american yoga it’s not

Zhenya, the yoga teacher, left to have a baby and I begged the gym to bring her back. I finally showed up today, more than a week later. Then, I had to borrow a mat, and then I walked out of today's class to go look for a hair tie, but I'm totally into it.

The classes I went to this summer, in Davis and in Santa Cruz, shocked me. The teachers are so nice. In Santa Cruz, I walked in on a class during the quiet rest at the end, and no one yelled at me. I came to class late and the teacher ran over asking "Are there any positions you don't like to do?" and "I like your ring!" At the end of class, she sang us awake. I was disappointed that after class she didn't pass out cookies. It felt like pre-school for grown-ups.

Zhenya has a different approach. She was obviously previously a professional dancer or maybe a juniors champion gymnast. She lifts her chest so beautifully, she turns on her hands as easily as her feet. She positions her little arms like a ballerina. She does things with her hips and joints that I can't even describe, but it's worth going to class just for the sexy and athletic show she puts on. She's sort a one-woman no-frills cirque de soliel. But mean.

Her warm up excercises are fast, turning your arms inside out, outside in, or slapping your knees on the ground, one two, one two. People at tennis lessons here and those working out at the track stretch to a similar fast cadence, boing, boing, boinging their arms, an unfamiliar rigor for my "let's do a long, easy stretch" American body.

Zhenya moves us through the familiar poses, but not in the familiar order. And she's talking, talking, talking in Russian, and all I understand is sabaka "dog." I have to look to see if it's downward or upward facing. But it doesn't matter because I can never do a sabaka like she can. Her form, post-partem, is more beautiful than any other teacher I've ever had. She comes over and tells me to stop trying to straighten my leg so much. I'm American. I should hold my leg at the knee and leave the leg-straightening to the Russians.

She tells us to breathe. "Do you feel a stretch here?" She asks in English, "I feel a pain in my thigh," someone says. "Yes! Isn't it great?" she says with a rare smile. She speeds up motions that are slow at home, and makes us hold poses we would, in California, slide through. A warrior balance drops into a pigeon pose. Never in the US would someone do those back to back. It would be a sacrilige. And isn't it great?

I can't wait to go back on Tuesday. Unless I forget to go.

My wow-can-she-write friend Erica blogged about the class here: http://bit.ly/bed8Sg