Prenatal yoga: it's not for babies

So it turns out that I really like prenatal yoga.
Which is a surprise considering how I feel about yoga.
I like it for good and bad reasons.
The Good Reasons:
Prenatal yoga, or a least the class I’m taking, is surprisingly intense.
I figured we’d be laying around, rubbing our tummies and saying om, but No ma’am/sir! We are doing wall-assisted hand-stands like almost every class.
I mean, I’ve almost never been asked to do a wall assisted handstand in a Regular yoga class.
This prenatal stuff is hard core.
Another good thing: before each class starts the teacher has us each say our name, how far along we are, and what’s up.
As in, “Hi, I’m Adult Beginner, I’m eighteen weeks, and as of my last appointment I am now, officially, heavier than I’ve ever been in my entire life, which I think is kind of a cool milestone!”
And then everyone laughs and says stuff like, “yeah it’s fun now, just wait until you’re twenty pounds heavier than you’ve ever been in your life!”
And then other people say their name and week and bring up sleep issues and the glucose test and dealing with their health insurance and starting their childbirth classes and other things that are neat to hear about and start thinking about.
And then there are The Bad Reasons:
Prenatal yoga is a major body-image boost.
Had my first prenantal class a week after my last ballet class, and was still kind of reeling from Smirnoff basically holding up a picture of Jabba The Hut and saying THIS EQUALS YOU. It was not until I was in that prenatal yoga class, looking around the other ladies, that I was like, Wait! No! Uh-uh! I am in really good shape! I look Way Better than these other bitches! Man I hope my butt doesn’t get that huge, but at least it didn’t start out that way!
Another good thing: No Sun Salutations in prenatal yoga!
Srsly so bored of those fucking things.
Attention Yoga Teachers of the World: there has Got to be another way to build heat or whatever! Please get creative and don’t bore us to death!
Other day when we were going around introducing ourselves, I asked the teacher, “So, before getting pregnant I took ballet for two years, and my midwives have asked me to take a break from that, which I’m fine with, but their reason was that dancers have very strong abs and that can be a problem, what do you think about that?”
And the teacher sez, “well, that’s kind of a controversial subject!”
And I’m like, in my head: yeah no kidding.
She sez, “I used to not teach any ab stuff whatsoever in my prenatal classes. But then, when I was pregnant, it actually felt good to me and didn’t seem to be causing any trouble, so I don’t think it’s a big deal. Unless you’re starting out with, like, six-pack abs.”
Which people always like to bring up but I think is not a good argument because six-pack abs are a matter of fat distribution, not strength.
When I was like eighteen years old and at the doctor for my first well-woman exam, I remember the doctor poking my lower belly and being like, “(poke poke) there’s you right ovary. Every thing feels fine. (poke poke poke) You have very strong abs.”
And I was like, “Shuh!”
And the doctor was like, “no, really. (poke) Very strong.”
And I was like, “if they’re so strong, why don’t I have a six-pack?”
And the doctor was like, “oh it’s there, it’s just under a layer of fat. Which is very healthy. Keeps your organs insulated. (poke) Here’s your left ovary, everything feels fine.”
Anyway, so the yoga teacher went on to say the thing about strong abs is not exactly that they don’t expand, it’s more like they contract strongly but then don’t release very much between contractions. And then she said she figures the real issue with ballet would be that turn-out closes the back of the pelvis, and you want a nice open pelvis.
And now I catch myself standing in fifth and fourth all the time, at my table at work, in fittings with movie stars, in line at the grocery store.
Had no idea I was doing that!
Totally subconscious!
So now I’m working on parallel feet.

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