Touching toes

This morning, I had an interesting conversation in the coffeeshop I hang out at. I walked into the coffeeshop and was about to go over to the barista at the counter to order my usual morning espresso shot, when I spied a friend sitting on a couch in a corner, his face buried in his Iphone (hmm... many people I know seem to like burying their faces in Iphones: See previous post for another real-world specimen of Homo Iphoneopiens.) 

I walked over to my friend and greeted him, interrupting his communion with his Iphone. We chatted for a few minutes. He looked a little worn out, so I asked him if he had had a late night (this being a college town and all). He said yes, and that he had also spent the whole of yesterday helping some friends with some very menial tasks, as a result of which his muscles were feeling very sore and stiff.

On the spur of the moment, I asked him if he had ever tried yoga. He looked at me for a brief second, and then laughed. I told him that I wasn't joking, that I personally do yoga. "But I can't touch my toes! Heck, I'm not sure if I can even touch my knees! Can you touch your toes?" I responded by standing up, bringing my feet together, extending my knees, and then folding over to bring the heels of my palms to the ground (a.k.a. Dve position). "Ridiculous!" My friend exclaimed. "Yeah... and I'm not even warm!" I responded.

Anyway, having thus demonstrated my, ahem, ridiculous flexibility, I went on to explain to my friend that yoga is really a therapeutic modality, that physically (and maybe also mentally) inflexible folks need yoga more than flexible folks, attractive Yoga Journal models notwithstanding. My friend listened dubiously ("Yeah, that's easy for you to say, you who can touch your palms to the ground!" He was probably thinking...), but being polite, said nothing to contradict me.

My days of yogavangelism being behind me (see this post for more details on yogavangelism), I decided to cut my yoga sales pitch short, and we moved on to other topics (such as the recent landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars, and how the weaker gravity on Mars may make it easier for people to stretch, thus resulting in a yoga boom on Mars should humans ever succeed in colonizing the planet...).

Anyway... There's no moral to this story. It's just a random story from a rather random day in my life. More later.