The instructor instructed my class to pretend we were giving the earth a hug. I imagined myself in a forest with dense shrubbery. It reminded me of what I think the land in the Hobbit looks like, though I’ve never read the book or watched the film. There I was, laying atop the moist and squishy soil, giving it the warmest embrace I could as beads rolled out of every sweat-producing orifice I had. I then thought about cavemen participating in this exercise, and how they might, after a few minutes, stand back up and continue to sharpen their sticks because they’re always touching dirt to some degree. They’re not lying on a centimeter-thin yoga mat in a 95 degree room staring at a ceiling ridden with green lights that make one feel as though they were a reptile writhing under the heat lamp of some enclosure. There’s no corporate for cavemen to escape. Would yoga like this prove effective in their state of nature, loins covered by a single leaf? At any rate, it certainly wasn’t proving effective in the present, non-wild surroundings of the West Village. Indeed, I may have felt more connected with the world had I laid down on Canal Street and hugged the pavement while cars skirted left and right and pigeons timidly attempted to cross the road. At least I wouldn’t need to envision that environment—I’d really be feeling something, not some cheap emulation.