My wife has caught yoga

I FOUND my wife sitting on the rug.

She had her leg over her neck and one hand somehow behind her back. I don’t know where the other one was. I didn’t like to ask.

Rescue was my first thought, but then I remembered how you can do a lot of harm if you move the victim without knowing what internal damage there might be, so I reached for the phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling an ambulance. Don’t try to move. You’re going to be all right. Do you remember that holiday we went on last year…?” (It’s good to keep them talking. Don’t let them lose consciousness).

“What are you talking about, you idiot! What do you need an ambulance for?”

“You. But don’t worry. They’ll be here soon.”

“Shut up and put the phone down. I’m doing yoga, and don’t pretend you didn’t know.”

So that’s it… my wife has caught yoga.

It was bound to happen. I think she’s been eating genetically modified lentils.

Yoga, it seems, is taking over from line dancing as the single most incomprehensible activity in the civilised (I sometimes wonder) world.

It does have the advantage that you can do it in the privacy of your own home, thank heaven, whereas line dancing requires… well, a line.

But why? Why!

I asked my wife as I knelt on the mat beside her. It must have looked like an accident scene. Her with her ear in her bum and me asking “Why? Why!”

Except that I never did call the ambulance. One of the crew might have been someone we knew.

She told me later… it’s good for you. Keeps you supple.

“But you had your leg behind your head, one arm behind your back and your ear­­–"

“You’re exaggerating.”

“You’re not going to chant are you? Promise me you won’t chant.”

“Oh shut up. You’re being ridiculous.”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to say so.”

“Go away. I was meditating.”

“What? What! What were you meditating – how the hell you were going to get undone!”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

She always does that. If she had a carrot up her nose and I asked about it she would wither me with a look and say, “You wouldn’t understand.”

But she’s right. I don’t understand. I mean, why do you need to do exercises that twist your body into impossible positions that you’re never going to need – except when you’re doing the exercises!

I also discovered she goes to yoga classes. A whole room full of people do this stuff!

She told me she could bend her back further than anyone and twist her neck more than the teacher. So now yoga is a competition!

I’m sure that’s not how it started; or what those Indian mystics with the long beards and the baggy underwear had in mind.

I mean, if you needed to look at your backside a mirror would be easier.

And there have to be easier ways of meditating. Unless of course what you’re meditating on is the pain. Or the embarrassment of being found.

That’s why she does it at 6am. I suppose I should be grateful.

I got up and dusted myself down. “Anyway, I’m off to play golf.”

I think she called after me, “Why? Why!” but with her foot in her mouth it was hard to tell.

I yelled back, “You wouldn’t understand!”