I hate yoga.No, not like my love/hate relationship with Leg Day. Leg Day is extremely challenging. Because the largest muscles in the body are being worked the whole physical system is taxed. To get a good workout on Leg Day requires a mental focus and toughness very much like sprinting uphill, for an hour, non-stop. I get to feel REALLY butch (for a change) when I am pushing myself on Leg Day. Leg Day is hard. It feels virtuous. It drains me. Which is good - I'm so hyper I NEED that energy release. A good Leg Day means there's less energy to get caught up in my negative mental loops - I obsess much less about fundamentalists (!!!), I can actually think clearly about my day.Yoga doesn't do that for me. Yoga hurts. It's uncomfortable. Gumby is in one corner, Stretch Armstrong in another and Ms. Cirque du Soleil in a third. I know better than to compare myself to others, but, ow! I can't even sit cross-legged in the "easy" pose- and even with my crossed ankles W-A-A-A-A-A-Y out in front because of the tight hips the lower back fatigues very quickly just trying to maintain the correct lift. Gumby has the full lotus going, Stretch has his forearms on the floor and Ms. C-d-S is so pretzeled that I know much too much about her anatomy... she's practically inside-out.Last Thursday my trainer blasted me through upper body and Friday a killer leg workout. Saturday - yesterday - the only part of me NOT experiencing Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness was, I think, my left earlobe. Maybe a fingernail too. So today I went to an AM spin class to flush lactic acid. Because the hips and hams were really tight I thought I would try a yoga class in the PM.I hate yoga.Okay, so the bikram yoga isn't so bad, the heated room means my muscles loosen enough that I can actually encourage them to release and lengthen. Alas,the bikram studio near me tends to get a little too spiritual for me - and anyone who's read my journal on a regular basis will understand why I have such an intense allergy to that sort of thing. Ditto some of the yoga classes held at my gym. I don't want to find and open my third eye, I have enough trouble with just the two thank you very much and the only "chakra" I want to hear about is the sound I make in response to the question "what are you eating?" and my mouth is stuffed full of something dark and crunchy from the Hershey factory. "Chakra."I didn't go to bikram, I didn't go to my gym. Instead I went to Cambridge and participated in a men-only nude yoga class. The instructor kinda looks like Buddha, with smaller ears. He does a blend of several different styles - I'm actually pretty good at the core strength stuff from all the lifting. Fortunately he does a lot of lower body stretching, something I desperately need. The pace of the class is such that the nudity is not a distraction - and the atmosphere is so non-judgmental and accepting I find it more mentally relaxing than other classes I have taken. I don't feel intimidated by Gumbercules (from Futurama: "he's got the flexibility of Gumby and the strength of Hercules" "Gumbercules? I LOVE that guy!"). No one launches into a New Age sermon in the silences. When the class is done I feel looser and more comfortable in my own skin than when I walked in.I still hate yoga.But I might have found a tolerable context.