At William Penn House Before the Last Tuesday Night Yoga Practice

When I was coming downstairs in my building today, I overheard someone say to her colleague, “she said it wasn’t yoga; it was a core workout.”

I didn’t hear anything else.  I wonder whether it was the teacher, a student, or an observer who was the “she” being quoted.  I wonder what the person I heard speaking and what the person she quoted meant by yoga.

As for the “core workout,”I’m pretty sure, based on the location of the conversation–stairwell in a Federal office building–that by “core workout” it meant a class in the gym focused on toning and strengthening abdominal muscles.

In contemplating this snippet of conversation, I decided that yoga is the best core workout I know, if by core we mean center or essential–the very heart of being.  What is yoga other than practicing and applying certain techniques to try and better live and act from the core of our being?  Toned abs, if we get them, are just a bonus.