Half the Women in My Yoga Class Agree: I Need to Tighten My ..

.. sphincter.

Yup.

Let me back up a bit. (No disgusting pun intended.)

As you may have read, my (now former) yoga instructor is pregnant. Recently she reached a point where the pregnancy disallowed her to teach us the more intense yoga poses and moves, so we have a new teacher.

I personally quite like the new teacher. She's willing to correct me quite often (needed) and a change of poses/methods is always good.

She specifically emphasizes breathing. Pilates-style, stomach contracted, slow, deliberate breathing.

To this end, we were doing a warm up exercise last week: While sitting on our knees with hands outstretched to the sides, we would ball our fingers into a fist, then release, breathing in when we clenched and out when we released.

The yoga instructor said something, looked at me, then looked at one of the women in the class who speaks very good English. "Tell him," she said.

And the English speaker said, "Darren, when you make a fist, you need to tighten your ..." and gestured with her hand along her abdomen and buttocks.

"Okay," I said, and tightened my chest and buttocks.

"No, she said, tighten your ..." and did the same gesture.

The instructor then said "kwalyeokgeun," and the English-speaker shrugged.

Thinking I'd understood, and the word was of no importance, I confidently said "Algessumnida." The instructor shook her head, and we proceeded with class.

After class I met up with four women: The English-speaker and three of the best yoga students. The English-speaker again said, "When you tighten your fist you tighten your, ..." I said, "chest, buttocks," and another woman intervened.

This other woman, who I will call Yoga Master, is amazingly strong and flexible. But I've never heard her speak English beyond "hello" and such. And so I was all the more surprised when she said:

"Sphincter."

After eight months in Korea I'm proud of the body parts I know. Arm, leg, body, head; more recently I've acquired nose, wrist, mouth, eye, thigh, and buttocks. Rectal locations (other than the butt which you put your hands under when doing leg-lifts) never ranked terribly high on my list of things to learn, but for some reason (I'm hoping she used a phone-dictionary) she knew this one.

The English-speaker, who was using her phone dictionary when this interruption occurred, concurred, "Yes, sphincter! Do you know 'sphincter,' Darren?"

"Yes," I said. "I do. I should tighten my sphincter?"

"Yes! Your sphincter!"

We confirmed that we were talking about the same body part using hand gestures that maybe we should've tried earlier, gestures I'm not going to detail here.

Then the five of us went out in the hall, and two or three of the women demonstrated the exercise.

We all had our hands out, extended fingers, and gradually balled them into a fist as the English-speaker said "Breathe in and tighten your sphincter," and the Yoga Master echoed, "sphincter," and I echoed, "tighten my sphincter." And then we released the fist, the English speaker said "relax your sphincter," and the Yoga Master and I echoed "relax your sphincter." And then we did it again, but this time all of the women chimed in: "Breathe in, tighten your sphincter." And we ended in perfect unison: "Breathe out, relax your sphincter."

[Of course there's no picture. ]