Um...

Himself is firmly of the opinion that, if I am going to insist on spending 5+ hours a week in taekwondo class, I need to take yoga as well to improve my strength and flexibility so I have less chance of getting hurt while doing TKD.

And he does have a point (says the woman with the dicey knee and shoulder.)  Since we do a fair amount of stretching in TKD class itself, in the last year and a half I have progressed from being approximately as flexible as a brick (really) to a slightly more bendy state, but I have a long way to go yet.  So I've been trying to get to a beginners' yoga class once a week.

Yesterday, the instructor actually had us do the "om..." chant at the beginning of class, which was new for me.  The idea is that you clear your mind of everything other than your breathing while doing so, to get yourself into the correct frame of mind to start the class.

I saw the following image on Facebook yesterday, and laughed out loud because it is the absolute truth.

        
I find it very difficult to ever completely shut my brain off (probably another good reason to practice yoga.)  So, while the instructor was omm-ing, I went off on a mental tangent about the om sound itself instead of blanking out my extraneous thoughts like I was supposed to.

Some of the people in the class seemed to be a little off the instructor's hum in pitch, which made the sound of the group meditating as a whole almost unpleasant for me.  Pathetic, but true.  I played in bands of one sort or another for about fifteen consecutive years growing up, so noticing whether a group is in tune or not is well and truly automatic at this point, for good or bad.  

The odd thing, and the next thing that registered in my pea brain, was the fact that the instructor was omm-ing a concert B-flat note!  While I don't have perfect pitch like Thing One, my relative pitch is pretty decent, and that particular note would be seared into my brain regardless because it is the one to which a band collectively tunes itself before a performance.  One instrument (usually a clarinet) or a mechanical tuner will play that note, and everyone else will play whatever note on their particular instrument makes the same sound and then make any necessary adjustments so that their note no longer sounds flat or sharp (low or high) relative to the reference note.  If everyone is in tune, the whole group sounds a lot better.

Now, I have no idea whether yoga instructors all consciously choose that particular pitch to om or whether this was a total coincidence, but it struck me as funny that she was effectively tuning the group before our yoga performance.

And I really need to work on my mental focus, too!