Stretch Goal

Scanning the health section of the local newspaper several years ago, I came across an article on yoga. All the devotees quoted in the article were seniors.  One woman gleefully reported that she had been unable to do the splits until she was 50; she was still doing the splits well into her seventh decade. I was impressed; the splits were something I was unable to manage in junior high, ending a promising cheerleading career before it ever began. It’s okay, I enjoyed the debate team, really.  Another man cited improved posture and circulation. They looked good, healthy, and their secret was yoga. I was intrigued. I dutifully paid the $39.99 a month to the standard-issue gym in my neighborhood and signed up for the evening yoga class.  

This particular class was generic, but that worked for me, I was no yoga snob. A novice at the time, I was actually unaware that there were different kinds of yoga. I thought yoga was, well, yoga. I dusted off some old aerobics leotards and set out one brisk autumn evening on my yoga journey.  

I felt a bit like an interloper entering this temple to testosterone.  I had no thick leather lifting belt or finger-less gloves; I was a gym dilettante.  The regulars barely tolerated my classmates and me as we, the unworthy and unwelcome, scurried toward the tiny studio used for everything that didn’t involve pumping iron.  It was the “Nitric” crowd versus the quinoa crowd.    

The instructor guided the class through various stretches and poses all the while valiantly trying to talk above the grunts and groans emanating from the free-weight room next door. Men take umbrage at women for faking orgasms, but these guys sounded like they were faking non-epidural childbirth.  As someone who has been through childbirth I take umbrage at that.

Subsequently relocating to a small town in northern Virginia, I began searching for my weekly dose of namaste. A kundalini class was advertised at the local recreation center.  Still working on those elusive splits, I eagerly signed up. A bearded guy who looked like Ben or Jerry was our instructor. He looked yoga-ish, I remained optimistic. Then the breathing exercises started…and they didn’t stop; turns out that is what kundalini is all about. Who knew there were so many different ways to breath? In all fairness, kundalini also includes a few poses and some meditation, woo hoo. 

A few years and one child later I was desperate to contract my expanding girth. My physiology seemed a tad confused by the whole childbirth experience and its aftermaths. For instance, I could have sworn I nursed from the mammary glands located on my chest but I had inexplicably developed an udder. A local studio in Shanghai was offering Yoga Boot Camp: three times a week, for four weeks. Boot camp seemed like just the thing I needed to kick my increasingly bovine figure into G.I. Jane shape. The advertisement mentioned the term bikram. I just hoped it was not more breathing exercises.  

The first thing you notice about a bikram yoga class happens before the class even begins—the room is warm, Kalahari warm. In bikram yoga the room is kept at a womb-like 105°F. Keeping the room warm as the yogis, as practitioners of yoga are called, work through the poses is intended to assist in ridding the body of toxins while enhancing flexibility.  At the end of class, it looked like a room full of rubber bands lying in puddles of toxin.

Y+ Yoga specialized in all forms of yoga. The most they would deviate from the yoga path would be to host a visiting pilates instructor.  Unlike my experience in the U.S. where the muscle head gym was trying to make money off of the Gumby class, Y+ took yoga seriously. It was one of the first yoga studios in Shanghai, and arguably the best. Located in an old building in Puxi with polished wooden floors, intricately carved Chinese-style doors, and a reverential atmosphere. It was like the Potala Palace of yoga. An army of ayis, who may have just as easily been acolytes, carefully placed mats, towels, and bottled water prior to each class. I was tempted to call my instructor sensei, however, by the end of class I wanted to call her Jack Bauer.  

Bikram classes are long--1½ hours and consist of a series of 26 poses, or asanas, each performed twice. De rigueur breathing exercises do occur at the beginning and the end of class. The class is divided roughly in half; the first half of class consists of the standing postures and the second half of class consists of the floor postures. To the uninitiated looking forward to the floor postures after the torment of the standing series, let me be the first to disabuse you of the notion that they are somehow easier because you are no longer standing. The intensity has only just begun its slow ratchet up. Eagle pose and triangle pose become wistful, pleasant memories compared to the mother of all torture poses--fixed firm. I only got through this pose by praying that my feet did not break off at the ankles and go skittering across the room.  

Alas, frequent moves continuously disrupt my yoga practice.  On a recent extended stay in the U.S. I saw a sign prominently advertising a studio that specialized in bikram yoga. Wedged between a dinero rapido and an outdoor outfitters, it was located in a strip mall; but then, so is everything in America. It could not be any worse than some of the other places I had tried; or could it?  

This was like an ineffectual rebound relationship.  Rather than help me forget how wonderful Y+ was, I only yearned for it more.  Gone were the polished wooden floors. In their place was dingy, industrial carpet glued onto concrete. Attentive ayis? Hah! Students were responsible for supplying their own mat, towel, and beverage.  Worst of all, rather than the serious countenance of my micro thin Shanghai yogi, this instructor managed to condense her autobiography into exactly 1 1/2 hours.  How we made it through 26 poses, quitting her job in California, her parents’ subsequent disapproval and her lack of a serious relationship is all a blur.  

It gets worse.  Sad as it sounds, now it is just me, in my closet, with a mat and a space heater.  Once upon a time I worshipped at the Vatican of yoga, now I am like an itinerant preacher.  My asanas have suffered; and the splits?  They remain, an elusive, stretch goal.  

Me and Mr. Kim

The Kims and I go way back. Back to when it was my job to kill them. I did not succeed. Metaphorically, I was just the person who loads and aims the gun, but someone else was responsible for pulling the trigger. For more than 60 years that responsible someone, the governments of the United States and South Korea, have ostensibly gazed across the 38th parallel with a “make my day” attitude. What would it take? Hummm...kidnapping, hijacking, hatchet job, underground invasion tunnel, a missile launch over Japan, a seizure of a US naval vessel, or sinking of a ROK naval vessel? What provocative incident would be beyond the pale? What constitutes a casus belli on the Korean peninsula? In short, nothing, nada; we are never going to attack the North. Imminent attack is the lie that the North uses to control its citizen's behavior and its excuse to squander all its resources, that are not intended for the lavish Kim lifestyle, on its military. Maybe even a lie the U.S. and South Korea perpetuate to keep the North from becoming crazier than it already is.

There have been indications that mental illness runs in the Kim family. There was even an incident years ago where one of Kim Il-sung's younger brothers was reportedly found wandering the streets of Pyongyang, gun at the ready, screaming at the top of his lungs, "I'm going to kill you Kim Il-sung!" And just like Amy Winehouse, when they tried to send him to rehab he said, "...no, no, no." It mattered not, he still disappeared, but unlike Amy he never sashayed into a London hot spot ever again.

Kim Il-sung's mortality was of intense interest in the South. But you have got to hand it these old commie farts like Kim and Castro, they could teach the Okinawans a thing or two about longevity. The assumption was that hell would to to hell in a hand basket when the old guy died. In fact, war games always started with Kim Il-sung croaking, which prompted one US Air Force general to quip, "How many times is that guy gonna die?"

Once, sort of. Kim Il-sung suffered a heart attack and died the next day, July 8, 1994. The dear leader’s demise may have been hastened by his dear son's insistence that no medical care be administered until the best doctors arrived from Pyongyang, the next day. Only the best for dear ol’ dad. Still a government employee, now living in Japan, I immediately thought that the kimchi was about to hit the fan.  But then, much to everyone's surprise, nothing happened. That is because even in death Kim Il-sung is still in charge. North Korea is most likely the only sovereign nation where the president resides in a mausoleum. In the superlative shuffle, Kim Ilsuong remains the "Eternal Leader" while his son, Kim Jong-il, is the "Supreme Leader." Thing 1 was simply replaced by Thing 2.  Crazy, yes, crazy like a fox.  

　

"Who wouldn't want Kim Jong-il as their leader?" May be the gush of every patriotic North Korean, which is likely every living North Korean, happy to have the best dictator in the world as their leader. He has a great personality and makes his own military-inspired clothes. He may even do his own hair, which looks a lot like Amy Winehouses'.  A personality profile suggests he has a lot in common with the late Saddam Hussein, another member of the dictator club; sadistic, paranoid, antisocial, narcissistic, schizoid, and schizotypal.  Which is redundant as hell and just a fancy way of saying he likes himself a lot, does not much care for other people, and he has no compunction about doing vile things to them.  But the paranoia part I completely understand.  After all, I was out to get him.  

When my sojourn in South Korea came to a close I thought my relationship with the Kims was over. As enemies we move in different circles and back then I thought Macau was a dump. But six years later, there I was, stopped on the side of the road in Pudong while a motorcade whizzed by and a fizzle of discomfort washed over me.  We were not in Hogwart’s neighborhood but something evil this way passed. Rumors circulated and then were confirmed by official announcement several days later, Kim Jong-il had visited Shanghai. So close. Surely there would not be another encounter.

Six more years would pass.  If this six year thing kept up one of us must have a diabolical marking on our bodies and I am not referring to my tattooed eyebrows.  This time the setting was Guangzhou; the White Swan Hotel. An establishment swarming with pudgy Americans with their equally pudgy Chinese babies.  

A phone call late in the night. "I'm sorry madam, but you must check out in the morning."

"Huh?" The fog begins to clear and indignation sets in. "Wait a second. Why? My reservation is until Friday."

The impassive, unedifying response. "I'm sorry madam, you must check out in the morning."

Rumors circulated once again. Big wig in town. Entourage taking over the White Swan. Could it be? Yes it was. But the confirmation occurred after my evicted ass was already on a flight back to Shanghai.

Why do the Dear Leader and I keep crossing paths? Could he be nursing a grudge? Is it unfinished business? I am no longer an employee of the United States government, so it is no longer my on my daily “to do” list to eradicate Mr. Kim.  And as an amateur genealogist I have discovered we have something in common, both of us are the descendants of Presbyterian ministers. Could this be sectarian, as so many conflicts are? I am a lapsed Catholic and I gather Mr. Kim now only worships himself.  Can’t we just be frenemies?