Yogis and hockey fans are essentially two bubbles of a Venn diagram that will never ever touch. Their circles are so far apart that one could potentially fit a third circle directly in between them. The very thought of their spheres overlapping is laughable. A.K.A – worst Venn diagram ever.
Being a yogi and any type of sports fan is a challenge for sure, but the very nature of the game of hockey makes the dichotomy even more pronounced. If you’re not already nodding your head at the strange mental image I’ve developed for you and sneering to yourself, “yeah, no way,” then let me break it down for you.
Yogis are compassionate.
That really should be all I need to say on the topic, but I’ll continue for the sake of this post being longer than a failed college admissions essay. They don’t pass judgment – any effort or state of being, if it’s true to the self, honest, and built from good intention, deserves a yogi’s gold star. I always get questions about this facet of yogi-dom, if you’ll excuse my tangent for a brief moment. People are constantly approaching me to tell me how “good” or “not good” they are at yoga, to which I tell them, “if you’re doing it, you’re doing great.” This consistently elicits a strange stare and a question close to the nature of, “well, if I can’t be good at it, then why are the teachers always adjusting me and telling me I’m doing it wrong.” Here, I usually giggle to myself because I’ve never met a yoga instructor who even thinks the word “wrong,” in class, but again, I digress. At this point in the conversation, I usually have to explain the difference between correct alignment and “being good at yoga” – mostly how the former exists and the latter does not.
Returning to the issue at hand, this conversation would NEVER, I repeat, NEVER exist between hockey fans. It makes me laugh just thinking about it.
“Ya know, it’s not that the Caps are bad this year; they’re just—.” And then he gets punched in the face.
Furthermore, a key pillar of living a yogic lifestyle is learning how to observe and filter one’s emotions and states of mind without succumbing to them. Simply stated, yogis don’t get attached.
Anyone who has ever been to the standing room only section of the United Center during a Chicago Blackhawks game can tell you that there is nothing even close to emotionally stable for miles. I mean, come on. They’re called die-hard for a reason. But, it’s those ups, downs, moments of sheer terror, pure beer-sloshing exhilaration, and everything in between that make hockey what it is: awesome. I’ve left many a hockey game more depressed and down-trodden than a motherless Bambi after a Blackhawks defeat, but have I ever had a bad time? HELLZ NO. Knowing how to ride that emotional roller coaster without falling off mid-loop is the trademark of a good sports fan, but in an uber fast-paced game like hockey, you have to hold on even tighter. Now, how would a yogi handle that emotional fan roller coaster? He or she would simply admire the beauty of the whirring machine as it rolled and looped past with a calm sigh, “Oh, how interesting...”
I could go on. Yogis are non-harming, non-revenge seeking, non-competitive, non-invasive, basically non- hockey. They don’t cheer on fights, shout until they lose their voices, get so drunk they have to puke sideways into a garbage can (I actually saw that two weeks ago); they don’t stress for days over an upcoming game. They just don’t do hockey.
However, I do. I jump back and forth between those imaginary Venn diagram orbs like it’s nobody’s biz, and I love it. I may look, live, and think like a yogi, but my heart? It bleeds CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS.
SIXTEEN OH AND THREE.
Filed under: Yoga