Yogi!

There were so many things on my mind that for the first time in ages, I'd forgot to have breakfast. By eleven thirty, the last thing I wanted to do was go to a yoga class. I toyed with the idea of going AWOL but decided to give the exercise a go - afterall, I haven't been doing it for so long.

I was ten minutes late. The small class was already deeply into their sun salutations. The huge wood-floored studio had only ten of us there, with the yogi on top of his stand barking out seemingly impossible instructions ("cross your legs, hold your right ankle with your right hand, over your back"). There was a magnificent view of the city's skyscrapers to be seen through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows surrounding the studio.

We progressed into the different asanas. For the first half of the hour, I was still in my gotta-go-kick-ass frame of mind from work, so I was very tense, which probably made the exercises even more difficult to do. Then at some point I calmed down. I got rather excited when we did the headstands though - I'd never been able to do it before. When we saluted the teacher at the end of the hour I felt much happier, even though I was tired. I felt as if I'd achieved something, even if it was a small thing. Not everyone gets to do headstands everyday, afterall. Most of all, I luxuriated in the knowledge that I had let go of some of my stress at least for that small hour, and it felt good.