12pm. Power Yoga with Gundega. The name Gundega always terrified me. It’s the kind of name that sticks in your mind. Power. Gundega. Some eleven-armed yoga master who can levitate himself and crush the skulls of his opposition through will alone.
I first saw the advert for Gundega’s power yoga when I joined a nearby gym two months ago. Today, I felt run down, and was in the spa trying to exorcise some of the deeply rooted pain from my legs. I went in early, before the afternoon giffers could pollute the spa with their scabies and leprosy. Which left me in a perfect position to fight the mighty Gundega in unarmed yoga. The guy at the front desk told me that it would give me a sense of well-being and wasn’t too advanced. I thought I’d give it a go. It would distract me from the words ringing in my head from my walk to the gym. A bull-goose looney had dismounted his bicycle and approached me on the street earlier. After a few questions about love and god (his god I think) and jesus, he told me I was going to hell (in a shopping basket) and mounted his bicycle, pedalling headfirst into the oncoming traffic. A man of conviction and a belief in American vehicle brakes.
I entered the workout studio, and was pleasantly relieved to find that Gundega was a petite, harmless looking woman. I was also relieved when she said she’d had to pull some of the headstands from the class at the request of the gym management. Something to do with neck-snapping and insurance claims. So my skull remained uncrushed, and I did exit the class with a sense of wellbeing. The perky Latvian Gundega also left feeling perky it seems, and rabbitted on about economic slavery, religion, easter bunnies, the gold standard and anything else that sprang into her wellbeen head. They never say that yoga is as addictive as crack cocaine (as they do snowboarding). Maybe the advertising is aimed at a different group of consumers who don’t associate with addiction and smoking rock. But I think I may do some more yoga. If only they could incorporate more kicks and punches into it.