can you have a yoga studio without a picture or statue of ganesh and maybe a few posters with inspirational phrases? jeez, i like my exercise to be short, nasty and brutish–just like thomas hobbes, the seventeenth century english philosopher promised me all life would be!

seriously, the teacher david vendetti didn’t look like this when he was playing the harmonium!

but then i sort of got into it.  i was awful at some poses.  and occasionally i was balancing on one foot and thought i would fall over on the impossibly serious yoga gal on my right.  a few times i thought the teacher was making fun of me, but hell, i wasn’t the model student.  then after an hour and a half i was as exhausted as i would have been had i been running and i realized that for about forty five minutes i had been completely out of my head, whcih is to say, i was in the moment.  i wasn’t thinking the drama stuff, i wasn’t part of myself, i was just part of the class.  that’s so cool.

i talked to david vendetti about whether yoga is helpful for people with anxiety–whether social phobias, agoraphobia, panic attacks)–and here’s what he had to say:

i’m not a convert.  i’m not going to be buying any incense.  i won’t be talking to my friends about their chakras and past lives.  but there was one odd thing that happened–for the first time in several years, i didn’t have acid reflux.  i didn’t have that pain in the chest i get when i eat or when i’m anxious.  coincidence?  i don’t know.  i’m with an open mind.  i felt okay.  maybe i should consider this as part of the arsenal against anxiety.

and in fact, i was pretty laid back.  me–laid back?

and i’d have to be laid back because i was about to take not one but two facebook friends up to the top of the prudential center in boston so we could talk woman to fear about heights and elevators.

i’m not necessarily going to give yoga another try, especially since the south boston yoga studio is, well, actually quite a distance from my home in chicago.  but you can have one free lesson (tell them arlynn sent you!) just go to http://www.southbostonyoga.net/ or to their address, 36 w. broadway, or call them at 617/315-7448

*i’ve decided to go back to the 2011 numbering system.  just easier for me.  so marshae white of lorain, ohio becomes #293, molly parshall of coldwater, michigan becomes #294, lisa tabbi-fuller becomes #295 and her sister in law angela becomes #296.  the f2fb project is back after a much needed hiatus!  now i just have to figure out how to answer all my messages and emails.  i fall further and further behind. .. .

but in boston i was focused on two galpals who have anxiety attacks that debilitate and i was wondering whether yoga could help them. . . .