I've written about three posts for the Passive Observer, but I recently realised that none of them have been passive observations! Instead, there have been two rants and a Top 10 List.
Such a disservice to this blog is unpardonable. However, I shall now attempt to right this wrong.
If you watch Comedy Central, you'll probably have seen this ad of a yogi demonstrating different
asanas with ease. However, when called upon to perform the "Stand Up"
asana, he experiences what can only be described as an epic fail. The point is that not everyone can do stand-up comedy. An interesting concept, but I'm not writing about stand-up here.
No, when I heard the names of the different
asanas being bellowed out by an unseen instructor, I was transported back in time to when yoga was compulsory at my school. Everyone would fight for the softest mattresses and then spend the next 40 minutes twisting their bodies to the instructions of the world's vaguest yoga guru. He would have us perform seemingly impossible contortions, ask us to hold the position for 10 seconds and then count like this:
"Oooooooooone...... Twoooooooooo....."
and so on.
Sometimes, he'd get sidetracked, helping the more flexible kids out, sometimes even attending to phone calls, leaving the rest of us waiting, grunting, sweating, wincing and cursing.
Pretty soon, yoga class became a bit of a joke and turned into free Games periods. The practice was soon discontinued.
As I looked back on it and watched this ad, I was struck by a revelation.
Yoga is a one-man Pokemon battle!
Think about it, you have one guy shouting out commands (Typhlosion! Flame Wheel! Yogi! Chakrasana!), ordering the hapless practitioners to perform for the monetary gain of the one sitting pretty and shouting out stuff, not the ones doing the actual work, different feats of balance/dexterity/flexibility/endurance, different asanas (attacks?). These asanas cause damage. Oh boy, do they cause damage. A Solar Beam is nothing compared to a Surya Namaskar. And I dare Electabuzz to pull off a vajra asana.
Not only that, the asanas/attacks also have special effects. You don't get paralysed or poisoned (though you might fall asleep), but you do somehow protect your mortal frame from the vicissitudes of life, diabetes, heart disease et al. So not only does it rob you of your HP (health points) it somehow also increases it!
And of course, the more you do it, the higher your EXP (experience points) go up.
Yoga has no real time limit. It can go on till you faint.
And just like almost every Pokemon is inspired by something from real life, an animal or an object perhaps, so too are the asanas (Ardha Chandrasana = Lunatone? Bhujangasana = Arbok?).
So you see, yoga is really just a one-man Pokemon battle.
So where the frick are all my badges?