I stretch because I feel sad

A stranger wraps her hands around my hips and pulls them up toward the ceiling. Then, she moves a hand to the small of my back and puts another one around my rib cage. She pushes, twisting my torso outward.

It's 9:30 a.m., and I feel intensely uncomfortable. I have never spoken to this girl in my life and she is freely groping in third-date territory. Welcome to yoga!

After frustrating schedules in past years, I finally had the time to take a fitness class at SU this semester. For reasons that presently escape me, I decided to take yoga. I figured it would force me to stop being a maniac, who worries incessantly about things like hegemony and cultural genocide, and ''center" myself for a couple hours a week. Despite being about as flexible about as Britney Spears is reasonable, I came to enjoy and look forward to the class.

But in the past weeks, it has somehow devolved into a touchy-feely, earthy crunchy feelings fest. Our Hippy Instructor Extraordinaire, Annie, recently ended class early and instructed everyone to gather in a circle. We were told to state why we were taking yoga and what we hoped to get out of it.

Cue eyeroll. I mentally check out at this point and begin wondering whether there is enough change in my bag for coffee at People's Place.

The sharing begins. Mary takes yoga because her grandmother is 84 and is as bendy as the day she was born, and by God, Mary wants to be like that too! (Have you ever tried to bend a baby? LIKE RUBBER BANDS, THEY FLEX!)

Julie is a senior and is having trouble facing the stressful reality that, in nine short months, she will have to be a Big Girl. Yoga, she is sure, will fix this and postpone the onset of reality. I picture Julie pulling out tufts of hair at a cubicle, breathing deeply and whipping out a Warrior III yoga pose, just as her boss rounds the corner to ask about those cover sheets for the TPS reports.

Instructor Annie looks on sympathetically, eyebrows furrowed, listening closely to her pupils' tales of woe. She tells us her story-- she moved to San Francisco to be a dancer (flapper?), but it didn't work out. The room is heavy, wondering what catastrophe befell Annie. What could keep Annie from the stage?! My nagging questions go unanswered, and Annie tell us she happily teaches dance and yoga now and lives a comfortable life with husband and dog. By piecing together the chronology of her tale, she is at least 10 years older than I thought. Note to Lindsay Lohan: Maybe you should do yoga because you have aged 20 years in the last three.

But this interruption to class, while annoying, is not entirely maddening. But fast forward to the next class. Annie stops us again with 30 minutes left, instructs us to count off by ones and twos, with each group going to an opposite side of the studio. Walk backwards, she says. Then, CRASH INTO SOMEONE AND TALK TO THEM. We are not allowed to ask regular questions like majors, years, and all of that. We are to ask deep, soul-probing questions and report back to the class about the girl that we met.

Cindy: This is Emily, her dog just died and she feels constipated today.
Emily: This is Cindy, she loves Hello Kitty and wants to operate hot air balloons for a living.

Do you feel my pain? I love engaging strangers in conversation, don't get me wrong. But not in yoga, which seems to be happening with increasing frequency. Last week, when I was feeling particularly in the zone, Annie stopped class because our ''energy" was too heavy.

Dear Professor,
I will not be handing in my research paper. It makes my energy too heavy. Please let me know if there is a sexual favor I could perform in exchange for credit.
Thanks,
Catherine

Today, when we partnered up with people to do the aforementioned adjusting of each other's postures, I could not have wanted to do anything less. Maybe I am being overly self-conscious or narrow-minded, but am I asking too much if I want to do downward dog by myself, without the probing finger tips of strange girls all over my body?

Just saying.