Failtanga

[starkodama]

On Sunday night I trekked allll the way to the Shinjuku Higashiguchi studio for a yoga workshop called "Challenge Ashtanga yoga!" I've only tried Ashtanga once before, and had a horrible experience, but I was feeling optimistic. The class description stressed that it was for beginners. I'm a lot stronger and more flexible now than I was last

Comments

[starkodama]

I'm not a saint at all! If I was a saint, it wouldn't have pissed me off. It was a bad start to a bad class, that's for sure. :C Never going to that teacher's class again...

[starkodama]

I think it's totally within your rights to ask the staff when that teacher will be teaching, and then not go to that class. Lava posts the schedule of who's teaching what every week on the wall. There are two senseis I don't like and I avoid their classes whenever possible. D:

[slytherinblack]

I've had the internet companies say they're sending a signal to my modem. I don't really know what that does, except I think it has something to with resetting the connection between the modem and the server (or whatever's on the other end).

A bad teacher really makes a difference for me in fitness classes. There are a lot of things that can really take me out of a class - I don't like being called out personally, for example, and I also prefer classes where the teacher isn't talking constantly (one reason I loved the zumba class I took in Philly was almost all of the instruction was via following or signals).
So, yeah. Ick, for the bad teacher.

[starkodama]

A signal, eh? Interesting! Well, whatever it was, it worked.

Cool, Zumba!! I really wanna try a Zumba class sometime. How was it? Like, what did you love about it? :D

[slytherinblack]

I get really really bored with exercise which is one reason I don't do it as often as I should. Zumba is fairly not-boring, and I also like to dance and this is like...aerobic dance, that I can follow, even though I'm bad at dancing. Also, the music is super awesomely catchy.

[december_clouds]

Only, it wasn't good. The teacher got on my nerves by asking me THREE times if I could speak Japanese or not before the class even started. "The class is all in Japanese," she informed me. Lady, am I not speaking to you in Japanese right now? Then once everyone was assembled in the room, she was like "We have a foreigner here today" and she looked at me and said "Cyan yuu supeeku Japanese?" and everyone got a laugh at that. Except for me. I HATE it when people call attention to my gaijin-ness. Just treat me like you would anyone else, please.

*huge eyeroll* WTF did she expect you to do the class in English just for her? Um, if you are in the class and you are speaking Japanese then you can understand.

:(

[starkodama]

Yeah. -_-

I hope things are riot-free over there with you..? <3

[december_clouds]

Er, mostly yes. Most of the places are closing at 3, being all boarded up. I have to go to work super early and leave early, but that's all that's happened so far.

[stranded]

I was at an Inn in deep south Kyushu with my b-fri at the time. The woman checking us in happened to speak English and when showing us our room asked me "You know how to use a Japanese ofuro?" I hesitated before saying yes because I was thrown off by her sudden use of the Japanese term when she had been speaking all English, and wondered if somehow in deep south Kyushu the tubs were wonky, but I figured boyfriend could figure it out if something was up. So I said "yes" ... she looks at me very seriously and says "But the shampoo and conditioner are labeled ...in JapaneeeeeseI know it's a small thing, and she was just trying to be accommodating... but it really annoyed me. I had already mentioned, during small talk, that I have lived in Japan years... I was speaking Japanese to my non-English-speaking boyfriend in front of her... presumably if I had a nervous breakdown when in the bath confronted by the word シャンプー or コンディショナー　I could get help from said Japanese boyfriend... and there's the fact of: shampoo, conditioner, whatever.

[starkodama]

I feel ya, sista. -_- After 7 years here I've developed a thicker skin to that kind of thing... but sometimes it does still bother me. I try to remind myself that they're (probably? maybe?) just trying to be helpful? I dunno either. :/

[december_clouds]

Can't most people figure out shampoo and conditioner by the consistency? And wait if you brought your own?

Sometimes this logic doesn't make sense...

[anonymous]

Hey it's Jessica, I read your blog by Google Reader but don't comment ^^;; Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I've never found a beginner Ashtanga class, even the 'beginner' ones sound like what you described-- very fast and Sanskrit directions (except for the awkward gaijin stuff). It seems they are called beginner because there is a longer series of even more crazy hard poses called intermediate or advanced. Even though Ashtanga is sort of boring in that all the routines are the same, I have been intrigued because they are amazingly hard to do, even if you've done yoga for a while, and I think it would be awesome to be able to do the poses.
I got a DVD, which seems to help me start to remember the approximate order of moves, but the guy in the video is pretty weird (he has a monotone voice and gets talking about keeping your perineum tight, which is that skin by your butthole...?) so I feel sort of creeped out watching him on TV.

[starkodama]

Hey Jessica!! I didn't know you were in to yoga. :D That kinda sucks that Ashtanga beginner classes aren't so friendly to beginners, but I agree with you that it would be so great to be able to do all the poses!

Yeah there's a lot of butthole talk at my studio too. D: "Point your anus towards the ceiling" or "Close your anus on the inhale" etc etc. I got used to it... the inner Beavis still gets a chuckle every time I hear 肛門, but I pay attention and try to do what the teacher says to do with my butthole. Heh.