UPWARD BOW POSESean: I have been practicing yoga since just after
Tommy was born.
Tommy: I started when I was four.
Sean: A couple of times a month, we’ll roll out
our mats in the living room. We’ll put in a yoga
DVD and—I know it’s sacrilege—we also might
have a game on with the volume down.
We used to do this about once a week, until
Tommy started having more activities going on.
Tommy: In the winter I do basketball. In the fall
I do flag football, and in the spring I do baseball.
Sean: But yoga is a nice change of pace.
Would you say that?
Tommy: Yeah. It’s good to relax a little bit.
I mean, I’m definitely better at baseball, but if
you’re good at calming down, you can be pretty
good at yoga.
Sean: Sometimes Tommy will correct my form
or I’ll correct his.
Tommy: It’s funny because we both kind of
can’t do Warrior I. I can’t do it my left side, and
you can’t do it on your right side.
Sean: And lot of the time we’re making jokes.
The instructor on the DVD says some wacky
things: “Soften your belly. Soften your eyes.”
He also repeats a lot of sequences, so we’ll be
like, “Aaaand I believe we’ve been here before.”
Tommy: When we do Upward Bow, he makes
you hold it, and then you go back down, and he’ll
say, “Take five breaths,” but you only have time
to take two breaths and then you have to go
back up.
Sean: So we’ll say, “What happened to those
five breaths?”
We usually do this on Sundays. My wife doesn’t
join us—she is interested in yoga, but she’s like
most of America; she doesn’t know where to
start. Sometimes my daughter joins in, though.
Tommy: My sister will stay through the first
part. You do it over and over again. You go
through this series of poses three times, and by
then, she will be like, “I’m done.”
Sean: Maybe she just doesn’t want to hang out
with two guys.