I like the idea of yoga more than I like yoga itself. I’ve tried going to yoga classes and what I found was that while I can feel the benefit of stretching and contorting and balancing on one toe I absolutely hate all the omming and ahmnning and “show your body you love it” nonsense that most yoga teachers spout. The one time I tried to show my body I loved it, I was thrown out.

I went to one class in Glasgow city centre that would play whale noises for an hour while the teacher would talk about the mystical link between nature and movement. Every time she talked about how we walked taller when the sun came out I couldn’t help thinking that there is nothing mystical about it: it’s Scotland, we’re only walking taller because we’re not been doubled over by the driving rain and wind.

The same class would always end with five minutes of relaxation. This involved lying on your back while the teacher urged you to close your eyes, sink into the mat and appreciate the benefit of corpse pose. I didn’t go back. One hour of whale noises and corpses was not my idea of a fun night out. For the same reason I’ll never watch Blackfish.

I’ve tried other classes. I used to go along to a Saturday morning class ran by a very tall man who could make himself very small just by curling up. He was brilliant. He used to say “Listen to the sound of your heart, or, if that’s not your thing, the air conditioning unit.” Mysticism with a choice of reality. That was more like it. Sadly, the class was cancelled after the air conditioning packed in – we clearly weren’t listening closely enough – and I stopped going.

Now that we’re in lockdown I thought it would be good to try yoga again. My wife was trying an online class where people would video conference into the yoga teacher but my aversion to (a) paying for anything; and (b) dialling into a strangers house while we all get near naked, meant I looked at Youtube instead. Surely, Youtube would have yoga videos?

And yes, yes it does. There is yoga for everyone. Including yoga videos which, had I dialled into someone else’s cam in a similar state of dress, or undress, would have led to a divorce.

But after a few searches for yoga for cyclists, having assumed that would be less mystical and more practical I found ‘Yoga for Adriene‘. A woman who seemed just as happy pointing out the air conditioning as my previous Saturday teacher.

And while I’d like to think I’d stumbled on some unknown Youtube teacher, after I’d checked out a few more videos I discovered she’s one of the biggest ‘stars’ of Youtube and my search for a yoga teach had basically found Robbie Williams when I thought I’d found a star in the pub.

Oh well, here’s a plug for her anyway. And if you fancy that and want to listen to a great song then Robbie Williams has a song called Angels that noone else has heard…