I am now a bona fide, card-carrying member of the gym in my village. It all started in Winter when I was walking home from the post office and saw trees all lit up by fairy-lights outside a building with a big neon sign. I walked past it to take a picture, and noticed that there were people working out on the first floor. Now, to back-track just a little, I had been looking for a place to do yoga, and preferably muay thai too, since I arrived here. I also wanted to swim, but as it got colder I realised that would have to wait a few months. Which was just as well, because swimming pools are a commodity around here. I had asked around, and had been to see a gym in Gumi (an h bus ride from here, at peak traffic time after work), but it was a bit grotty and I didn't feel good about it. A friend also pointed out that I may start with good intentions, but especially in Winter when it is -11 degrees C, I will soon stop missioning for an h there and back just to go to yoga class. My teachers had told me about the spa here in Buksam, but I was not yet ready to expose myself in front of scores of Korean women and do the communal baths thing.
So, flash forward to the cold Wintery night and my realisation that this 'spa' was, in fact, a gym-type place. I walked in and was amazed: it looked like the lobby of a very nice hotel in there. Cute litte water features, lounge off to the right with big sofas and flat screens, the whole deal. I managed to communicate enough with the staff at reception to indicate that I am interested in attending, and was given a breakdown of prices and the yoga schedule. I had a good look around and the gym is not very big, but well equipped, the yoga studio is large and suitably dimly lit and the spa is top-class, 5 star stuff. Several warm pools, showers, three different saunas & steam rooms, jet-baths,and a long cold pool set under cave-like wall features, complete with trailing ivy and a waterfall from the ceiling.
Needless to say, I got over my problem with being naked in front of a roomful of Korean women ("It's natural! People in all cultures have been doing this for centuries! I am so different from them that they probably just think of me as a lost cause anyway. They are probably staring at my tattoos."). Now, I feel that this is as good a time as any to state emphatically that yoga in the East is NOT like yoga back home. This shit is BRUTAL. I have been made to contort my body into positions that I would not have believed possible, and there are some that I still can't do without assistance from my long-suffering yoga instructor. I am convinced that she has taken me on as her personal project. Maybe she thinks that having someone so out of shape in her class reflects badly on her as a professional. Or maybe she just likes a challenge. Whatever her motivation, I soon realised that she seems to be planning her classes around my, ahem, problem areas. We do a LOT of back stretching and abdomen exercising. It is in fact somewhere between yoga, Pilates-type core training and some kind of bootcamp. I am not as ridiculously bendy as she is. I cannot stick my legs out to either side in a split and then lie down flat on my stomach. My butt is bigger than all your butts put together. But, still we persevere. I am now, a couple of months in, no longer absolutely shattered after a class. On Tuesday night I even did a couple of lengths in the cave pool after yoga and a shower and sauna. This morning I got up early and went for a half an h swim in said cave pool before work. I will do the same tonight after yoga. And hopefully tomorrow morning again.
But I will admit that my favourite part of every yoga class is still at the very end, when our teacher puts on soft music, dims the lights and we assume the Dead Man's Pose. Ahhhhh, I made it. Another one down. A luta continua.
<3 <3 <3
