The yoga of nervous laughter

'The next session will be partner yoga,' said Tashi at Kaliyoga in France.  My heart sank.  We'd done this in Spain and, to be honest, I hadn't been wild about it then and my view hadn't changed with the benefit of hindsight.  I don't know why but it doesn't feel quite like yoga to me.  It's more of a party trick.
Above all, I get anxious.  I worry I won't do it right (if you're doing it wrong on your own that's fine, you're only letting yourself down...but with someone else...).  And yes, I know there's supposedly no such thing as 'wrong' in yoga but still... oh, you know.  So I turned up late, rather hoping that everyone would be neatly paired off and I could slope back to the pool with my book.  But no.
'Ah, there you are,' said Tashi.  'And there's your partner waiting for you.'  Poor Rosa.  Not only had she had to drive me for four hours from Nice airport but now she'd landed me as a partner.  She must have been wondering what ghastly thing she did last week to deserve this karma.

It didn't start well.  She pressed into me so I pressed back, assuming this was what one did.  She tugged my arm; I tugged back and we got into some kind of weird tug of war.   'Oww,' she said, finally.  'That hurts.'
'Me too,' I said. 'What are we doing wrong?'
'I don't know,' she said.
'But you've done this loads of times, right?'
'Nope.  This the first.'
'Oh.'
'It's all about trust,' said Tashi.  Rosa and I looked quizzically at one another and soldiered on.

'Oooh, look at those wonderful long limbs,' said Tashi, pulling out her camera.
'Oooh, look at the difference in our skin,' said Rosa, laughing at the contrast between her delicious Italian olive skin and my gleaming white slightly sunburned and madly freckled pelt.

 We managed a few moments of relative calm but, truly, it still wasn't quite doing it for me.

 'Everyone swap!' said Tashi and we shifted around.

This time Anne-Marie drew the short straw.  Not that she's short; just that I was a fair bit taller.  Even I had to admit it was pretty comical.

Then it got worse.  A lot worse.  Don't even ask what we're trying to do here - and yes, that's me on the bottom of the pile.

This is the point at which Candida is reduced to a quivering bunch of Balasana while I make a quick getaway - can't quite decide if I look more like Renfield or Quasimodo here.

And this is how it should be done - Emma and Tashi looking serene and rather lovely.