The Natural Connection

For the past year, I have been struggling to teach myself yoga, which is not an easy thing to do. First, I bought a video. A lithe young woman stood wrapped in peach gauze on a beachfront, demonstrating yoga postures, or asanas, designed to reduce stress and increase cardiovascular functioning. 

I seriously tried to watch the video and imitate the yoga poses in my spare time, which usually meant in the evening, in the kitchen while I was cooking pasta. The instructional video didn’t mention that it was dangerous to boil water while attempting to contort your body into pretzel-shapes called The Locust, The Tortoise, and The Bow, but I quickly figured that out. I should have noticed that the video model didn’t do yoga with a wooden spoon in one hand and a hot mitt in the other. 

Yoga, derived from the Sanskrit word for "union," is a disciplined mind-body practice. It refers to the use of physical postures, breathing exercises, and meditation to improve overall well-being). Developed over six thousand years ago as part of traditional Indian medicine, or Ayurveda, yoga has become increasingly popular worldwide and is now practiced by thousands of Americans who flock to yoga studios, spas, and health clubs. 

Reports in the scientific literature link yoga practice to the control of hypertension, treatment of coronary disease, reduction of stress, improvement in lung function in asthmatics, and decrease in pain from diverse problems such as carpal tunnel syndrome, osteoarthritis, and back pain. 

Later, still determined, I bought a book kindly titled “Yoga Over Fifty”. Even though I have a few years to wait before that birthday, after my experience with Pasta Yoga, I thought that I’d best get a head start. The book is full of triple-jointed silver haired women and paunchy balding men wearing sweat pants who apparently never sweat. They effortlessly perform shoulder stands, or sit with their ankles wrapped around their ears. I decided I didn’t have enough health insurance coverage to try to learn yoga from that book. 

The problem, I finally realized, was that I was trying to learn the wrong kind of yoga. Eight major schools of yoga have found their way from India to the Western world. Most of the of the health clubs and spas in the USA that now offer yoga instruction teach some form of Hatha Yoga, the yoga of activity. Some yoga is even done in rooms heated to 105 degrees, to increase flexibility. I am more suited to what I call Bubba Yoga, the yoga of rest, inactivity, staying cool in the shade. 

Two weeks ago, I got really serious about trying to learn yoga. I left the Jacksonville airport one sunny morning, and a few hours later landed in the fog of the Berkshire region of western Massachusetts. Lenox, MA is the home of Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. Ground-zero for Yoga-USA. 

Kripalu’s glossy 96-page catalog lists intriguing classes in subjects like Circus Yoga for Children, Yoga and Biking, Yoga & Golf, Communicating with Animals, and Raw Juice Fast. I didn’t see a class called Bubba Yoga, but figured that it wouldn’t hurt to just go up there and look around. 

The Kripalu campus sits on a hillside overlooking meadows and mountains. A renovated Jesuit seminary, it describes itself a “sanctuary for body and soul”. A serene Hindu elephant deity greets you at the front door, covered with offerings of marigold petals and spare change. If it was a yawning concrete gator, I would have probably felt more at home, but after traveling over a thousand miles in search of Bubba Yoga, it was a little too late to turn back. 

The original seminary chapel still exists, but is now used for gatherings and classes. There are long rows of shoe racks outside the chapel, and everyone who enters leaves their shoes or sandals at the door. Somehow, I thought that anyplace that had you remove your shoes before you went into chapel would not be interested in teaching me Bubba Yoga. 

Back in Lenox and hungry for more than a Raw Juice Fast, I purchased a rotisserie chicken at a corner market then wandered over to Matthew Tannenbaum’s bookstore, (aptly named The Bookstore). I was glad to see that he didn’t have a sign saying “No Chickens!”, so I gathered my courage and went on in. He’s been on Housatonic Street for twenty-five years now, and sells just about anything worth reading. “Hello”, I said, “I’m here writing about Bubba Yoga. Do you have anything?” 

While the owner was looking at me and trying to determine if I was demented, a young male customer with a shaved head interrupted. “Bubba Yoga! How cool! Is that like some new place in India?” 

“No”, I said. “It’s Bubba like the Swamp. Forrest Gump. You know, Bubba?” 

“Oh,” he said, and moved to the opposite side of the store like I had some form of pox. Suspecting I was bad for business, I eased on out the door, clutching my little roasted chicken, in search of my own enlightenment. 

For information on Yoga Centers and Retreats, or Berkshire bookstores, write to The Natural Connection, c/o Pauline Bellecci, MD, PO BOX 777, Waycross, GA 31502 or contact us on our web site www.swampdocs.com

©2000-2003 Pauline M. Bellecci, MD