From exercise to ‘sexercise’

Is yoga the new sexy? Everyone and their poodle has a yoga mat and a repertoire of ashtanga poses, it seems. Myself included, only I don’t have a poodle or a yoga mat. I’ve been ‘doing’ yoga – for lack of a better word – for several months now, although you wouldn’t tell for looking at me. Only I can tell by looking at me, usually without any clothes on, trying desperately to convince myself that the yoga is working, because if it isn’t, then I have body dysmorphic disorder, and that would me much worse than just being fat, right?

Anyway, a lot of my friends swear by yoga for a whole host of reasons, not least of which is an improved sex life. If nothing else, yoga empowers a woman to manoeuvre her body into positions that she had never imagined possible. Striking these new-fangled, old-timer poses is supposed to be very beneficial both inwardly and outwardly, although I don’t really know how or why. Something about flooding your cells with oxygen, which is good I guess, if you want to stay alive. And skinny. I mean toned. Yeah, that’s the word. Toned. Both inside and out.

I have it on good authority toned is good. You look good. You feel good. And you can impress the man in your life with your repertoire of ashtanga poses. I was speaking to a friend recently and we were both moaning about getting older and not wanting to “have sexual relations” as often as we used to. “But something’s changed since I started practicing yoga,” she said. Aha! Practice. That’s the word I was looking for. Sounds much better than “doing”, whether you’re talking sex or yoga.

But anyway, she said that sex was painful before she began taking yoga classes. Now she finds that her body is more flexible – both inside and out. Where she was stiff, she is now as limber as a yogi on steroids. The sum total of which has been to make sex a more pleasurable experience. She feels more powerful, she says, because she is physically stronger and more confident in her appearance than she’s ever been before. “Personally, I’m crediting all the yoga I’ve been doing, but the husband thinks it’s all thanks to him. Men!” she said.

Well, more power to her, I say. Far be it from me to begrudge a good woman a great sex life. Meanwhile, back in my neck of the woods, power, flexibility and body confidence – at least within a yoga context – are still slightly beyond my reach. Thanks in part to a series of random fitness detours, the latest being the ‘Hip Hop Abs’ series of exercise videos. The idea is to use hip-hop dance moves to burn fat and build abdominal muscle. But this hip-hop vid though. They may as well have played “I wanna sex you up” as the workout track. Where yoga is subtle in its enhancement of your sexual skill set, ‘Hip Hop Abs’ just lets it all hang out. It’s all about thrusting your pelvic area and gyrating your hips, because, well you know, abs. Not that I’m complaining. If exercise means better sex then I’m all for it because Lord knows it hasn’t meant weight loss. What more motivation could you possibly ask for?

So now I’m on a mission to sample every exercise video the Jillian Michael types of this world are marketing so ferociously. I was desperate for the world to see the fruits of a personal fitness regime flourishing outwardly but with this paradigm shift from exercise to ‘sexercise’, damn girl, I can keep it to myself.