The First, The Last and The Never

Last Saturday, in an attempt to embrace the joie de vivre, I decided we should try something new and go for qi gong/meditation class. So why qi gong? There must be gazillions of activities out there which exudes more vivre than qi gong right? Well, I blame it on the heat of the day when I first saw the leaflet, and the word 'free' on it. (also because I have heard of the superhealing powers of qigong. Me learn qigong, me heal people, me become famous...).

But what transpired took all my joie away. First, we ended up at the wrong place. The poor little lady who answered the door must have been very puzzled to see us standing outside her door in trackie pants asking about qi gong. She might have been about to say, 'No no, whatever you're selling I don't want any', when we wised up. We eventually got to the right address, and found we were the only participants in the class. The teacher was dressed in a monk's garb, and the interior of the place looked like a temple short of incense smoke wafting about.

Meditation was where we spent the next half an hour in the lotus position concentrating on breathing. For Gaz it was concentrating on not falling off his mat. He wobbled so much I thought he was jerking every now and then trying to keep awake. It was hilarious, I could not understand how he could be wobbling so much. He told me later that he can't really sit cross legged. So, while Gaz was concentrating on making the clock go faster, I was concentrating on not laughing at him.

Next came the qi gong practice. It entails 7 different movements, all of which we forgot as soon as we learnt it. The only thing I learnt here was that there are seven chakras in our body - root, eyebrow, crown, throat, chest, navel and second last (can't remember name) in no particular order.

After the class, the teacher sat down with us and engaged in some small talk. We ended up giving our contact details to him - must have been the water he gave us. But we chatted for another half hour during which time I got a little suspicious of the place, their intentions, the cult factor etc and wished to go home.

So, my little experiment was a big flop. I think from now on I shall derive my joie de livre from simpler, known pleasures. Such as sleeping in and eating ice cream on a hot day. And probably will not attend another one of those classes ever again!