My Yoga Rx

My whole family is learning this Gary-Numan-synthpop equation: The song ”Cars” + a car + mama inside the car = me rocking out in my seat by mechanically rotating my head and arms. Squared.

Next, my husband will egg me on with “Robot wife: activate. Execute program ‘get down.’” While the man is saying this in a disembodied drone, he is still managing to save his own dignity by not moving a muscle.

I, on the other hand, run his command with such goofy enthusiasm that I shake the moving car.

In fact, my mania soon populates the whole backseat with other, smaller robots. Baby Gwen begins shaking her head back and forth Stevie-Wonder style, and my big girl is slicing the air with her arm like a scythe cutting the tall grass.

And usually, all that goes down before I’ve had my coffee.

Yes, I’m what my mother terms a “manic panic,” whose spastic impulses are tempered only by yoga. And when I say “yoga,” I mean of the Pranayama-alternate-nostril-breathing variety. Not the 3,000-vinyasas-in-10-minutes-for-rockin’-guns kind.

No, not for this mama.

I need a fuzzy ball of purple to ebb and flow behind my eyelids as I sink into Triangle Pose. I need continuous reminders to “just let go” and “tie the movement to the breath.” And I definitely need a full 10 minutes of conscious relaxation in Savasana, which is NOT “nap time for grownups,” no matter what my wiseguy husband says.

In fact, I need for my yoga to be so relaxing that after class I couldn’t possibly answer the question “How was class?” in under five minutes. And P.S.: This yoga needs to be free — or at least pretty close, or I will spend the whole class thinking:

“I am wasting my family’s money,” and “I will have to go back to work soon,” and “We will definitely be needing another car,” and finally, “Cars..I really like that song.”

When I should have been looking for the fuzzy purple ball. Oh, crap!

But no worries. I did find such a class at the Town Lake YMCA with a patient yogi named Jogi. And no joke, there’s free on-site childcare there too.

So step off. Mama’s doing her yoga — just as soon as she’s through rocking out with her li’l robots.