Sting showed up in Una’s yoga class on Tuesday. She was neatening up the props, the foam blocks and bolsters carelessly tossed onto the deep shelf. The previous class usually left a decidedly funky cloud, so she ran the fan as her students streamed in. A vaguely familiar man, tall and toned, walked in and unfurled his mat front row center. His mat had a tree design on it, and he immediately threw himself into a Yoga Journal-worthy Downward Dog, hands and feet planted, his body making a hamstring stretching mountain peak.
Xenia arrived next and took her far left corner spot, too wrapped up in her back pain to recognize the famous Brit. It was a stabbing kind of pain today, up behind her heart, something to do with her boss and that elusive promotion. Jason and Alfred arrived next, widening their eyes as they greeted Una, tilting their heads not so subtly at the new guy, who was now sitting in Full Lotus with his eyes closed. The new guy’s features were falling together for Una, as they already had for the two regulars. Faded blonde hair receded high on the regal head. Deep smile lines made by singing for international crowds at Rainforest Foundation fundraisers. It all clicked, and Una shooed them to the side of the room to get ready. “Just blankets for now,” she said. Star-struck Alfred eagerly volunteered to distribute them.
Gradually the room filled. Some of the older women paused and had hot flashes upon seeing the eminent musician sitting right there with his eyes closed. Their brain cells connected the dots into the constellation called Sting. Una sighed and waved them in too. Everyone set up their mats and folded blankets to further pad full bottoms or bony knees. Una noticed there was a buffer zone of smooth wooden floor, a kind of golden awe aura that her students left around Sting.
Don’t stand so close to me, indeed!
Last minute folks came in and had no choice but to enter that buffer zone. Una hated even the idea of celebrity, ever since her ex-socialist mother took up with an “up and coming” actor. So she went right up to the man at front row center. He was second only to Cyrano de Bergerac in making a girl named Roxanne famous, but here he was just one of her drop-in students.
“Hi, there. I’m Una. And you are?” she asked, managing to keep a straight face.
“Gordon. Nice to meet you.” He modestly gave the name bestowed upon him by his North Country parents. Point in his favor, begrudged Una. She asked about any injuries he might have.
“There is this cantankerous shoulder.” He brought his right hand to touch his left shoulder. Una nodded and proceeded to take injury inventory from mat to mat. She remembered who would need what adjustments for the poses to come. Just like any other class.
They began sitting with some slow ujaya breathing, even in, even out, mouths closed. “You might hear a little Darth Vader sound at the back of the throat.” Gordon and the other new people smiled at that. Una liked to demystify the ancient practices. She reminded them about the relaxation response, how this sort of breathing powerfully downshifted them into a more relaxed state. “In this class, we take a break from fight or flight. You can do it ‘off the mat’ too. You can relax out in the world. If you want.” Una could tell the all-aflutter feeling had dropped out of the room. There was a thick, potent air. An expectation of delicious unhurried movement.
The class chanted three OM’s to clear the way. Una showed her picture of the elephant-headed god Ganesha, who removes obstacles by sweeping his flexible trunk. The primal sound was to do the same, resonating through their very bones. When they sang the short song about waking the teacher within, Una heard Sting harmonize with the group. He did not veer into scat land, another point in his favor.
They started with Sun Salutations to get everyone warmed up. Una was amused at those students like Kat and Alfred who planted their hands and did the Iyengar-style hop back with both feet; it made her think of gymnasts with their pumped up pep and cheer. Her regulars simply stepped back and lowered themselves into a pushup. They’d been practicing making a smoother transition from there at Plank to Stick. Beginners and tricky-shouldered Gordon and Xenia did the transition with knees and chest down, butt sticking up. They inchwormed themselves along their mats until they were face down and flat out. And then they raised their chests up into Baby Cobra or Full Cobra. Jason and Cherise flowed admirably, directly lowering themselves to their mats with sculpted arms and undulating up, their faces raised like sunflowers.
“And Downward Dog,” Una said, watching the class swoop back into a jackknife position. “Downward Dog is a rest position, your home base in this sequence. So let’s pause here.” Una went around to tug hips back or gently encourage the dangling head to nod YES and shake NO to free the neck. This was most helpful for Dina who had a hard time telling the difference. Una placed a hand on Gordon’s upper back and he relaxed his shoulders, especially the cantankerous one. Una went back to the front of the room to lead the rest of the sequence and two more rounds.
As she was moving and breathing and calling out the poses, she had the unmistakable sensation of a full body blush. The old Police video for ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ started playing in her head, as if slumbering pre-teen cells had been aroused. A decades’ younger version of the man, now only a few feet away, sang with the drummer and the guitarist in the ancient MTV loop in her brain. He was the schoolteacher tempted by a young nubile student, and like all her friends way back when, Una had wished it had been her.
Una scanned the room of students balancing in Tree Pose or wobbling out of it, glimpsing just a man in his sixties. So fit and yogafied; no wonder he was in all the yoga mags. But fatherhood – maybe even grandfatherhood! – and the pressures of international stardom had certainly aged the man with arms raised triumphant. His face was etched with his Google-able timeline.
Una led her charges through Chair Pose variations. The group stood, knees bent with torsos angled forward in their imaginary chairs. With arms raised they seem poised to spring up and dive into deep water. Jonah, a new father, looked a little tense on the precipice. “Melt the hips, melt the knees, melt the ankles with the exhale here,” Una suggested, then held praying hands at her heart and twisted to the left. She caught sight of her current self in her mind’s eye: a woman in her prime. She sat in deeper, bouncing lightly on her feet to get that elastic effortlessness through all the joints.
Una did not look or feel fifty-one, and she was no longer a wallflower girl, whose shadow she caught out of the corner of her eye as she twisted to the right. She sent some love to that young one who was chosen last for ball games and school dances. That girl who’d never heard of yoga and doubted that she could find her place in the grand order of living creatures. To her Una said, Namaste. The light in me greets the light in you.
The class faced the wall of bolsters and blocks and made their way through Warrior Two variations, legs spread and planted firm. Una spoke, “I used to hate Triangle Pose, but once my teacher clued me in to the spiraling of the legs and made me focus on the lungs, breathing one side at a time, I found the living vine twining power of it all.” Una made them consider the left lung stretching down and the right lung lobes curling under to support the leaning torso.
The students were working hard without forcing anything, even the two Marias who were usually obsessed with perfect form. Una could tell this lung thing was helping, as she went around the room making adjustments, moving Xenia’s hand to her hip, letting the shoulder rest.
As they moved to the floor, insomniac Steve let out a big sigh in the middle of the room as backs touched down into gravity. “That’s what I’m talking about! The floor is your friend,” Una said. They did their Spinal Twists and Pigeon Pose variations, and softened taut hamstrings.
After Shavasana, the Corpse Pose, where they did their best to systematically let go of all tension held in the far reaches of the body, they finally resurrected themselves into sitting. The end like the beginning, the same but completely different. Una’s charges looked sleepy and content. She wanted to wake them up gently.
“Let’s close our class with a chant. This one is not from India, but let’s direct it to the Divine, however you experience that within you and beyond you.” She grinned like a fool, and then she raised her arms in praise. In a beautiful rich alto, she sang out:
Every little thing you do is magic
She paused and the gob-stopped students stared at her and at Sting in the front row. But he just chuckled with pleasure and joined in with arms raised too.
Everything you do just turns me on
Even though my life before was tragic
Now I know my love for you goes on.
Una made a flourish of her hand towards Sting, and he heartily took it from the top, morphing the words as needed from lovelorn beseeching into spirit longing. Jason and one of the older women knew all the words and sang along, timidly at first, then full-hearted. The entire group lifted their arms, fingers reaching as they repeated the familiar chorus each time. As they finished, the studio erupted in applause and laughter. Una brought her hands into prayer position at her heart and bowed deeply to her teacher of the moment.
“Namaste, Gordon.”
Gordon bowed back. They both turned to the class and made a graceful deeper bow.
“Namaste, everyone.”
