How to become a more flexible friend.

Exercise is a necessary evil for us ladies. I don't seem to be naturally predisposed to sport, so finding the right form of exercise for me has been an ongoing challenge.

At one stage I decided the gym was the way forward for me. When I went to view the gym, the lady who was showing me around, asked me 'what do you think of that wall?' pointing to a multi coloured wall. In my head I thought, wow, she is being thorough, unbeknown that she had in fact been pointing out a climbing wall. I told her it was lovely and it was nice to see a bit of colour in what seemed to be such an industrial setting. The long and short of it was that the gym was just not for me.

Now my exercise regime includes yoga classes, dancing and walking. All delightful activities. But aside from walking, all do include being in a class environment. So on to the age old problem, what to do if there's some 'unexpected wind' experienced during a yoga class.

I have sleepless nights over this issue, it has yet to happen to me, but I know that if I keep practicing yoga, my day is sure to come. When the day came for one of my class mates, I was unfortunately right in the so called firing line. Yoga involves a lot of deep breathing and remaining still, I really had no escape. Then of course I had to stifle the obligatory laughter. All I could do to try and remain composed and conscious was to try and exhale but it came out really loudly, sort of like the noise a dragon would make. This naturally made the situation 10 times worse.

So I changed my tack and went for a 'stuck cough' sort of effort. The result removed any unwanted attention from the wind victim, but lead our teacher to believe I was in respiratory distress. The teacher then instructed me into a posture to relieve my distress, it resembled a snail combined with an octopus. It was complicated. If only I could have politely ignored my class mate!

What to do if someone breaks wind at yoga: this one is simple, ignore it!