The Cerebral Catalyst

She told me she was enrolled in a
special yoga class
that would begin on Friday night
for a few hours
and then
be all day Saturday
and Sunday.
But on Sunday friends and family
were invited to come for the first two hours.

So on Sunday I got up early
got dressed like a jogger, got in my car
and drove to her place.
Then I followed
her
to the park where it was supposed to be.

We found the people gathered in a field
a great many
maybe a hundred.
For a few minutes we stood in the crowd
listening to the excited
talk
and watching a small group throw a beach ball back
and forth.
Then she pointed out the yoga instructor
a brown dwarf of a man
wearing large black sunglasses, gold pirate earrings
and a long gray beard
half his body length.

"That's him, that's the Yogi. He's really well-known in India."

The Yogi
was standing with people around
him
his arms crossed
and eyes hidden
behind
the dark shades.
His head nodded
every few seconds
in the direction of whoever was talking.

"He's really good," she said, "very into the spiritual side of it."

Minutes later he made a sound
that got all our attention.

"Everyone join hands," he said in a voice like soft water, "and make a big circle."

I held her hand to the left
looked to the right
smiled
and took the hand of the woman next to me.

"COME ON BIG CIRCLE BIG CIRCLE BIGGER!" someone with a louder voice shouted.

We backed up.

"BACK UP BACK UP!" others shouted, echoing, "BIG CIRCLE."

finally
the circle was huge
and we couldn't back up any farther
without
tearing some muscle.

"Okay," said Mr. Yogi. "We're going to run this way," (pointing his head to my left.) "And now everybody go
ooooooooogh!"

"OOOOOOOOOGH! OOOOOOOOOGH!" went the circle
"OOOOOOOOOGH!"
As I ran with it
grinning and feeling
like a fucking
fool.

"Okay. Now stay in the circle everyone, and we're going to count off by ones and twos. Ready? ONE!"

"Two!"

"One!"

"Two..."

"One," I said. And she was two.

"All the ones come inside the circle. Twos, stay in the outer circle."

I went inside the large circle
filling it in
with another fifty or so
people
and Mr. Yogi.

The beach ball
appeared again from somewhere and was thrown to Mr. Yogi
who cradled it
in his hands as he spoke.
"Now, twos: you're going to be throwing the ball at us. It has to hit below the waist or it doesn't count. If you are hit, you leave the inside and join the outer circle. We do this until there is only one person left."

Sounded like fun
and it was
for a while — I watched the ball and stayed out of its way
pretending it was
a ball of fire being thrown at
us
inmates
a game of survival
that would end with only one of us
left living.
People were getting hit all around
the prison population was dwindling
but I had confidence
I would last
I was a survivor
I stayed mostly still and calm
even when I was targeted
deftly moving out of the way
in the last second.
Mr. Yogi was good at it too
he had a way of
turning and falling fast on his ass
so that the ball hit only his upper body
something that apparently
no one else had thought to do.
Then
the woman next to me was hit
and the ball bounced off of her
to hit me in the waist.

"You're out too," someone said to me
and I said
"No, the ball bounced off of her. She was the one who got hit."

"You're out," said another person who
was soon joined
by another
after I told them I was hit above the waist.

"You're out you're out," they all
said
smiling
silicon valley shark
smiles.

I didn't argue further
and joined the outside circle.
Mr. Yogi's army was bigger than mine.

As I stood on the outside others got pegged
(mostly by either of two big guys wearing high school football expressions on their faces as they hurled the ball with the force of trying to topple marble statues)
as I watched
with disinterest and wondered
if I was going to get to do
any yoga.

Finally there was only one person left and
Mr. Yogi called for
all twos to get in the middle
for their turn.
I noticed that he
himself
stayed in.

"How come he gets to stay inside?" I asked the guy next to me.

But no one else seemed to care
even after
he got hit with the ball the first time
and still stayed in
pretending he didn't notice because
he'd been looking away
and talking to one of the ladies on the outside when it happened.

At the end of the second game
he
who was looking more and more
like a jazz player
or the dark brother of ZZ Top
announced that we all
were to gather 'round
him.

"Now," he said, "we're going to do one more exercise. This," he held up the beach ball, "is lunch. I'm going to throw it up in the air and we're going to bounce it one hundred times without letting it hit the ground. If it hits the ground, you start all over. Keep your hands above your head, hit it only with your palms, and don't hit it hard. This is lunch."
He threw the ball up into
the air. It was bounced
nineteen times
before it hit the ground.

"You have to be a team. Work together."

"Teamwork!" someone said.

"Yeah, teamwork!"

The ball went back up

fell to the
ground after twenty-nine hand taps.

It was tried again
and this time
when the ball came near
Mr. Yogi
he bounced the ball off
his head
to laughter and
applause.

The ball hit the ground and
went up again
with cries of "TEAMWORK
TEAMWORK!" from those beginning to fear
the possibility
of not eating.

A few more attempts
and several Yogi head-butts later
the goal
was reached
and the class was told to
go to lunch, come back
in an hour
friends and family
thank you
for coming.

I then watched a group of
mostly female admirers
gather around Mr. Yogi
to discuss where they would take him
for lunch
and wondered
how many of those bright
and beautiful
ladies
were at that moment
imagining his soft gray beard
between their ass cheeks
or sweeping their lower backs.

I said goodbye to my lady for the day
and
walked from the field
to my car
thinking about Mr. Yogi
the little things he did to distinguish himself
the rules he made for others
to follow
the $150 he charged per person
and the free lunch he
was now
sure to get

and concluded
he was a master
at self-help.

______________________________________
Check out Ronan Barbour's myspace at myspace.com/ronanbarbour.

posted 04.02.07.

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