Swiss yoga...

First post of the year after a long break, and in a new language! Not to follow by this that I am not in love with the language of Cervantes, but being an expat means to change in so many different ways that I somehow realized I needed to do this in English now... For those who know me well this just reassures you that I am as chaotic as I've always been!

To start with, I love yoga: I know, when somebody asks me which sports I practise and then I reply "golf and yoga" honestly this does not put me very high in sportive rankings... Still, I am not lying and these actually represent up to where my "sport level" can go... Believe it or not, risking to become highly impopular, I do not like sports, it's a fact...

But let me just start from yoga and from the beginning... I have been practising yoga for something like eight years now, starting in Madrid and now in Switzerland for over nine months. When I arrived to my first Swiss yoga class everybody started at the beginning to kiss each other: good, I thought, this is exactly like in Madrid... But here you kiss three times instead of two, a bit more tiresome but still ok... The main principle in yoga is that everyone loves everyone, so you just kiss everyone as if you knew that person forever... Being Spanish this would not create such a big issue, but to be honest, people here kiss at all times, much more than we do in Spain, no matter what you are told about that... and when it comes to yoga.. you kiss more...and each time you do a 50% more... so, in the end, you are quite tired of kissing...

Anyway, class begings: same principle, lots of candles, music with low Shanti and yoga mats prepared... Quite the same, I think... Your teacher comes (gorgeous woman probably ageing 60 and looking 40, when you are 40 looking ...let's not be cruel... 50) ... Still everything is the same as in Spain... After initial meditation opening your chakras (honestly, I have strong doubts that I have ever opened a chakra, I have no clue where these are located... I cannot find anything in my handbag, so how am I going to find and open something that, in case I find, I do not even know what to do with?), you start with the yoga postures, nothing new here either, so it should be a child's game you think... Life has now shown me that whenever you think that, you are getting into trouble, and this is just one more example. You start well: "jambe gauche" (here I use a mnemotechnic rule, "droite" with a d for "derecha", right, and the other one for what is not right, thus left) so "left leg"...good, left leg on top of "genou droit" ("droit" derecha) thus you put your left leg on top of your right knee...not an issue... but the cycle continues, and while you have your left leg on top of your right knee, you now have to put your "brat droit" (you can still think, even when you have your right leg over your left knee, or was it the left knee over the right leg? not to panic, just keep as you are and follow the instructions) so... "Brat droit" (droit, with d from derecha, right in english) so your right arm over your "brat gauche" (gauche no d, so left, which is not derecha, which is right in Spanish)... I follow, no problem, all is clear... Now, you add another variant, and you turn all your body "gauche" (gauche, no d, so izquierda, left in English) but your head is turned "droite" ( droite, d from derecha, right in English) ...ufffff. This is getting hard.... And of course while you are there, in such a confortable posture, you have to remember to open the chakras and to smile and the funny thing comes when you take a look at the other people in the class (after the mnemothecnic rules you could only concentrate on how to position yourself but you were completely away from anything else) to realize that you are doing some posture which has absolutely nothing to do with everyone else's posture... It is exactly the same as when you follow instructions when you buy something from ikea (yes, and you are a woman, because even if I have problems to admit it, men have something in their genes to allow them to mount anything easily while you struggle to follow instructions and get something close to reality) ... So you accept it, you are looking in a stupid way (if you have not tried yoga yet, I can tell you there are plenty of mirrors in any yoga class, just to remind you how hilarious you look), your posture is the ikea assembly of a woman (even better, of a woman in "one of those days") but you still have to smile, open your chakras (only seven, so what do you worry about?), empty your mind (for sure, this is something women do just as easy as that) and smile, always smile....

What I said... everything is the same as in Madrid...