I remember doing calisthenics in the high school gym.
- When you swing your arms side to side, swing them in a circle, or bend from side to side, it is boring.
That seemed to be all our calisthenics were. There was no running unless we were playing volleyball. Every once in a while, the gym teacher would pull the ropes down and tell us to climb them. Right, like I was going to climb the rope? There may have been three girls out of our entire class that actually attempted to climb the ropes. When I got older, I decided I still needed some exercise, but I was going to join a yoga class. Someone told me that yoga was easier than high school calisthenics, and I believed them. The beginner’s class wasn’t too hard the first couple of times I went, but then she ramped it up a little. Ramping it up a little meant that we were now doing what she called a downward dog pose, and planking. I gotta tell you, if high school calisthenics was this hard, I would’ve stayed home every day that I had gym class. Yoga was one of the most strenuous stretching exercise that I had ever done. Now that I’ve been practicing yoga for two years, I look back on those earlier yoga classes. When I hear someone who’s in one of the beginner yoga classes complain, I tell them to enjoy it now because it gets harder, but they just stare at me. I don’t think they realize that those of us who’d been doing yoga for years started out exactly where they are now.