yay or nay?

[resa]

You walk into the room and you know you are late. The lights are dimmed and people sit cross-legged on mats and blankets. They breathe evenly, quietly, and you are terribly aware of your own footsteps causing the timber flooring to squeak. You try not to hurry, but you fail. Nobody is ever late for yoga class, even if the clock says so, but during all the months you have been coming to this place, you have not been able to fully grasp the concept. You hurry to get some blankets from a shelf and pick out a spot in the room where you feel comfortable. You complete the half-circle of people as you spread your blankets, put down your sweater, and a water bottle. When you sit down, you start to sweat.

It starts slowly by just breathing, which still feels like one of the hardest parts when there is nothing else to divert your attention. You close your eyes and hear everybody else being quiet and still. Your teacher tells you to concentrate on breathing in, and breathing out. Let the air in – and let it out again, completely. You feel how you tense up and let out a sigh, which is entirely too loud. Your teacher advices you to reflect on your day, let everything come to you as it is, and let it go again. You think of moments which have made you happy, sad, or angry today, and try not to linger with the angry or sad ones. Or linger at all. What is lingering?

When your teacher finally initiates the warm-up, you are glad to have something else to do with yourself apart from thinking. While flexing your arms, legs, hips, and spine in time with your breathing, it is not too hard anymore to repeat a mantra over and over in your head. It does not come natural yet, because you are still too stubborn to just let things happen. However, you think in line; you say ‘sat’ while breathing in, and ‘nam’ while breathing out. ‘Truth’ and ‘identity’ and when you cannot concentrate well, you think, “Here I am. Here I am true,” and it works. After a while, however, you start thinking of your family and friends, colleagues and people in general and try to let them go – just for the 90 minutes of this yoga class. It does not work too well. You try hard and maybe that is the point.

...
 

Please tell me what you think! I don't need much, just "interested in hearing more" or "bored to death". This is the beginning of a short story I'm writing for last semester's class "Experiencing the Body in Literature". I'm writing about the positive bodily experience of yoga and meditation and I want to stress the interrelation and interdependancy of the body and the mind. The theme is not yet too apparent in this short extract, I guess, but I already tried to link processes of the mind to bodily actions and movements.
Yay or nay? Good start or rather take a different approach?


All in all, today was not such a good day. Writing and giving a blood donation were the only good things really, because the teeth my dentist worked on last week have started hurting a lot. I have another appointment the day after tomorrow, but keep your fingers crossed that there'll be a free 'emergency' spot tomorrow morning.  Tomorrow will be no happy day either...