“Be a lotus in the pond,” she said, “opening slowly, no single energy tugging against another but peacefully, all together.”

I couldn’t even touch my toes. “Feel your quadriceps stretching?” she asked.Well, something was certainly stretching.

Standing impressively upright,she raised one leg and placed it against the other, then lifted her arms and shook her hand like leaves. “Be a tree,” she said.

I lay on the floor, exhausted.

But to be a lotus in the pond opening slowly, and very slowly rising, that I could do.