Free Shutout by Brendan Halpin Page B

for yoga class, I was feeling uncomfortable about the whole thing. I was afraid Iwasn’t going to know what to do and everybody was going to make fun of me. Plus I had these tight leggings on.
    â€œDo you have enough water?” Mom asked.
    â€œWhy do I need water to stretch?” I said.
    â€œDidn’t you say this was a hot yoga class?”
    â€œYeah,” I answered. “But I thought that just meant hot like cool, like hey, this class is hot, it’s got it goin’ on, it’ll make you really hot, they play hot jams on the stereo, something like that.”
    Mom actually laughed at me. “No, sweetie. It means it’s going to be ninety-five degrees in the yoga studio.”
    â€œWhat!? Who thought of this? That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard. No way am I going to go stretch in a sauna!”
    â€œWell, I guess you’ll have to tell Coach Beasley that you were scared—”
    â€œI’m not scared, okay? It just seems bizarre. But fine, I’ll try it.”
    So I filled up two water bottles, and when I walked into Charlesborough Yoga Studio, I told the lady behind the counter that I played CHS soccer.
    She smiled and asked me for seven bucks, then directed me to the classroom.
    I looked around the class, and it was all women Mom’s age, plus a few guys, and then me in the back slowly unrolling the purple yoga mat Mom had given me.
    I was totally embarrassed, but then Shakina came in looking just as scared and uncomfortable as I felt, and she ran over and unrolled her mat next to mine.
    I didn’t know how I was going to break this to Mom, but the class was awesome. The heat made my muscles that were always so tight feel like they’d melted into these wonderful flexible bands of goo.
    And the instructor was tall. I estimated her height at five feet ten inches, same as me, and she had these skinny legs and practically no boobs, and she was beautiful. She looked so confident and so comfortable in her body, and she looked great because of that confidence she gave off. If that’s what yoga does for you, I thought, I’m in.
    Plus I had a great time with Shakina. We both screwed up all the time, and the instructor, whose name was Portia, kept coming over and correcting our form and being encouraging, and then when she left, Shakina and I would giggle about how bad we sucked at yoga.
    Of course, there was the kind of dorkified stuff about saluting the sun and listening to your breath and all that stuff. I guess you were supposed to turn off your brain and not think about how freaking hot it was or how unflexible you were or the easy goal that you should have saved. Mostly it didn’t work because my brain is always running through all this stuff at like a mile a minute, but right around the hour mark of the ninety-minute class, just for a second, it did work. I was bent into an impossible position with sweat pouring off me, and I was breathing, and I wasn’t thinking. Even when the motor of my brain started up again, I felt this incredible relief. My brain was overjoyed to get a break from running on the treadmill of my thoughts. It felt great, and I wanted more. More than my heels not hurting, more than my legs feelingsoft and flexible, more than liking my body, I wanted to be able to think nothing soon.
    After the class, Portia stopped us and said, “Thank you, girls, for giving it a try. I hope I’ll see you again.”
    She walked away and we giggled. “Oh my God, that was so hard,” I said. “I am never making fun of my mom about yoga again.”
    â€œI know, right?” Shakina answered. “I thought this would just be stretching, but it was tough. Are you gonna come back?”
    I wasn’t sure whether to answer truthfully, but Shakina seemed nice enough not to mock me if I revealed that I was kind of into yoga. “Well, I have this problem with my heels, and my legs haven’t felt this good since I was