Yoga in French

This week, I braved yoga in French. No worries: a fellow Aussie with better French language skills was joining me so there was safety in numbers. With a camping mat under my arm, we headed to the class in the centre of St Jean de Sixt. I should have chickened out when the French yoga instructor spied my mat and said it was too thick for yoga. Instant yoga fail! Thankfully, she supplied mats, but as the last two to set up, we were at the front of the class. This scuppered my plan be at the back, where nobody would spy me misunderstanding the French instructions or toppling over attempting to do the tree stance (pictured). I tried yoga one other time and after five minutes of failing to do the tree, I left, embarrassed, and much to the relief of all the zen people in the room.

The first few stances were okay. The third one was, of course, tree. Everyone in the room but me stood calmly on one leg. I wobbled and failed to hold the position until I realised I’m left-footed. I swapped legs and held the position for up to ten seconds at a time — a major improvement. After what seemed like an hour, she told us to change legs. Oops. I carried on with the same leg. Meanwhile, I didn’t even notice that my friend had been told off for using the wrong leg at the start. Perhaps our determination to use the wrong leg prompted her to ask in a loud, clear voice if she needed to speak in English. All eyes turned in our direction and we shook our heads and smiled as if we were both totally at ease with the yoga-based French words we’d never heard before.

A girl a few along from us took deep breathing to the extreme. She sounded like she was attached to a ventilator. No problem normally, but my Aussie friend had been diving that morning and I imagined the oxygen tank must have sounded similar. It took all my concentration to hold in the laughter and not look at my friend in case we both got the giggles. As if to test me further, a truck idled in the car park outside with orange lights flashing, lighting up our relaxingly dim room like a disco. I concentrated on my aching arm muscles to again suppress the laughter, although ventilator girl would have no doubt smothered it anyway.

Will I go again? Yes, but next time I’m getting there early so I can go up the back and as far away from ventilator girl as possible.