I was listening to a Terry Gross interview about Yoga and it got me to thinking back on my flirtation with this discipline. I had for a about a year taken a weekly Yoga class at the local hospital. It was a beginner’s, I don’t even know which kind of yoga it was. I did not especially enjoy the class, but thought I was getting some physical benefit out of it. Later that year I went to New York and stayed with my friend Inese, who lives on West 57th St. just south of Lincoln Center. What a great neighborhood. She and I met in ballet class in 1962. She took me along to a yoga class at her very elite health club on upper Broadway -- Regis Philbin is a member.

Well, this was truly an advanced class and I could only do some of it. It was brutal. After class, Inese and I joined the instructor, who had become a friend of hers, and we had lunch, so the afternoon wasn’t a total loss. He had come over to me during the class and asked if anything hurt and I had answered “all of the above.”

The reason I am not drawn to repeat this experience is because there is no music … I think the misty, dreamy, hypnotic recordings played at yoga sessions are just annoying. And in the advanced ballet classes I took as I progressed, it was exciting to be given choreography from some of the great ballets. I particularly remember doing the finale from Ballanchine’s “Stars and Stripes” – with the original music by John Phillip Sousa (the march king) -- it ends with the dancer saluting while in an attitude on pointe (one leg high, curved behind body). Oh, that was fun. Ballet is such a total experience that the fatigue and pain are a small price to pay. I move because I go downhill when I don’t, not because I like it. Unless it is ballet.

The teacher who gave this particular choreography was Bobby Blankshine. Google him for photos. He died young. He didn't like me much. Well, I ignored all that. If I have any strength, it is that I ignore negatives if they interfere with my wish list.

xx, Teal