by Henry VIII attends a beginner yoga class and discovers that stillness, when genuinely requested rather than commanded, is considerably harder to achieve
I once demanded total stillness from my entire court on command, and received it instantly, every subject frozen mid-motion at the sound of my voice. Beginner yoga simply asked me to breathe calmly for ninety minutes, and I somehow still failed at it repeatedly.
The Mat
I arrived with a mat purchased that morning, still creased from its packaging, and unrolled it beside a room of considerably more experienced practitioners, several of whom folded into positions I found genuinely alarming to witness, let alone attempt myself, having spent most of my original life associating this level of physical contortion primarily with torture rather than relaxation.
The Instructor
The instructor, a serene woman named Anjali, spoke throughout in a low, calming voice entirely unlike the commanding tone I once used to run an actual kingdom, and I found her quiet authority considerably more effective than my own booming decrees ever managed, the entire room following her guidance without a single word of protest.
The Balance Pose
A pose requiring me to balance on one leg while extending the other backward defeated me entirely, my considerable weight and even more considerable pride both working against me equally, and I toppled sideways into the mat of the woman beside me, who accepted my repeated apologies with genuine, practised grace.
The Breathing Exercise
A guided breathing exercise, apparently the simplest part of the entire session, proved somehow the hardest, my mind wandering constantly toward gig bookings, unanswered messages, and the specific injustice of the parking fine I had contested months earlier, a restlessness Anjali gently but firmly redirected each time she noticed it, which was often.
The Final Rest
The class ended lying flat on the mat in complete stillness, lights dimmed, and I found, in the final five minutes, something close to the genuine calm I had spent the entire previous hour failing to achieve, a stillness that arrived, ironically, the moment I finally stopped trying quite so hard to force it.
The Verdict
I have returned twice more since, my balance marginally improved and my patience considerably more so, and Anjali now greets me by name with the same quiet warmth she extends to every genuinely committed beginner. I once commanded stillness through fear. I am slowly learning to find it, considerably more honestly, through nothing more than my own breath and a great deal of practice.
The Continuing Practice
I have returned twice more, my balance marginally improved and my patience considerably more so. I once commanded stillness through fear. I am slowly learning to find it, considerably more honestly, through nothing more than my own breath and real practice.
Stillness earned honestly, I have found, lasts considerably longer than stillness demanded. Failing repeatedly at stillness belongs, gently, in the art of losing your head. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: the original account of my own return to Britain, the proper London pub where history finally sat down for a pint, the weekly injection receipts apparently replacing both CVs and dating profiles across the city.
