Yoga Class

BARE FEET IS HOW WE ROLL, SHOES ARE FOR ZUMBA NERDS

When I’m at my apartment I chill with my brother a lot. I love that kid. My brother has told me before that he wanted to try yoga. He and I used to be gym buddies. But lately our sleep schedules haven’t quite been overlapping all that much and to avoid sitting at my computer chair on a daily basis I push myself to go to the gym at around 6-6:30am; when, unfortunately, my brother is still snoozing. I miss tag teaming with him at the gym, but if I don’t push myself to go to work out then it doesn’t happen.

So recently, I’ve been riding solo to the YMCA closest to my apartment (I have a free membership through my university). When I get there I pop on my earphones and get in the zone. I don’t talk to anyone really (its mostly empty in the mornings), and I try to do a little bit of something in each of the rooms (weight room, cardio machine room, other machine room, etc..).

SQUATS ON SQUATS ON SQUATS

Well, one day, I decided to do my work out out of order (usually I do cardio first in the cardio machine room), I started in the weight room and did some squats. On my way back to the central area of the YMCA I saw that people were setting up for a yoga class in the main group workout area.

Now, I have tried yoga before, I think four years ago. It was not the most pleasant of experiences. When I was completing my first degree my university dropped some mad amount of money on a new gym and recreational center for its main campus. Kosmonat and I decided to explore the group exercises one day and we ended up going to a yoga class.

This class was hard as fuck. The yoga instructor would keep saying things like “I can see we have some new people” and “Try and keep up if you’re just a beginner” or “These are simple positions so it should be easy for our beginners”… I think those comments just made me look like a bigger jack ass for not being able to pretzel my way into whatever the hell position she was trying to make us do. I literally fell on my face the majority of the time and the other half of the time I was asking Naty if it looked like I was doing it right. To which she would tell me she had no idea.

That yoga class was going 150 miles an hour and I didn’t understand any of it.

Fast forward to my curious gym morning this past week, I cringed at the sign that said yoga. Gross. But then I thought about how my brother really wanted to try the yoga sessions at this gym. As more and more people started piling in I found myself just kind of standing there looking at all of them. Then I thought, “You know what? I don’t feel like doing cardio…so fuck it”.  I grabbed a mat, took off my shoes and sat my ass down.

A really thin, short haired blonde woman made her way to the front of the class, she had a super cute yoga outfit on. And when she opened her mouth, a super strong Russian accent coated her words.

OH SHIT, I LOVE HER ALREADY. This is gonna be good.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find that my instructor was far more easy going and explanatory than my previous experience. She would give two to three suggestions about alternative positions we could make if we wanted to “challenge” ourselves. As in, if we were more advanced. So the majority of her instructions were for the most basic positions. AKA – PERFECT FOR ME.

She was also really big on the calming and relaxation part of yoga, which is cool because I could use more of that to subdue my anxiety. Her inhale and exhale instructions were really detailed – from your nose, from your mouth, while lifting your arms or lowering your leg. It was awesome.

This was the bomb. I was able to follow every instruction using one method or another. I felt like a badass.

And, to my surprise, I was drenched in sweat by the end of the session. I had no idea that yoga could make me feel like I had just done a twelve mile marathon without so much as moving one foot in each direction of my mat.

I enjoyed myself so much that I think I’ll be incorporating these yoga sessions into my weekly gym routine.

What about you guys? Have you ever tried yoga before? Was it everything you’d dreamed it would be? Or was it a huge ball of festering failure?

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I’ll give you a discount on some free stuff

It was through my college experience that I truly understood the value of free stuff. No one appreciated that free pizza on campus that your club was passing out as a promotion more than  I did, especially right after tuition was due. I came to have a new found appreciation for free things. I mean, I have always loved free stuff – but I never took advantage of it like I did in college. If I didn’t need to pay for it, then I didn’t pay for it. I wasn’t trying to be a douche bag, I just did not have the money.  You get creative when you’re broke.

• Free t-shirts for my university’s homecoming? Nice! I needed a new work out shirt!
• It’s my birthday? Sounds like I’m going to Denny’s for a free breakfast and grabbing some baskin robins later for free ice cream!
• Free pancakes for International Pancake Day? Don’t mind if  I do.
• Free Slurpee Day? Is someone reading my mind?
• Why yes, I would like to try some of your bourbon chicken, thank you for the free sample outside of your Mall Food Court restaurant. But first, I have to make my rounds to the rest of the Food Court free sample train.
• Lady’s drink free on Wednesday nights? Good thing I don’t have classes on Thursday!

Hey man, you got to do what you got to do. And I was doing everything I could to try and not spend anymore than I needed to on things.

So yes, I went to a lot of free art galleries, a lot of student art galleries, and free museums…

Which brings me to the article that inspired me to write a post. Kathrine Brooks’s article brought to light that The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) had a discounted Groupon for tickets that were, essentially, free.

Ruh roh. You see, the Met does state that there is a “recommended admission price.” Recommended, as in, not mandatory.

So the the Met is essentially selling a discounted recommendation? Really? That’s a thing now? Normally admission to the Met is $25 for adults, $17 for seniors ages 65 and up, and $12 for students. The Groupon was knocking off a few bucks for adults, selling the tickets for $18.

Now, obviously, this is kinda shady. So I was not surprised to find out that there have already been a few lawsuits filed.  Arnold Weiss, one of the lawyers in these lawsuit cases, had this to say:

“It’s a violation of the statute that requires free admission to the museum five days a week and the lease that requires four designated free admission days,”

Okay, now, I understand that supporting your local museum or any museum is hella important. In fact, if you’ve got some money lying around, I fully support you donate it to a museum. Museums don’t run themselves, they have a lot of people who dedicate a lot of hard work to make them the wonderful places that they are. These recommended admission fees obviously go towards the cost of helping run the place. That being said, free means free. Recommended means its recommended. And this kind of advertising is blatantly deceiving.  If I were a broke college student (oh wait, I am) and I was looking into visiting the Met as a tourist, I would probably not have known what policy the museum had for admissions, and I would have thought this Groupon was a super cool deal. However, if the whole deal about giving a “recommended” amount of money to a museum is to help pay for costs, is discounting a recommendation really validate the reasons behind asking for the recommendation in the first place?

Give us ten bucks to get in, this is a number we estimate will help cover costs of the museum! But if you get this groupon it’ll be five bucks! So, why get the groupon at all then? If you need the ten bucks so bad…I feel like I’m complaining. Sorry if this sounds like that, I had a point somewhere in here…

If you are providing free admission, I’m not so sure you can dictate how much people are supposed to donate, in fact, I think telling people how much they should donate is a bit arrogant. Maybe arrogant isn’t the right word, but I’m too tired to look at a thesaurus. I’m not trying to give an excuse as to why its okay to cop out of giving money to the museum. But I mean… Do you guys get what I’m trying to say?

Anyway, its 2am, I’ll shut up and go to bed now.

 

 

 

 

 

            

Le Kiam

My beautiful friend Kiam is just as complex as any other human being. She is super cool and super funny. She is also my longest time friend, wait, longest time sounds weird… of all my close friends I have known her the longest. Aw yeah, grammar high five.

Unfortunately as of late, when I talk to Kiam, it usually looks like this:

But there was a time, years ago, when I had my shit more together! Hopfully Kiam remembers those times too, lol.

Que dream sequence.  …………

So Kiam and I met through the internet. It was back a million years ago before smart phones existed, and facebook somehow was a new thing. We were starting the same year, going to be going to the same college, and we both knew absolutely no one. We met in an elevator on campus because it turned out that she shared the same dorm building. Not long after meeting Kiam, I decided to spend 100% of my time with her.

After leaving that college, we both ended up transferring to another one, and though our college woes would continue, we both remained best buds. She invited me to go to a Hair Show [which is like a hair stylist, make up artist and spa-related convention) annually, which I enjoyed thoroughly. Kiam has changed her hair style over the years, because she is stylish. [Sry Kiam I am really bad at drawing super short hair cuts…]

But one thing remains the same, and those are her spirit animals.

Kiam was officially the first friend I met after befriending online, and it is so weird to think of her this way, since I’ve known her for 8 years [holy shit we are old as fuck].

I love you Kiam, with all of my bear heart.