the girl and Pedro sat back and watched my progress he told her Rambo's style of yoga was really physical and hardcore, and mine was light and pathetic. Then he sort of did this flowing tai chi-esque routine and said she would be able to do that for 2 minutes after a few weeks of working with him. Eventually she got bored and left, and said maybe she'd come on Jueves. Good, she can have fun doing belly dancing and fish flops on her 1982 gym mat.
After she left, Pedro spoke to me about the shower situation and I said, ok fine, I'd go wash myself since in the last hour I had not quite broken a sweat, but whatever I get it, cleanse, rebirth whatevs. I went to the mujer duchas and washed my face, went to the toilet, and ran the shower for a minute without doing anymore than sticking a hand in. Then I went back to our room and we had quiet time with a stick of incense. During corpse pose I considered how much I enjoyed incense and essential oils during yoga practice but whenever my ex-roommate Josh burnt incense, which was all the time, I found it nauseating.
When we finished with or quiet time, Pedro asked me something about my level of understanding of Yoga and seemed to further imply I was an idiot, but I am not an idiot, I am simply not fluent in Spanish and so he spoke about asanas, and I nodded- we had lecture time in abuela yoga last week, but it was more along the lines of eat healthy and don't smoke, and the abuelas added their own two cents for good measure. For the last half hour of class we did balancing and twisting poses clenching all our muscles including the genitals, quads, glutes and abdominals. Instead of the whole namaste routine I have been a student of, Chileans start and end class by taking their left hand and placing it on their stomach and their right hand is held up with thumb inside palm and I'm pretty sure they say "Peace".
With class finished Pedro asked if I spoke Spanish- I found it surprising at this point he chose to ask figuring he could have gleaned as much in the last 2 hours that I didn't, but fine, obviously not, at least not as well as I should. He asked me when I was coming back and so I said Saturday, but he told me no, come on Monday. I had felt like the whole 2 hours of class had been him trying to test and intimidate my commitment to yoga, whether I was some silly gringa with her purple mat and fancy yoga pants. He had intimidated me, but not with the Yoga he had me doing, only with his patronizing looks and Spanish. But I guess now I had something to prove.
Just as Sylvain came to the door he asked me what my sign was. What? What's your astrological sign he said. Um Gemini. With this he gave my classmate a knowing and somewhat approving look and nodded to him. Logic told me that maybe Rambo was a Gemini too, and for whatever significance that held, he was.
This photo I took this morning on the way down our hill, I think this place rents rooms.
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