Yoga in School

Actually, the "Islamic prayer position" is a yoga pose, called "Child's pose" - it's the default resting position in yoga. It's what you do when the instructor has the advanced people doing a split after you've just sweated your way through lunges.

The sun salutation series I was taught involved stretching on your tippy toes, as if reaching up to grab the sun, then swinging your arms wide open, doing a half squat, half plié, crossing your arms in front of you, and then bringing the hands together in what any Christian would recognize as a prayer position, but is really just where you put your hands at the end of a sun salutation sequence.

And then doing that 99 more times. It's the aerobic part of a yoga workout, before you settle into the deeper stretches and chill out bits.

I don't recall ever breaking out into a sweat after making the sign of the cross, nor being asked to do it a hundred times in a row. (Hail Maries, on the other hand...)