old but still trying

i went to my first yoga class, which was in the basement of a building in downtown LA. there was a very warm and charismatic and crazy instructor and an impossibly thin indian girl named either shiva or sheila, whom i could have snapped into two between my thumb and forefinger. she played something that looked like an accordion in a box that made a noise like a foghorn and along with it she sang beautiful vocalizations with it and played some sort of flute. the yoga instructor would correct people's poses, repositioning them correctly and thereby tripling or quadrupling the pain sensation, and then she would yell loudly in her raspy voice, "WELCOME TO THE POSE!" at the peak of class intensity you sweat like a hog, but it's not resulting from cardio exhaustion or any feeling of overexertion, but from a flaming, unfamiliar internal heat and that you're going to combust. the balancing acts all come cruelly near the end, when your muscles are already shaking so intensely that you don't stand a chance of balancing on one foot or two hands or four paws or under any other circumstances. the instructor came over to help me into the bridge pose, and she forcibly pulled my body into the pose and delightedly hugged my torso while i was still in the shape of a bridge for succeeding. this was very very strange but i liked it. at the end we lied on the ground in the dark listening to shiva or sheila on the box instrument and singing and the instructor came around to each of us and put some sort of strong fragrant substance in our faces and had us inhale and exhale it deeply and then she rubbed us with an herbal spiced cinnamon-type oil and reached under our backs and massaged our broken bodies. it was not unlike when you receive a light show and there are people waving colorful flashing trailing lights in your face and blowing vicks in your eyes and up your nose and putting things that vibrate on your shoulders and arms and you're too overwhelmed with multi-sensory stimulation to think thoughts. the yoga clarity of mind and dissolution of stress, however, only lasts as long as your walk to the car, by which time you're irritated again by the cold and the wind which has blown your peace away.