Waiting To Exhale

To celebrate the grand opening of Octopus Garden Yoga, which has relocated to College and Dovercourt from the Annex, 4 free classes were offered this week-end. I decided to attend the 2 hour 9 a.m. class in lieu of my regular practice at St. Clair and Oakwood. The first thing I noticed was the tiny space. I suppose it was typical for a yoga studio. But I'm used to the unusually large space at the Y. The next thing I noticed was the 40 or more people who came. Well, we ended up laying our mats so close together that there was about a finger's width between them.

The owner, Pat Linfoot, decided that for the very first class in this new space, we will do 108 sun salutations (with variations). Yikes! And that's what we did. Over 8 different yoga instructors took turns doing about 10 each. We didn't actually get to it all, ending up somewhere around 80-90, as some instructors took their time and only did a few. It was interesting to observe how different each instructor was. It was also interesting to watch how the participants handle the class.

Even with the variations, it was a lot of sun salutations. This series of postures is the foundation of all yoga practices. It is also very "basic" and not flashy like a handstand or putting your leg behind your head. Yet I believe it is quite difficult to get right and most repetitive injuries or wear-and-tear in Yoga are from these postures. My own observation is that a lot of practitioners don't do them correctly. And that's under normal circumstances.

With 108 in mind, you've got to modified your practice: replacing some the postures with easier variations to conserve energy and be kind to your body. After a few full salutations, I made my own adjustments. Unsurprisingly, the gung-ho ones didn't last too long and took more and more child's pose to rest. I also don't think their wrists, shoulders, or back will feel that good later in the day when the endorphins wear off. The most important part of Yoga is learning to breathe, everything else is meant to teach you that lesson.

After lunch, I went down to the Bell Lightbox, the permanent home of TIFF. With 5 theatres, they will be showing movies year round. With great anticipation, I sat down to watch Breathless (A bout de souffle). Am I a cinephile who wants to see one of the classic movie from the French New Wave movement of the 60s? Not really, although I do like these older films. No, I just wanted to sit in the dark and stare at the gamine, short-haired Jean Seberg for 2 hours. Give me a pixie cut over long tresses any day.

The movie itself was excellent. The impetus and tragedy of the movie is the criminality of Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo). But at its core, Breathless is a romantic movie. Two beautiful people living in Paris, flirting, fighting (playfully), and loving. A distillation of what it means to be young and believing that you are the first in the world to have loved so deeply, to discover "profound" insights (and talk about them), and a rumpled bed in a tiny apartment is all the possession you need.

And did I enjoy looking at Jean Seberg? Yes, she is utterly breath-taking. And the fashionably gamine, yet simple, 60s look she sported was fresh and stylish. I don't know if it was meant as an running joke but her character Patricia asked Michel at various times if she's attractive. He's evasive and does praise her smile, her shoulders, and so on. The take-away is a gallic shrug: "She's ok-looking." Frankly, a real-life Patricia would have most men grinning like a love-sick schoolboy and acting just as foolish.

And would I like a real-life Patricia of my own? Why yes I would ... assuming I survive the heart attack.