Amanda Palmer has been a busy lady. It’s been four years since her last record, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, and in the interim she’s been dabbling in all sorts of projects: business (you can read about her huge Kickstarter success), music (channeling her musical roots for her new album, Theatre Is Evil) and fun (adapting Neutral Milk Hotel for a high-school production). Palmer will also be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new feature on her.
Palmer: I fucking love yoga and I fucking love you. I love you because I love yoga. It all works in a perfect circle. When I was about seven years old, I fell over a balcony … about a 12-foot drop. I was fine, just a broken wrist (from trying to hang on to the railing; I’m a grabby bitch) and a concussion, but I started experiencing extreme back pain when I was about 15, and I’m pretty sure it traces back to the fall when I landed smack dab on my pelvis. I went to everything: chiropractors, osteopaths, massage thearpists, acupuncturists, regular doctors. They all said the same shit: try yoga. I was 15. I didn’t want to try yoga. I wanted someone to fix this shit for fuck sake. After living in agony for about 10 years and asking two or three friends a day to please pull my neck in the correct way as to achieve a satisfying kachchchrunnchch sound, I finally remitted and started a regular yoga practice. It changed my life. Not just the body, but the soul. Nowadays, if I don’t get to yoga for a couple of weeks, I notice a marked, obvious decrease in my mood. I get bitchy. I get unhappy. I get pissed. When I manage to get to yoga three to four times a week, I can pretty much do anything, handle anything (Car towed? sure. Work crisis? sure. Death of a friend? sure) and I stay as grounded to the earth as a Swiss Alp. My preferred style is Hot Vinyasa yoga (in particular, Baptiste) but I’ll take anything in a pinch. When I tour, I simply google. If it’s nearby, I just show up, pay my $15 drop-in fee, and melt into the soothing-bath feeling of being with a handful of other people in a hot room who are committed to silently healing and stretching their bodies for an hour and half. In a funny way, it’s almost like paying for a pre-show high-school-theater warm-up. If they had drop-in classes in that, I’d be there like a shot. Trust fall, anyone?
The biggest misconceptions about yoga:
1) Yoga is for chicks. (not true)
2) Yoga is for flexible people. (the opposite of true; yoga is for people who need to get flexible)
3) Yoga is full of chanting, incense and weird religious Indian shit. (it’s usually not, and even if teachers throw that shit in, they take care not to weird you out)
Video after the jump.
One reply on “From The Desk Of Amanda Palmer: Yoga”
[…] This is what she had to say: I fucking love yoga and I fucking love you. I love you because I love yoga. It all works in a perfect circle. When I was about seven years old, I fell over a balcony … about a 12-foot drop. I was fine, just a broken wrist (from trying to hang on to the railing; I’m a grabby bitch) and a concussion, but I started experiencing extreme back pain when I was about 15, and I’m pretty sure it traces back to the fall when I landed smack dab on my pelvis. I went to everything: chiropractors, osteopaths, massage therapists, acupuncturists, regular doctors. They all said the same shit: try yoga. I was 15. I didn’t want to try yoga. I wanted someone to fix this shit for fuck sake. After living in agony for about 10 years and asking two or three friends a day to please pull my neck in the correct way as to achieve a satisfying kachchchrunnchch sound, I finally remitted and started a regular yoga practice. It changed my life. Not just the body, but the soul. Nowadays, if I don’t get to yoga for a couple of weeks, I notice a marked, obvious decrease in my mood. I get bitchy. I get unhappy. I get pissed. When I manage to get to yoga three to four times a week, I can pretty much do anything, handle anything (Car towed? sure. Work crisis? sure. Death of a friend? sure) and I stay as grounded to the earth as a Swiss Alp. My preferred style is Hot Vinyasa yoga (in particular, Baptiste) but I’ll take anything in a pinch. When I tour, I simply google. If it’s nearby, I just show up, pay my $15 drop-in fee, and melt into the soothing-bath feeling of being with a handful of other people in a hot room who are committed to silently healing and stretching their bodies for an hour and half. In a funny way, it’s almost like paying for a pre-show high-school-theater warm-up. If they had drop-in classes in that, I’d be there like a shot. Trust fall, anyone? […]