The "Healing" House

I reluctantly agreed to sign up for a yoga class at Healing House Cusco, wondering if the hype that I had heard about yoga was real. I had never been a yoga person, nor had anyone in my family. That being said, I had no idea what to expect, but figured it would fall on a spectrum involving a blend of athletic and hippy. Having played hockey since I was around 6 years old, I thought that yoga couldn’t be impossible, and that I was definitely athletic enough to take on whatever challenge presented itself.

I climbed the steps to the Healing House, and was already out of breath, just a slight foreshadowing of what was to come. I immediately deemed myself a fish out of water, unaware of the equipment necessary for each class participant, in addition to the stark contrast in the clothing that I was wearing, being one of the only people in the room who had kept their socks on. Not long after the class began, which to my surprise was mainly in English, I realized I had never heard a majority of the instructions before, and was therefore left to model my stretching and movements based off of others. A lady just to my left seemed to be quite involved in the yoga scene, bringing her own equipment, along with a fresh brewed tea to sip in between movements. I based my pitiful attempts at the movements and yoga largely on her, but it seemed as if I would never be able to move my limbs to such extremes no matter how much I practiced.

The other class participants seemed to be able to keep up with the instructor, who seemed to truly embody a hippy, repeatedly encouraging us to channel our emotions into the earth through our feet flat on the ground, which was yet another body movement I failed to achieve. A few others embodied the hippy vibe in their dress, looking as if they had just come from the trail into the yoga room. As I struggled to keep up with the movements and could not appear as suave or fluid as anyone else, I began to view yoga not as a stress reliever, but as a stress creator, highlighting my identity as an extranjero in this environment that was new to me. Furthermore, this stress was only highlighted the next day, manifesting itself as physical body soreness from an activity that one imagines will bring peace and relaxation.