2007, $2.99, at Goodwill Superstore on San Fernando
First Impression: I’m practicing smiling.
Second Impression: So far, so good.
We see our host standing on a beautiful waterfront. Who the hell is that?
“I’m Christine Felstead,” she blurts indignantly into the camera. Oh, OK. Got it.
To soften the awkwardness, we cut to a slightly different angle, one where Christine Felstead isn’t looking directly at us. Now it all seems more bearable. She tells a whole story about how she had all these running injuries and then she did yoga and she felt better and now she teaches yoga to runners and the program is really catching on, blah blah blah.
Sorry to put it this way, Christine, but doyee. Yoga is basically an organized system of elaborate stretching, with breathing and Ohms, right? When I was a runner in high school, we stretched before and after the workout to prevent injuries. As an adult, do I stretch enough? Oh my goodness, no. But when I stretch, do my muscles feel better? Why yes, yes they do.
So of course, any kind of stretching is going to help runners feel better. By the way, I no longer consider myself a runner, because I concluded that I would prefer to keep my original knees and hips for the duration of my natural lifespan. #goals.
We begin the yoga session, and Christine introduces her assistant runner/yogis. The first thing I notice is that they are all frowning. These are all real people, not actors/dancers/models hired to be in a fitness video. They never learned the trick of arranging one’s features into an expressionless, yet pleasing mask.
Christine Felstead is particularly frowny. Her downturned mouth perfectly mirrors the upside-down bowl of her haircut. But you know what? That’s authenticity. I absolutely recognize that drained, pained, world-weary expression that says “I’m so fit that it’s killing me.” My teammates in high school and I had it on our faces all the time.
Thrift Store Fitness 