Real men do yoga

I'm standing on my left foot.

My right thigh rests on the top of the other as my right foot tries to dig into the calf of my supporting leg. My whole body trembles and wavers side to side. My forearms are twisted into a pretzel in front of my face as I try to breathe deeply, in through the stomach and up into my chest, and out the same way in reverse.

My yoga instructor, Danielle Dunckley, says to hold the position. She tries very hard to be reassuring.

Through my contorted arms, I watch my reflection in the mirror behind her. I see a barefoot man in shorts and a T-shirt looking very silly. The right leg keeps popping out of place as he tries to maintain his balance. He wears the pained expression of an amateur runner in a 5K charity race who knows he's only halfway done.

This is called eagle pose. But I don't look like an eagle -- I look like prey.

It's my second week of Vinyasa Flow yoga class at the Intramural Activities Building. Vinyasa Flow is done to music, so it's supposed to be like dancing. That's great, but I'm not much of a dancer either.

Don't get me wrong. I'm glad I decided to start yoga. It's challenging in ways that weightlifting and other standard male fitness activities are not. When I'm holding a position with sweat pouring down my forehead and my limbs trembling, I imagine a lot of those steroid-cases in the gym would be struggling too.

"The poses in yoga are more functional versus just pure weight training," said Joy Beatty, a physical therapist at the UW Sports Medicine Clinic, who has practiced yoga.

In other words, yoga benefits athletes because it mimics the motions done in other sports. Rotation poses imitate swinging at a baseball. Lunge poses are good for all sports that involve running. Balance poses can help gymnasts.

But you don't have to be an athlete to reap the benefits of yoga, Beatty said. Because it works the muscles and the cardiovascular system, yoga provides a complete workout. She says she recommends it to men more than women because men are generally less flexible.

Granted, you're not going to get huge doing yoga. But is that what it's all about? Men want big muscles because they think that's what women want. But you might think twice about that after hearing what one of my fellow male students told me after class.

"People find [yoga] as a sexy thing to be doing," says John Karl Goehring, a junior public sculpture major. "I've had girls tell me 'I can see a difference in the way you present yourself, the way you stand and walk is much more relaxed.'"

"It keeps you youthful and supple, and I guess for some people that's a real turn-on."

Goehring started doing yoga more than a year ago to help relieve pain sustained in accidents when he was younger. But he has begun to see other benefits. He's been able to incorporate sexual poses derived from the Kama Sutra into his life.

"Yoga enables me to get into positions I wouldn't normally be able to get into," he says. "Some of these positions are wonderful, and some of them you just couldn't get into if you didn't do yoga and stretch."

It's something to keep in mind when you're grunting your way through a Vinyasa - a sequence of poses - and you wish you were at home in your bed watching TV and eating a Tony's pizza. Just think, "Increased sex appeal, increased sex appeal."

Not that you're supposed to grunt your way through any of it. You're supposed to be breathing constantly, "following your breath," as Dunckley says, when you move or go into a pose. Yoga is as much a form of meditation as it is exercise, which is perhaps why it has taken longer for men to catch on.

"It's become a lot more popular among men in the past few years," said Dunckley, who has been teaching yoga for two years and practicing for 10. "I don't think the disparity [between men and women] is that big."

Attendance shifts from day to day in our class, so the ratio of women to men is generally about 4 to 1. But yoga is actually dominated by men in the East, Dunckley pointed out. The great teachers of the practice, which dates back to prehistoric times in South Asia, have mostly been men.

In her experience, Dunckley has noticed that men who do yoga tend to be introspective and open to new ideas of strengthening their bodies.

"Guys who are more comfortable with their masculinity," she said.

Guys like Arthur Patterson, a senior majoring in math and computer science, who is another student in my class. Arthur admits to having avid interests in tea and croquet, and he'd rather do yoga than lift weights.

"I do [yoga] because it makes me feel better," says Patterson. "I find if I take a couple of hours out of my week, I gain more than a couple of hours of productivity."

He has been practicing for about a year and a half, and although there are generally more women than men in his classes, he doesn't feel out of place.

"Everyone understands the class is used for self-benefit," he said.

Patterson acknowledges the stereotype of men taking yoga classes to pick up women, but he says that's not why he's there. He stays focused on his practice, keeping his eyes closed most of the time to maintain concentration.

That's a not bad idea. It's hard enough standing on one foot; seeing yourself fall over doesn't help. Maybe I should bring a blindfold.

Even though Dunckley has told us that the "no pain, no gain" mantra has no place in yoga practice, there's definitely struggle. Just try chatarunga -- getting into a pushup position, lowering yourself halfway down and seeing how long you can hold it.

But yoga isn't about showing off and trying to prove you're a bigger man. It's supposed to feel good -- and I do feel good after class. After 15 minutes of warm-up and 45 of strenuous poses, Dunckley guides us through an Eastern style cool-down, which usually involves lying on our backs with our eyes closed and clearing our minds.

And if you're part of the UW community, you know what a junk-drawer that mind can be.

Goehring put it best when he told me that people need to do something for themselves each day to get away from the pressures of friends, family and schoolwork.

"I don't think they take enough time to relax and just listen," he said. "If you're too stressed ... I would definitely recommend yoga no matter how old you are."