Ah, silly wabbit. The only pose where you get to use a prop—the sweat-soaked towel you just spent the first three-quarters of class raining perspiration on. Good times!
That’s one of the two towels you keep on the mat. You bring in a third from home or rent one from the studio—you’ll probably want to shower, right? Well, not so fast. Since Margo and I often go to class together, I can tell you the ratio of women to men is probably two-to-one. Some nights it’s three-to-one. One night, it was me, another guy, and 30 women. Those numbers would certainly appeal to single straight men, but it translates into a long line for women waiting for the shower. Most nights, we just towel off, change back into our regular clothes, and take a real shower back home.
What that extra towel is good for is insulating your water. Like 90 degree water? Leave your towel in the locker room. Like reasonably cold water when you’re in a sweatbox? Thought so. (And yes, it only took me a year to realize I should do this.)
Usually I’d lean on one of three towels—some cheap ones Margo picked up somewhere along the way. But with the 30 Day Challenge, I need at least five, and I’m loathe to use our nice white towels from home, because that towel is going into a plastic bag with a nasty pair of shorts. Those other two towels I use? Spider-Man beach towels.
That’s right. I’m rocking the Web-slinger at yoga. At first, I felt sheepish about it. I love Spider-Man. Don’t get me wrong. He was my favorite superhero growing up. I still look back fondly on the John Romita Sr. era of the comic book, and the all-too brief run of Gil Kane that followed. (It wasn’t until I grew up that I started to like Steve Ditko.) Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends was must-see TV on my Saturday mornings, and as goofy and poorly done as it was, I always watched CBS’ Spider-Man live action show whenever it was on, which I’m surprised to discover now wasn’t often—just 11 one hour episodes bookended by a pair of two-hour broadcasts. Which isn’t surprising, because I can’t remember any actual super-villains, and Nicholas Hammond was an awful Peter Parker. You can imagine how bad it was if I hated it as a ten year old. But that didn’t stop me from watching it.
The thing that baffles me: how did we end up with two Spider-Man beach towels? I know we got the first one—Spidey swinging right into your kisser, in the style of Romita—in Savannah on vacation, because we planned to go to one of the beaches and hadn’t packed accordingly. But the second towel, which cops the image from the Spider-Man 3 poster? I have no idea when, where or why we bought it. We must have forgotten we were going to a beach that time too. I didn’t even bother seeing the third Spider-Man movie. My fanboy days are long behind me. But I still have a soft spot for the ol' web slinger.
The movies have destroyed the character for me. Sad to say, 'cuz I loved the first one originally, but the lack of care put into the quality of the story and characterizations killed it. You missed nothing. Bet we get a "Spider-Man Begins"-style reboot eventually. It would also take Spider-Man-like skills to get me into *any* of the positions you're, er, Bitcherin' about... :) Great article again, man.
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