You Have to Be Kidding Me

Ok, so I thought I'd combine new free time, a desire to exercise, and the pursuit of stress relief, as strongly encouraged from all doctor types. I love yoga, and have practiced for a couple of years now. Super-Bendy Trouble, remember? Anyhoo, now that I am a New Yorker, I'm fat out of luck for finding a cushy suburban gym like the one I frequented in PA. I have tapes/videos, but our space is frankly too small for downward-doggin'.

I walked past this place several times and peeked in the window. A huge banner out front reads "Yoga - Tai Chi". Sounded good to me, so I went round my first day of fashionable disability and inquired. Nice looking place, and the staff of mostly Korean people were the sweetest. A man, obviously in charge, brought me into a separate room, where he tested my flexibility (no, not like that, you perv) and talked to me about my twisted pelvis, my misaligned chakhras, and inverted energy distribution. He promised Dahn hak would right my crooked soul.

There was a lot of pressure to sign up (very spendy), but I could only afford a month. That seemed a decent time to give it a try. I was given a darling uniform festooned with a smiley-face and a gigantic hug.

My first class was strange, to say the least. The half-dozen people off the streets in their vaguely-martial-arts uniforms, clapping and jabbering in what I could only assume was Korean. The only yoga was a cobra pose at the end of class, the only Tai Chi was some warming-up exercises. The rest was an extremely repetitious sequence of stretching that, at least to my experienced eyes, were done incorrectly and downright dangerously. I mean, everyone knows you DO NOT bounce when stretching!

Nevertheless, the warm room, incense, soft music, and serenity of it all lulled me into a false sense of this-is-ok. There was a short howdy-do session after class and some seriously icky tea. On the way home I criticized myself for culturism and former-instructor snobbery. I vowed to give it another chance.

When I didn't make it in the next week, I thought it was sweet when one of the Dahn Yoga employees called the house to see if I was ok. I promised to be back on Monday.

Today, after another disappointing and joint-destroying class, I was handed an envelope and invited to attend an Introductory Session. Well, hadn't I already had one, with whats-his-guts? No, that was a Physical Session. This one is a Philosophical Session. I concentrated all my energy and mind into not rolling my eyes. Save your breath, all new age crapola is but a fart in the wind, to me.

So I get home and open the envelope. It's a password to enter a secret Dahn hak site for the enlightened-to-be. Up to this point, I just thought Ilchi Lee was an enterprising exercise entrepreuner with a handful of these places in New York City.

Interestingly enough, I was wrong. It's a damn cult, bent on world domination.

Leave it to me to find a brainwashing cult in a yoga class. (sigh)