The world is upside down. Every Wednesday evening around 8:30 p.m. Then about 15 women crouch on blue mats, shape their hands into a bowl for their heads and stretch their buttocks in the air. Buttocks in all shapes and sizes: apple and pear, “size zero” and “fashion for plus-size women”, wrapped in yoga-style in white baggy trousers or pragmatically in training clothes with stripes on the side. But they all have only one goal: Shirshasana, the yogic headstand.
At the moment of butt stretching, we are all the same.Very different from the moment of throwing up the legs. Some gasp. Some giggle. Some obey the laws of gravity like a sack of flour. Some give up. Few triumph. Only one does not do all this: Christian. The only man in our group. Christian doesn’t pant. He doesn’t giggle. He also doesn’t shake his bottom for help. He just stands on his head, as nonchalantly as other people scratch their heads. That is rude. And it’s typical. In the past ten years I have done very different yoga classes in very different places. In fitness studios with an energy drink bar, in seminar houses with an esoteric shop (daily offer: tongue scraper!) and in cozy studios where the teacher bakes banana bread after classsuffices. The same picture everywhere: 95 percent women, from young to old, from hip to conservative – plus one or two men. And always the same one or two guys.
Type Christian: attractive, sinewy and muscular – not in that suntanned surfer way, but as if he were lifting heavy volumes of yogic wisdom every day. I can’t prove it, but I’m convinced: He practiced alone in front of the mirror for five years before he went out with women. Rooster in the basket? Better: cobra in the basket. He can do anything, even sing.
Type number two is the alternative , let’s call it Klaus-Jürgen. Klaus-Jürgen sweats just looking at a yoga mat, and he shows the soles of his feet with calluses that would secure a regular annual income for several podiatrists. He can’t sing and is about as agile as an aging English butler. The fact that the two often appear in pairs feeds my suspicion: Christian deliberately brings Klaus-Jürgen with him in order to be able to stage his astral body even more impressively. The contrast could not be greater. In between there is a huge gap in the range of aesthetics.
Now it would be easy to do without both Christian and Klaus-Jürgen. Every district center offers enough courses in which women keep to themselves. But, to be honest, I’m missing something. Yoga without men is like Shakti without Shiva, like Yin without Yang, like sun without salutation. I like rolling out my mat next to a guy who looks like Sting 20 years ago, I like having my banana bread broken by a hairy hand.
Besides, I need the men as an excuse. Finally, after almost ten years of practice, I can’t do the headstand. And who is to blame? The Christians of this world, of course, whose strong bodies distract my weak mind. And the Klaus-Jürgens, who are always half a tone off the mark with the greeting mantra. Otherwise, I would probably be so enlightened that I could meditate upside down for two hours a day. Om Shanti.
