And that feeling, of looking upside down at the world while you hover, is like stepping into space. The first time I did it, I thought I was dying. It was three seconds away from being an out-of-body experience. Everything seemed to lift, to float, to say yes. I stretched upwards gloriously, pointing my toes.

Unfortunately, that perfect, first time equilibrium couldn’t last long. Maybe just under three seconds. Two and a half. I started to wobble backwards, and desperately clenched my abdomen muscles. The yoga instructor shuffled next to me as I eeped in alarm. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” he said. He framed my ankles with his palms. “I won’t leave you.”

Oh my God, I thought, delirious with brainblood. That was like a wedding vow.

It became pretty clear almost immediately, however, that she was the strongest person in the class, let alone girl. Whenever we went into twists, I propped my elbows on my knees and innocently stared. Where did her strength come from? She had no outward appearance of muscles. She was a twig in shorts and tank-top, braless and small-chested with dark hair elaborately pinned to a delicate head. Chandelier earrings dangled from her ears in small crystals. Her eyes were heavy with kohl. When arched on all fours, she could swing through her arms in one graceful motion and land noiselessly into a seated forward bend, her body creased in half at the hips like rolling paper.

After class, the few men in the area would line up to speak with her.

“Where are you from?” I heard someone say, leaning towards her intimately in the coat room as I struggled to find my scarf in a pile of boots. “Russia, right? Somewhere in Russia?”

She shyly mumbled a response, seemingly eager to get around him and out the door.

“You know,” he smiled wolfishly, “I . . . speak a little Russian.”

Dipshit, I thought at him. That’s exactly the sort of thing you’re supposed to say in Russian. I mean, come on. I’ve never taken a single Spanish class, but I could tell you I spoke it, un poco.

“Some guy touched her arm today!” I would exclaim. “Like he owned her, and he said ‘hey, nice to see you here again.’ Come on. Doesn’t he know that she’s always there? She could freaking teach at that studio, and he says nice to see you here, like she’s doing him some kind of favor by showing up. Geez!”

Or, “she seems to know Elliot, the instructor, pretty well. He asked her if she’d be attending his workshop this weekend, and warned her that it’d be a long drive from her place.”

Or, “I heard her talk today. I’m not sure what she said. She has the quietest voice.”

I’d recount the amazing physical feats I’d seen her accomplish, the neverending pairs of earrings, the heavy eye makeup that wouldn’t smear a centimeter. I had begun to suspect that she was magical. Every class, she would tiptoe in a minute or two late, and place her mat next to mine.

“All right,” Elliot said, “pair off time. Girls with girls, guys with guys, or just, whatever. You two, you two, you two.”

I had been paired with Skinny Russian Girl. I could feel a million male eyes burning with jealousy as I edged onto her mat.

It was actually the first time I’d ever looked Skinny Russian Girl directly in the face, and I was immediately startled. For one thing, she was much younger than my discreet darting glances could have discerned, or my eager-to-dislike mind to have guessed. For another, there was an eerie prettiness to her. I had assumed she would look cheap up close, sad with the effort of cosmetics mashed with the effort of warrior poses: but mascaraed eyes and all, she just looked unearthly. And where were those muscles? Those muscles, that stretched in all manner of ways and allowed her to do those things?

I began my awkward spiel. “Hi . . . I’ve actually only done this pose one other time before, so I’m still not quite sure how to do it, and . . .”

“Oh!” she whispered, smiling co-conspiratorially. “Here.”

She pulled out a binder of laminated diagrams of poses, and ran her finger down the list until it rested on our assignment. She crossed her legs and took my hands.

I . . . am in love with you, I thought as she pushed her joyful face up to mine. I had never seen a person capable of smiling mid-sit-up.

“Oh!” she giggled quietly afterwards. “That was so difficult! Your turn!”

I focused very intently on the coordination required to roll up my mat.

“Hello!”

I looked up.

“Oh! Hi.”

She stood there, quietly, until I’d put my mat in my bag and stood up to meet her.

“How long have you been doing astanga?” she asked, eyes fluttering downcast. Everything she said seemed to be italicized, slanted slightly with her accent.

“Oh, uh . . . not long I guess . . . um . . . since January? Yeah.” Pause. “You?”

“Two years.”

“Wow, hey, that’s neat . . .”

Uhhhhh . . . think brain, think . . . how do you talk, again? How do words work? What are the appropriate corresponding facial expressions? Follow-up questions?

“So . . . I will see you next time, then?”

“. . . Yeah!”

At this she shuffled away, evaporating out of the room and dispersing her molecules into the night.

He raised an eyebrow, just as any proper Bostonian should when addressed in a friendly fashion by a stranger, and I ran out into the rain with hood flying, slamming my feet violently into the puddles like a twelve-year-old. “Yay!” I thought with each step. “Yay! Yay!” My purse filled with rainwater. My fingers became stiff with cold, and my socks like sponges soaking up water and filth from the streets. “Yay!”

Our instructor Elliot entered the class and smiled, turning down the music. From the first time I saw Elliot, I secretly referred to him as “Moby”: like Moby, Elliot has a very shiny head. Unlike Moby, Elliot could probably kick your ass if it didn’t go against everything he stood for. I am massively intimidated by Elliot, and also kind of in love with him: the way I am in love with anyone who even slightly touches me.

“Welcome, everyone, to the secondary series of this class. Is anyone new to secondary series?”

Secondary, secondary, I flickered vaguely. Isn’t this class usually called primary?

“On the last Tuesday of every month, this class becomes the secondary series. It’s a little more advanced, and with a lot of back bends, so . . . feel free to stop whenever you need to. Everyone okay?”

This was met with blank, uninterpretable stares. Wait, what did he say again? Should I –

“Now let’s take a deep breath.”

Fuck, you’re out of your element, aren’t you? I thought to myself rapidly, raising my arms upward. You’re out of your element. Exhale and bend. Whooooooosh. Here we go.

I was, in fact, way out of my element. Classes are an hour and a half long, and a mere twenty minutes in brought a huge stream of sweat dripping into one of my eyes. I blinked and coughed, jumped forward, extended, bent down, raised up, jumped back. I was, actually, slowly dying. My arms were shaking. My mind was incapable of making basic calculations, like “are you capable of bending that way.” Everything was a blur.

“Okay,” Elliot said, as I finally crawled into a sad, prostrate child’s pose, smooshing my nose into the floor in defeat. “So, you’re going to need a partner for this next position, and it’s a little . . . intimate.” That got everyone’s attention. What? Partner what? “Just find someone in the class who’s approximately your build and ability.”

Uhhhh. My eyes darted around the room. Was anyone else opposed to this? Could I opt out? What about for religious reasons? Because I don’t believe in touching people, I thought we’d established this.

Everyone had found a partner.

Well, almost everyone. I turned to my right, and there was the girl sitting near the wall. She was maybe twice my weight with a Rubenesque build, a cherub face and thick, frizzy hair. I smiled weakly at her, barely making eye contact. It’s the same smile I’ve been giving to people in gym classes my entire life. It says sorry, looks like you get to be with me.

“So basically, you’re going to sit facing one another with your legs entwined, like so. The supporter will hold your hands behind you, and you’ll lean back onto the top of your head. Five breaths there, then come up, then up and down five times, then down again for five breaths.”

I stared at our demonstrating instructor in absolute, dumbstruck horror. He was going to have us hump one another.

I mean, not hump entirely, in the traditional sense of the word. But one person presses their crotch against the other person’s crossed ankles, which are also pressed into that person’s crotch. You’ll notice that there’s only one set of ankles, separating the crotches. Meanwhile this other person goes up and down in a kind of chest-opening sit-up — and breathing, I should mention, in the traditional Vinyasa manner, which is to say loudly and with a kind of hissing sound. And all the while you’re holding goddamn hands.

Another bead of sweat rolled into my widened eyes. The girl padded her way over to my mat and sat down, facing me. Everyone else had already begun with their partners. No one was talking: just that hissss, hisssss, hisssss, hissssss of breath, everyone in rhythm.

“So, uh,” I said quietly, “I don’t, um, I’ve never actually done this before, so, um, do you want to go first?”

She shrugged and crossed her legs campfire style, then crossed her arms behind her.

“I, uh, so, I guess I just kind of sit . . . uh, where do my legs go, again? Like this?”

I splayed them around her. She nodded patiently.

“Okay, and now I grab, um, your waist, like this while you bend back?” I put my clammy hands on her hesitantly: her back was soaked in sweat. She shook her head.

“Oh, I mean, I, uh, I take your hands. Right. Okay. Uh, like this?” Our hands clasped moistly. I was three inches away from her face.

She nodded again like yeahyeahyeah, then thrust her chest forward and bent her head back, until she was balancing on it. Holy crap, I realized. This woman’s breasts are absolutely gigantic, and they are just barely covered by clothing. Then, with urgency: whatever you do, do not look at this woman’s breasts. I stared determinedly at the wall, as she came up and down, up and down, hissss, hissss, hissssss.

“Your turn,” she finally gasped. “I can never do the last one.”

And so somehow I found myself wet and intertwined with a complete stranger, pressing my ankles into her crotch as I lowered my head onto the floor. Five breaths here. Easy. Stare at the wall behind you. Now, come up.

Breasts. NO! Crap! Wall. Inhale, back down. Maybe I should look her in the eyes, like with dancing? Some people think it’s lame to avoid eye contact in these situations. Exhale, up: Eyes — wao! She was looking you in the eyes, too! Well that was weirdly intimate. Inhale, back down. Note to future self, never make eye contact while doing this again. Exhale, up: Shoulder, yes, the right shoulder is safe.

Inhale, back down.

Exhale, up: There are literally five rivers of sweat running into her massive cleavage, it’s like a 8th wonder of the world in there, how could a sports bras that low cut even be useful –

Shoulder next time, shoulder! Inhale, back down. Last one, you can do it.

I exhaled with everything I had left in me, hisssssssss pushed my way back up towards her, and overwhelmed by momentum found myself within a few centimeters of her lips, panting. I looked her in the eyes, then looked down to avoid her eyes, then looked to the side to avoid her breasts.

Jesus! Shoulder! Back up a little!

“Did . . . I do it?” I asked. I felt a little proud, like I’d just survived interrogation under water-boarding. Drowning? Who was drowning? Nobody was actually drowning! Ho ho ho!

“Actually you’ve got one more set,” she said. “Another round of five breaths, remember?”

I bow to the lotus feet of the guru
who awakens insight into the happiness of pure Being
who is the refuge, the jungle physician
who eliminates the delusion caused by
the poisonous herb of samsara (conditioned existence).

I prostrate before the sage Patanjali
who has thousands of radiant, white heads
(in his form as the divine serpent, Anala)
and who has, as far as his arms, assumed the form of a man
holding a conch shell (divine sound), a wheel (discus of light,
representing infinite time) and a sword (discrimination).
om

Yeah! Time to do some push-ups and warrior one! Wait, what did we just say?