Knit Sisters

We’ve been hearing for a year or so now that, “Knitting is the new yoga.” Like most of these kinds of catch-phrases, it doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny. (I also have issues with, “Forty is the new thirty!” Since I am nearing forty–but still vigorous!–I often get this from salespeople at stores like Sephora. If forty really were the new thirty, they wouldn’t be trying to sell me products like Philosophy’s When Hope is Not Enough. When I was actually thirty, hope was enough. But I digress.)

But for some of us, knitting and yoga do seem to coexist in our lives: see, for instance, the wonderful Yarn Harlot post of a couple of days ago. She wrote so delightfully about her problem with competitiveness in yoga class. I, too, both knit and do yoga (see below my yoga mat in its little bag surrounded by supportive balls of yarn my sister spun for me),

But as a few of you must have realized from my comment on her post, my problems go much, much deeper than hers. I figured I’d just come completely clean.

Although I have gotten a lot of benefits in terms of stress relief, illusory tallness, and general mellowness from doing yoga, I’m still like someone unclear on the concept. I have been known to pass the time while “relaxing” in the Downward Facing Dog position by fantasizing about what Chinese takeout I am going to order when I quit standing on my head with my posterior in the air. Or, since all I can see in that pose is my own feet, by becoming obsessionally seized with the conviction that I have painted my toenails the wrong color and that my toes look like horrible little sausages.

Part of my problem was that I started doing yoga seriously while I was living in Berkeley (of course!). I’d be the first person to say that Berkeley, CA is a great place to live. If you are not me. It never really worked for me; what can I say? I lived there for three years and never felt at home, not for one minute of any given day. It kind of wore a girl down some.

And as far as not fitting in, yoga class in Berkeley was where the rubber really hit the road. I used to go to yoga about three times a week, which was all fine until the morning that our yoga instructor wanted us to do a two-person pose that involved running straps around the other person’s waist and in between his/her legs and pulling in ways that seemed potentially damaging to the person’s long-term, um, fruitfulness. Remarkably, everyone else just fell into line. When the yogi asked why I was standing aside, I said, “Sir, my cultural heritage does not prepare me to assume these positions in public.”

So I already had that black mark against my name when the fateful day arrived. Here we were in the Tree Pose when a man fell over–just fell right over!–and before I could stop myself, I yelled out, “Timber!”

No one laughed. Needless to say, I was no longer welcome in that yoga class.

So now, even though I no longer live in Berkeley, I do yoga only at home. This poses its own difficulties, most of them related to my dog.

She likes to check on me when I’m doing yoga, which occasionally even means going underneath me when I am doing Downward Facing Dog (how fitting, yes?) and plopping down on my sticky mat. I consider this part of “working at your own pace.” You know how on the DVDs the instructor is always pointing out the woman who will be doing the “modifications” (translation: the easy stuff for the total losers)? She’s always named Natasha or something exotic. Natasha will be doing the modifications; Ellen will be working around a hyperactive, 50-pound dog. But that’s also fine! We are all about acceptance. It’s all good!

Here’s a shot that combines knitting (note progress on pair of socks) and yoga (note over-the-top sticky mat with paisley pattern):

In other knitting news, although I’ve repeatedly sworn off all lace-weight mohair, I keep falling off the wagon. It starts with a couple of social skeins, and the next thing I know I’m waking up in a welter of Alchemy Haiku and Kidsilk Haze, with no memory whatsoever of how I came to have this yarn.

Perhaps I need an intervention.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 21st, 2006 at 9:03 am and is filed under The new yoga. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.