The Carraway Seed

When it became clear that a) I wasn’t going to be able to go back to martial arts during my pregnancy, b) I wasn’t as comfortable taking long walks after dark while pregnant as I did last year, and c) I was going to need to keep my body in good shape for labor and birth, I started pondering the previously unthinkable: prenatal yoga.

I come at yoga with a variety of (possibly unfair) preconceptions. There are two “yoga types” in San Francisco. The first is people who are really devoted and go to classes more often than they go to work, who talk about it constantly and end every conversation with “namaste,” and who resemble people who think they’ve seen the face of the Virgin Mary in their pancake when the conversation strays into yoga-land. The second is people who wear really expensive yoga pants and tops, who maybe have a mat and bolster stashed away somewhere, but who never actually do any yoga.

On top of that, I have a strong aversion to fitness clubs, or anywhere people are performing some kind of exercise en masse. I’m not that quick to learn physical things, I don’t like people looking at me to begin with, and I especially don’t like them looking at me when I’m sweaty and confused and trying to follow along. I imagined that yoga classes would be pretty much me (with no formal yoga training) thrust into a roomful of beaming mamas-to-be, all of whom fell into category #1 described above.

The other thing is, I sometimes still forget that I’ve lost 75 lbs., so when I looked at pictures of women actually doing the asanas, my first thought was, “They’re all thinner than I am!” It took about 10 seconds of staring to remember that a) I am thin now, b) it doesn’t matter, and c) we’re all going to look like we’re smuggling soccer balls in our yoga tops anyway.

Once I set aside all that mental noise, I discovered with some delight that the birth teacher I’m looking forward to taking classes from in January also teaches yoga three times a week in the Mission, so I figured checking out her Friday class would be a good way to scope her out and also see if I could actually pull off a full yoga routine. She’s really upbeat (but not in a perky annoying way), non-judgmental, and the class is designed for people who don’t know what they’re doing. To my surprise, once I got there and started following along, I found that I actually DID know some of what I was doing, so that was Confidence Booster Number One. She only corrected me on two poses — one of which was laying down at the end, so I don’t think that one counts.

Class kicks off with going around the room, saying your name, how many weeks along you are, and how you’re feeling. Both Fridays so far, we’ve had women there on their due dates, and last week we had a woman who was somewhere in her 41st week of pregnancy. (Admittedly, there is a certain envy that arises when you realize a woman that pregnant can still get into downward dog better than you can. Maybe by then I’ll be that flexible.) I have to say, the prospect of your neighbor going into labor or having her water break while you’re sorting out how to get your arms into eagle pose makes everything a little more lively.

There are several poses in the class that are obviously specifically designed to get your hips/legs/back ready for pushing a large baby out of your pelvis at some point in the near future. Because we’re pregnant and hence can’t lay on our stomachs or our backs, nor can we do any of that inverted stuff, the majority of the class is done either seated or on hands-and-knees. The poses are full of sticking your butt in the air, or squatting, or rolling your hips around a lot, not only to get your muscles limber but I suppose to get you over the possible embarrassment factor of having to do this naked in front of your doctor/midwife while they reach in and help fish the baby out. At one point in last week’s class, the teacher made us do this tiring arm thing, and said, “OK, when you get tired, don’t stop — just breathe into the discomfort and stay with it.” It felt a little like a mental prank, but an important one nonetheless. At the same time, my brain knows the difference between pain it can’t avoid (contraction) and pain it can (ow, my arms), and was a little cranky.

The final “exercise” is laying still and centering. Theoretically, after all that rocking around our babies should be fast asleep, but I find that as soon as I lay down the baby is squirming and wrestling around in there, perhaps doing a little workout of his/her own.

Of course, by the end of the 90-minute class I am feeling both deliciously wrung-out and calm, and energized and ready to do it again in a few days. I’m not someone who can meditate or relax just by thinking about it; it takes some measure of hard physical work that consumes all my brainpower just to stay upright — like tree pose — to silence the mental static. One of the thing I’ve missed most about kenjitsu is the fact that it’s tough to focus on day-to-day stressors when someone’s swinging a wooden weapon at you and either you react in time, and with proper form, or you get smacked. So this seems a good substitute.

Another high point is the fact that my class is immediately followed by a mom-and-baby yoga class, so we get to see where we’ll be somewhere in the next 4 to 6 months (and ponder how to do all these poses while the little one is squirming next to us in a carrier).

The only problem is, the instructor’s other classes are at times when I can’t make it, so within two weeks I was already considering a second studio with another class that’s compatible with my schedule. I’ll be checking it out on Wednesday night. This feels a little like two-timing, but I can’t help but look forward to having that calm, energized feeling more often.

I’m just trying to figure out how to go to more classes without becoming one of those fanatical types. Eeep.

– Beth