Deaf Yoga

So about a month ago I went to a deaf yoga class.

My roommate Heidi is an education major with an ASL concentration (or something like that) and for her ASL class she has to go to 3 events for the deaf in the community. Since deaf yoga and deaf church were in Rochester, I volunteered to take her. I'll blog about deaf church later.

So deaf yoga was in this tall building up these steep and creaky steps, so Heidi, my mom, and I ascended carefully. When we got there the yoga instructor, who was also Heidi's ASL teacher, greeted us with a bunch of signs I didn't know. Her hands were moving so damn fast. Luckily Heidi was able to translate and explain to her teacher that we were her roommate and her roommate's mother (I wonder if that was hard to say in ASL?). So we grabbed yoga mats and positioned ourselves in the far corner of the room while everyone else filed in. Needless to say, the room was remarkably quiet. :)

So once everyone got there, the class began with some freaky breathing exercises that made us plug one nostril at a time and take really long breaths. I was bad at it. Luckily it was easy to understand her counting and what we were supposed to do because it was mostly gesturing and some basic signs that I knew and we mostly just mimicked the teacher on the poses. A couple of times the teacher told me I was doing 'perfect' - or that's what I was told the a-okay sign meant. Anyway, I was kind of ambivalent when I was doing the yoga, and a little discouraged because I really don't have any ab muscles anymore and my balance is less than prefect, but when we finished, I realized that my back felt amazing. Like, better than it had felt in ages (my bed in my dorm room in sot exactly a tempur-pedic, and sitting in those horrible chairs for 3 straight hours of class Monday through Thursday doesn't help either). So as a result, I'm kind of on a yoga kick, and so far, my back thanks me.

Anyway, at the end of the class, Heidi had to get one of the other class participants to sign a paper for her and she was supposed to make conversation, in ASL of course. I didn't understand most of it, but apparently the class was happy to see newcomers and was very complimentary. I was wearing my shirt from the Autism Walk that I volunteered at last fall, and one of the ladies tried to ask me about it, so I grabbed Heidi real quick to interpret for me. The lady said her son had Autism, and I learned the sign for volunteer (apparently deaf people appreciate free T-shirts too, because the sign for volunteer is pinching your shirt and pulling on it like 'hey, look at my sweet free T-shirt'. Or at least that's what I think it was).

Coloring...

So when we first got our lists of text books to buy, I was elated to find that one of them was a coloring book. THE HUMAN BRAIN COLORING BOOK.

I was all excited, like, I get to color for homework!?! Sweet!!

Well, needless to say, that wore off. I've found that being forced to do something you like, whether it be reading or coloring, sucks the fun out of it like a dementor. (you're welcome HP fans)