Yesterday I attended a yoga class for the first time in many years. I am seriously out of shape and have never been very flexible, so when I was told that the pretzel I had turned myself into was turned wrongly it was not a surprise. I was happy to reconfigure myself correctly according to instructions.

Although I failed miserably at some of the poses, I was able to keep up, more or less. The group was friendly and cheerful and I will probably continue to go to the classes. I am still fairly new to the city and so it is good to get to know a few more people.

One thing that stayed with me, though, was my failure to comprehend some local jargon. The yoga class was held in the clubhouse which houses the lawn bowling people during the spring and summer, but during the winter is open for others to use. This has caused a dilemma for the 60+ Gentle Yoga people. They (or we, I suppose) have to find a new home in April.

The class instructor was explaining this to the group and told us that “the nick” or perhaps “the knick” might be available. The nick, we were told, was big enough and had the necessary washroom facilities, so it might be a good option. I had no idea what she was talking about, and my mind wandered through my memories of the word “nick.”

When I was growing up in West London, the nick was where the police took you when you were caught after committing a crime. You had been nicked and you were taken to the nick. After you were released, you explained your absence by telling people you had been in the nick. Everyone understood.

Since then, there has been a television series called The Knick about the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York in the 1900s. That knick did not occur to me. I could only think about British jails.

I was, of course, completely wrong in considering both references and somewhat relieved to realize I was not alone in not comprehending. Another person in the class asked which “nick” the instructor was referring to and it was explained that we were discussing the NIC, or the Nanaimo Ice Centre. Ooooooh! That makes a lot more sense.

Not only that, but it was made clear that there is a distinction between the NIC and the NAC, or the Nanaimo Aquatic Centre. Only the NIC has a room big enough to house our growing group of gentle yoga practitioners.

While my failure to understand local jargon has been remedied, I was glad that I am not being asked to go to yoga class in a jail, and I will never think of knick-knacks in the same way ever again.