Incorporating a yoga practice into your daily routine can have countless benefits – increased flexibility, more strength, and an increased awareness of the fact that the communal yoga mat you’re using smells like ass. If you’re looking to enhance your practice, here are the most essential yoga poses that are sure to have you saying, “Did someone rub their bare ass on this mat before I used it?”
Plank Pose
Plank pose, or phalakasana, is a core-engaging precursor to more challenging yoga poses, and with your face less than two feet from your mat, it will have you wondering, “Did I forget to wash my spandex, or is that rotting vagina smell coming from my mat?” Plank pose is a great warmup for much more terrible mat smells to follow in your practice.
Locust Pose
Locust, or salabahsana, will prepare you for much deeper backbends. With your chest on the floor, lift your hips and legs while keeping your chin just a few inches above the mat. As you activate your core and back muscles to stay lifted, try not to bend your neck too sharply upward, even if the mat smells like it may have held a decomposing body. This pose will make you say, “There really is no cleaner in that spray bottle, is there?”
Child’s Pose
After a challenging series, never hesitate to take a few breaths in child’s pose, or balasana. As you fold over, put your forehead to your mat and outstretch your arms, allowing your spine to lengthen and your mind to wonder if a shirtless man literally just sweat on this mat 15 minutes before you took this class, and that he just rolled it up and put it back with the clean mats as some kind of sick joke. Don’t forget to breathe!
Corpse Pose
Corpose, or shavasana, is a perfect end to any practice and will give you several minutes to think about what happened to this mat before you got here.
As you incorporate these fundamental poses in your practice, you will build strength and skill, all while confirming that yes, it is your mat that smells like shit-filled diaper strapped to a decaying ass. Namaste!
