Japanese-style yoga

When Shigeo and Keiko asked me if I'd like to join them for their weekly yoga class I of course said Yes. This would be a unique opportunity to experience the Japanese take on a tradition with origins almost as far from Tokyo as from London. Besides, after all that harvesting and packaging I could do with a good work-out.

Keiko had told me that their teacher had a very gentle, low-impact style. But I was still surprised at the rhythm: very very gentle stretching of a "yoga for oldies with severe back pain" style, with seriously long pauses in between. Of course the class took place on a tatami floor, with yoga mats on top. So far so good. What was surprising was that I was the only person barefoot; everyone else had (toed) socks, a real "no no" in European yoga, where traction is needed. As we weren't exactly working up a steam it didn't matter. In fact I had to put on my cool-down layer at the beginning of the class, when I realised I wasn't even going to break a sweat.

As I looked around the room the bits of recognisable yoga looked wrong to me - and there was absolutely no feedback from the teacher. I found myself getting impatient: where's the burn? the push? the challenge? And in fact where's the goddam yoga? We're doing some nice do-in on our feet, and some traditional joint mobilisations. And lots of sitting quietly in seiza (Japanese kneeling position used in shiatsu). And we're all breathing calmly.

I'm being unfair. There were (very) lengthy explanations, listened to in respectful silence, which of course bypassed me. So I was only getting a very approximate idea of what it was all about. If this is typical of yoga in Japan there is a very large cultural difference with Europe. Keiko says that the teacher sometimes gives lectures on the philosophy of yoga - so she should know her stuff. But it felt very curious indeed to be rolling my mat up at the end with so little sense of change.