The Luv Doc: Criss-Cross Applesauce

Dear Luv Doc,

I am about to move from Austin to Colorado for University, and have been reading your column for forever! Oddly, one month before I leave and I finally need some major advice. It has recently come to my attention that most men can’t sit criss-cross applesauce! I have been trying to get a few of my guy friends from the Austin Bouldering Project to come to the free yoga they host every day and they keep saying they can’t go because they are not flexible, and demonstrating by trying and failing to sit criss-cross applesauce. Is this a thing for all men? I mean what is life without a good supportive hug, but from your legs? I simply adore criss-cross applesauce, and have been also been made aware that some schools back in the day used to call it Indian style? I was interning the other day and while I was observing this spinal fusion (which was totally rad by the way) I bring up this issue and the neurosurgeon himself told me mid-incision about the origins of criss-cross applesauce! I mean thinking about it, Indian style makes more sense, like Asian squat goes way better with Indian style than criss-cross applesauce. I think if anything, not being able to enjoy one of the simple pleasures of sitting cross-legged on a yoga floor is the very reason they should go to yoga in the first place! Can you sit criss-cross applesauce?

– Indian Style

I am pretty sure that word is out in the Austin yoga and bouldering communities that if you see a fiftysomething man (who could easily pull off a young 40 with a couple of boxes of Just for Men® and a six-month supply of Ozempic®) sitting on a stack of four yoga blocks with his ankles barely crossed, it’s probably me. If I’m drenched in sweat and I tap out the minute the instructor even mentions “pigeon pose,” you should ask me for advice right then and there, because I would pretty much rather do anything than a pigeon pose. That shit is for the birds, and I have it on good authority that birds aren’t real. Osteoarthritis, on the other hand, is TREAL. Ironically, I am no stranger to the mat. Not only did I wrestle for a spell back in the day, I consider myself to be an Olympic-level ujjayi breather and one of the best shavasana posers in the game. Flexible hips though? I’m saving that trick up for the afterlife.

Now, for all you meat-eating macho types whose eyes just glazed over when I dropped those soft-consonanted, multisyllabic, foreign-sounding words, just know that ignorance is no excuse for inflexibility. If you want to dance like Donald Trump the rest of your natural life, don’t stretch yourself. Otherwise, maybe check out a yoga class. If not at Austin Bouldering Project, then maybe at Black Swan, or the Y, or the gym where you, Musk, Rogan, and Alex Jones are surely getting ridiculously swole while grunting in front of a mirror. Strength is cool and whatnot, but flexibility is what gets you through life. Be the water, not the dam.

Now, when it comes to bouldering, that’s a whole different scene. Criss-cross applesauce is the least of your worries when you’re clinging to a half-inch rock ledge with a single, chalked-up pinkie. That’s a special form of torture and only slightly less comfortable than a pigeon pose. I don’t fucks with bouldering for one simple reason: Climbing shoes are absolute torture. Foot binding was outlawed more than a century ago in China, but apparently in Italy – as well as here in the U.S. – you can pinch a human-size foot into something the size of a thimble and call it “performance footwear.” Fuck. That. Shit. I will take a stab at bouldering when they come up with climbing shoes that look like Hoka®, Crocs®, and Skechers Slip-ins® had a three-way. That’s never going to happen for the same reason Bilbo Baggins won’t be summiting K2 – and you know he’s got the heart, he just doesn’t have the hoofs. Nor do I ... and apparently I’m cursed with climber’s hips as well. Damn the luck. So, to answer your question: No, I can’t enjoy the simple pleasure of sitting criss-cross applesauce, but I’m working on it. If I were going to Colorado though, I would be sure to look up some yoga instructors. The air up there is thinner than a rock climber’s feet, so you are going to need to ramp up your ujjayi skills considerably.