Relax your toe-fingers!

If someone had told me I’d be doing yoga on my next holiday, I’d laugh in their face, possibly right before slapping them for such a stupid suggestion. However, that’s exactly what I found myself doing today.

Tucked away under the shadow of a hanging walkway, I felt like I was hibernating for the winter alongside a small group of fellow yoga-ers (or whatever the word is for yoga participants). It didn’t help that when we pulled a few different moves off, what started as a party of one soon turned into a small crowd of gatherers watching us, probably resembling us to circus freaks by the looks on their faces.

We were the only English people taking part in the class, so at times it was pretty hard to keep up with what everyone else was doing since the instructor, and everyone else, was Spanish. At several points I found myself mimicking the actions of the woman to my left for the best part of the lesson, and it was only when the instructor paused the class to correct her once that I (and my mum who had also had the same bright ideas as me) realised that the person we were copying was doing it wrong. Great.

The lesson only lasted an hour, but time flew by. It’s amazing how doing so little with your body can elapse so much time.

For the majority of the first half of the lesson, I found myself pretty bored. I yawned a good few too many times too – one of which I’m convinced the instructor saw and didn’t look too impressed by. I didn’t really see the point of most of the moves we were doing; I mean, what good will being able to turn your hips an extra 10% or so more than normal unless you’re in the business of bullet-dodging.

As we did all these poses we took breaks in between where we did the ‘Sala sala’ pose (or at least this is what I made out to be its name in her heavy Spanish accent) - something a monkey could do, and involved...lying down. The first time we did it, the instructor made it sound like the best thing in the world after a huge string of complex stretches we’d just done, when in reality all we did was practice bullet-dodging a touch before having an excuse to sunbathe on our yoga mats for a few minutes.

I tried to block out the ever-increasing voices in my head that was telling me I was wasting my time. I’m sure if my inner-self had control of one of my hands, this would have been a prime time for it to slap me around the face for wasting a tiny bit of its life. The stretches didn’t do anything for me besides make me wonder what people saw in yoga that made it seem so attractive previously. I kept thinking of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and, briefly, some other rom-com where Scarlett Johansson teaches a yoga class, and wondered what high-profile actors and co saw in the hobby (sport? activity?). The answer was beyond me.

In confession, there were a few points where I noticed the serious yoga people at the front of the class could reach a good few inches further than me without feeling pain – but what good is an extra inch or so stretch going to do in life? Help you jump a fence after dodging some bullets? I couldn’t think of that many benefits to justify 60 minutes of your life spent in this manner, but I suppose some people can.

While these people managed, with ease, to touch their toes during some stretches, I could only manage stroking my ankles before feeling strained. In reality, I felt a bit downtrodden that I couldn’t compete to the other people’s standard in this field, and must admit that give it a few months or whatever that I could probably do the same – but seeing this as the only advantage to yoga still does little to justify taking it up.

At the end of the lesson, we spent a whopping 15 minutes relaxing our body (kind of like a warm down). This was probably the most fun part of the lesson, for one sole reason – the instructor’s accent. Every time she said ‘relax’ in Spanish, she had a tendency to roll her Rs, a lot (a ‘skill’ I can never muster but have a huge soft spot for when others can, and get that Christmassy feeling when I hear it said. Needless to say, body part after body part that needed relaxing that therefore required the word ‘relax’ – or whatever the Spanish version of the word was that she used – I thoroughly enjoyed.)

Also, her language was occasionally lost in translation. Until this point I was highly impressed at the way this woman could say the same phrase in Spanish and English without once stopping for thought or delay (a skill every hotel staff member seemed to possess – amplifying just how lazy us Brits are back home when it comes to learning a second language... not exactly a proud moment compared to the entertainment manager who yesterday thanked visitors to a motown music show in five different languages). However, she sometimes mis-pronounced a few body parts – sometimes so much so that it was hard not to laugh aloud during our precious relaxation time. We were told to relax from toe to head, and relaxing each body part took a half-minute or so, including our ‘toe fingers’ (toes), our ‘bumts’ (bums) or our ‘front’ (face).

As well as this, we were also expected to relax our ears, our hair, and our nails. After doing something the likes of Jason Statham in Crank would have trouble doing, we were casually told to relax our heart too. Simple, apparently.

After the hour was up, I can safely say I felt very little different – besides a bit of a sore ‘bumt’ after so long lying on the ground. What’s worse is that after all this trouble relaxing my body so I wouldn’t move it, I had to get up straight after to return to my sunbed by the pool, therefore surely killing the whole relaxation process we just entered?

As far as hotel freebies go, yoga is definitely worth a pop... if everything else is fully booked, and you’ve got nothing better to do with an hour of your life. I can’t see myself doing it again anytime soon, but can safely add this to the ever-growing list of things I’ve done in my life and not regretted. There’s always a silver lining I suppose - maybe I just had to relax my mind to see it...