VINI YOGA THERAPY FOR LOW BACK

Vini Yoga Therapy For Low Back

2014, $2.99, at Goodwill on San Fernando, Glendale

First Impression: This is the right way to push yourself up after an accidental fall.

Second Impression: Easter egg dye can be so slippery.

This DVD is hosted by America’s leading yoga therapist, Gary Kraftsow. He’s a man who needs no introduction, mainly because it’s not worth your while.  Gary hosts the introduction from his mother’s basement:

Gary has helpfully placed a painting behind his head to illustrate his inner torment. As he stares down the camera with eyes like dark pools of despair, he drones on and on in a voice that he imagines is “soothing,” but I would describe as “oily,” “grating,” and “wont to make your skin crawl.”

Longtime readers will know that personally I do all the workouts I review for your comedic enjoyment. Allow me to share my experience after trying the first routine, “Focused therapy for Low Back and Sacrum,” which begins with a shot of Dexter Morgan riding on a magic carpet:

The very next morning, I awoke to agonizing back pain. It was hurt to sit up, it hurt to get out of bed, it hurt to walk to the bathroom. Such a mundane task as putting on my shoes required a complicated maneuver of biomechanics. Since I was unable to reach my hand down all the way to touch my foot, I would pull my knee up  – also excruciating – to touch my hand. I soon decided that footwear was superfluous, since leaving the house in my condition was laughable. I spent three days on the couch watching Netflix, occasionally hoisting myself up for an agonizing excursion to the bathroom or kitchen.  For the next week, I walked with a limp. There is still something not quite right about my lower back.

“You know what you need, is some yoga,” I imagine Gary Kraftsow would suggest, in a vocal pattern that some might refer to as “an assault upon the human eardrum.”