For the first few months I attended a full free hour of basic yoga at the library, the group of retirees who frequent the class gave me all manner of reactions. There's the bitchy overgrown cheerleader-type who gripes and gossips and bullies people, insecure that she won't get an "A' in yoga mat while she bosses around her cadre of Irish nannies, the crusty old man who, each and every time he sees me practicing martial arts, challenges me to a fight out of insecurity, not unlike the schoolyard bully who says he'll meet you at noon by the lockers for an ass whoopin' between classes. There's the twitchy small man with space issues, because he's paranoid about being touched, and also extremely touchy about "his" spot in the large conference room we use for community activities, which is, again, like an absurd older version of "This is my cubbyhole!" scuffles in grade school, even though it's clear there are no names posted or assigned areas.
Old people are weird and they stay weird, because they were the weirdo kids you weren't friends with way back when, either. I found a few gems mixed in, too, just like it was in my former school days: the lovely Brooklyn woman who sits in the first student position each and every class, coming in at the last moment, just before the teacher begins, in a stunning show of excellent timing, and placing her "blankie" at the head of the class and to the left of Teacher, in recognition of her advanced status as a student with extensive experience in yoga and Tai Chi (her flexibility is astonishing and enviable). There's also the former magazine employee at, none other than, Mad Magazine and, had I heard of it? Uh, yeah I have! There's also a pretty, charming British lady who griped with me about the local school office politics tellingly, as we looked around the yoga class in recognition of the same archetypes.
But just like my affinity for "old" activities like online Mah Jong, Tai Chi, and this retiree-only yoga class that's been, so far, only been braved by one middle aged person in town, and that person is me, I remain unswayed in my devotions, despite the lingering Western stigmas about them. I know practicing these arts regularly will keep me happy and healthy in the long run. Every time my friends joke about me being the "youngster" in class at 44, I remind them of simple arithmetic, like 2 x 44 = 88, which means I am indeed in the middle of my life if I live to see 88, though I hope to surpass that modest goal by remaining alive and active well into my late 90s. Their former teacher was a spry German women who taught the class until 93, and then she died. Awesome! That's what I want. I aspire to be each and every member of my "Cranky Senior Yoga" class, because I want to be them when I grow up, er, I mean, grow older. Here's to doing it with style.
