Mission Accomplished

Yesterday at 6:30 p.m, I raised a glass with a smiling and sweaty group of revelers at Bikram Yoga Pasadena as we celebrated the end of our 60th class in 60 days.  We did it!  I think you can see the sweet (or slightly salty) glow of success on the faces in the photo.

Photo by Gordon Nip

It does feel like an accomplishment.  My muscles are reminding me as I write this that they haven’t had a break in a while.  The soreness is inconsequential, though.  The benefits I’ve reaped are far more important.  Following are the ones I’m aware of, in no particular order.

1.  Muscles.  I have a beefy muscle in my right leg where before all I had was a limp noodle.  That is my most startling change, but all my muscles are more defined than they used to be.  I even have the beginnings of a two-pack instead of an all-flab belly.

2.  Measuring devices going down.  I shaved four inches off my waist.  I lost about eight pounds.  My blood pressure is lower.

3.  Balance.  This is one of my biggest challenges, and I still have a long way to go.   But I improved to a point beyond what I thought was possible.  I now know I can do more.

4. A happy outlook. A few weeks into the 60-Day Challenge, I realized that several days had passed without my thinking about death. In retrospect, I think I was slightly depressed. It’s wonderful that the mental energy I was expending on thoughts of mortality now seems to provide me with greater optimism and creativity.

5.  Body love.  I’ve always appreciated my body, but I realize now that I loved it like it was a little waif.  I cut it slack.  I thought about it in a, “Oh, you poor little thing,” sort of way.  It’s not a horrible thing to think, but it’s not empowering.  Now I know that my body would really prefer being thought of as capable.  I know it can do things I heretofore thought it should be protected from.  I now expect it to step up, and I know it’s happier because I do.

6.  Mental clarity.  I feel sharper and quicker.  When I begin a task, my focus is better.  I feel more astute and confident when I write.

7. A partner. During the Challenge, my husband decided to give Bikram Yoga a try. He’s now practicing regularly. I don’t know what inspired him, but whatever it was, yay!

8.  Confidence.  I have never before attempted a serious athletic challenge.  Completing this one successfully makes me proud.  It makes me want to set my sights higher.

9.  Camaraderie.   I appreciated this aspect of yoga from the beginning.  Now, having shared the past 60 days with several dozen fellow practitioners and the wonderful teaching staff at Bikram Yoga Pasadena, I realize even more how nurturing and supportive it is to be part of a community.  We practice alone, but we share our ups, downs, insights, accomplishments… and sometimes, champagne!

Thanks for the Little Dots!

Way back last November — it might even have been during my very first class — I remember how the instructor carefully explained how to do Savasana (Dead Body Pose) correctly.  After telling us where to put our arms and legs, he said, “find a spot on the ceiling and fix your gaze on it.”

“Easy for you to say,” I thought at the time (which was what I often thought while trying to coax my body into unfamiliar positions).  I couldn’t “fix my gaze” on anything.  I was too busy breathing hard, wiping sweat out of my eyes, and trying to see the clock.

Over the intervening weeks, other instructors have suggested finding a spot and staring at it.  “Without even blinking,” they sometimes say.  Well, it’s taken me all this time, but today after Poorna-Salabhasana (Full Locust Pose), my eyes happened to rest on two tiny freckles on my neighbor’s neck.  Recalling the oft-repeated suggestion, I fixed my gaze on them.  I also breathed through my nose — another instruction that is sometimes difficult to heed.  The time in Savasana lasted 20 seconds or less, but when it was time to move into the next pose, I found I had completely forgotten where we were in the series.

I couldn’t believe it.  I have never lost track before.  It wasn’t a bad feeling, though.  In fact, it was an “aha!” moment.  During the next Savasana, facing the other way, I found a spot on the wall next to me.  Once more, I nearly forgot where we were in the series.  Later, while on my back, I found a spot on the ceiling.  Again, I was able to let the preceding pose go and relax in greater stillness than I ever have before.  Sure enough, just as the teachers had been repeating since I first came to class, the Savasana was much more restorative than if I had used the time to drink water or mop my brow.

So thank you for your freckles, fellow yogi(ni)s!  They are more than just cute!

What’s Under the Hood

A few days ago before leaving the studio, I was chatting with the lovely Shannon, who had just taught the class.  She had complimented me on my progress, and I was struggling to put into words how the 60-Day Challenge (or at least 48 days of it) had changed my relationship with my body.  I had been trying out various metaphors, but none seemed quite right.

“It’s like my body is a car,” I said at last, “and I’ve learned how to drive it better.”

Not bad.  The Challenge has indeed taught me how to access long-ignored muscle groups and to move in and out of poses with a greater degree of awareness, intention, and even (dare I use the word?) grace.

As I pondered the image further, it occurred to me that before I began practicing Bikram Yoga, my mind was a good enough driver to steer my body through life.  Recently, after several months of practice, my mind is feeling more and more like it actually knows what it’s doing at a deeper level.  I find myself correcting my posture while walking, for instance, or sitting straighter in a chair.  The connection between my mind and my body has all the subliminal elements it had before, but now it has a better range of conscious awareness.

I’ve decided I’m now more like an auto mechanic who drives a car.  (Okay, maybe an apprentice auto mechanic.)  Someone knowledgeable about how a car works can never drive one without taking that awareness along.  A mechanic doesn’t label an unbalanced tire, a worn fan belt, or a loose cable “a funny noise.”  Thanks to experience, a mechanic can zero in on the source, assess its importance, and make a responsible decision about what to do.  Mechanics pay attention to the underlying operating system as well as everything else that’s going on when they drive.

It’s not a perfect metaphor, of course — no fossil fuels or license required to operate a body — but thinking of myself as car and driver has helped me appreciate my new-found awareness about what’s under my hood.

Yoga When The Stars Are Gone

By one o’clock this afternoon, I will have completed 48 yoga classes in 48 days.  I think it’s safe to say that rolling up my yoga mat and driving over to the studio has become a habit.  I also know that it’s a very fragile one.  When the Challenge is over (in less than two weeks!), will I maintain the same resolve to haul myself into the “torture chamber” day after day?  I want to, but will I do it without getting paid in stick-on stars?

As the end of the Challenge approaches, I find myself almost wishing it would go on longer.  I feel propped up by it — as though maybe I won’t be able keep up a practice without external incentives.  I guess I’m saying I like my training wheels, and I don’t want to take them off just yet.  I’m afraid I might be faking it — that I can’t ride a bike on my own.

On the other hand, I’m also looking forward to Day 60 — the day I can look at my star-studded calendar and say, “I did it!”

At the same time, I keep reminding myself to look forward to Day 61.  That’s the day I hope to stride into the slow cooker not to earn a star or to keep a commitment, but simply because it’s what I do.

Unexpected Goodies

Then there were two

Hard to believe we’ve got only two and a half weeks to go.  Seems like yesterday we still had a couple thousand years.  I was behind by one class until Monday, when I managed to pull a double.  My accomplishment paled, however, next to my husband’s.  With only six or so classes under his belt, he pulled a double, too!

After Erin’s 11:00 o’clock class, which Mark also attended, I decided I would return for Val’s 4:30 to earn the star that would put me back on track.  Imagine my surprise when Mark said he’d join me.   Now imagine Erin and Val’s surprise when both of us re-materialized at the front desk.  Really, their faces were priceless.  Mark, still so new to Bikram, did not seem like a likely candidate for two stints in the torture chamber in one day.  But there he was, of his own accord.  He’s not collecting stars, but I think he deserves one.  Probably a massage, too.

As I think about what I’ve gained so far from the 60-Day Challenge, I’m surprised at how many things are unexpected.  By setting a simple, easily measured goal of 60 classes in 60 days, I’ve racked up a bunch of unanticipated benefits along the way.  I’m sure there will be more by the time I’m done, but here are a few I’ve noticed:

1. No more swelling in my feet

2. Better sleep

3. More happy thoughts and overall mental clarity

4. Better posture

5. Smaller waist (by about three inches!)

6. Softer, nicer-looking skin

7. More strength and flexibility in my motion-challenged left foot, and much greater ability to walk for longer distances without pain.

8. Better balance  (I still look like a klutz, but slightly less of one.)

9. Weight loss! (Only about 5 pounds, but I’m not complaining!)

and, drum roll please…

10. A partner!  I never expected Mark to join me on my yoga path, but by golly, here he is. Surprise, surprise, surprise!

What Could Happen In Vegas

OMG. It’s been a week since I posted an update.  I’ve got excuses, of course, but they’re not good enough to prevent me from a bit of self-flagellation for procrastination.

My biggest excuse is that I began the week with a three-day trip to Las Vegas.  I was partially prepared for missing three days of yoga — I racked up two doubles in advance.  That leaves one to make up now that I’m back.  Something to look forward to next week.

I was happy to be back in the “torture chamber” on Thursday.  My three-day absence had seemed like a month.  I think one of the best effects of the 60-day Challenge is that daily yoga becomes a habit.  I don’t think I can keep up the class-a-day schedule indefinitely, but now I know I can manage four or five times a week.

As I was waking up this morning, my mind formed an image of the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.  Rarely have I driven past it that there wasn’t a just-married couple, an Elvis impersonator, a cadre of drunk frat boys, or a tourist family posing for a photograph.  In my half-awake dream, I saw myself there — doing a perfect Standing Bow.

It ain’t gonna happen.  I can’t do a Standing Bow in the studio, much less on an Astroturf-covered mound in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard.  And even if I could, I’m not enough of an exhibitionist to make that particular dream come true.

It’s interesting to me, however, that the image appeared in my brain.  While I don’t think the Las Vegas sign will ever be a backdrop for my Standing Bow, I do believe that someday I will grasp my elusive foot, raise my arm, and “charge forward.”  A month ago, I didn’t believe that.  Five months ago, I had never heard of a Standing Bow.

Whoa.  Maybe I just will pull up to the Vegas sign in my yoga suit one of these days, after all.  Now that I’ve dreamed it, I know better than to rule it out.

Yoga With The Gods

The other day — it might have been Challenge day 30 or 31– I practiced next to Adonis.  Seriously, that was one beautiful body sweating right next to me.  And we’re talking ME, who started out as the kid who was always (always, always) left over when the captains of fifth grade were picking teams.  Having received the message early on that I should seek my life’s purpose in arenas other than sports, I pretty much stayed away from athletic activities that involved teams.  I would only let them down, after all, and I’m pretty sure that letting people down is not my life’s purpose.

Okay, fast forward some decades.  I’ve done hiking, swimming, walking — anything, pretty much, that I could do on my own without holding anyone up or letting anyone down.  A few years ago, I signed up at Curves.  In 30 minutes a day, Curves personnel assured me, I could lose weight and get buff.  So I did it, and hey! I did lose some weight, and I sorta liked the “circuit training” approach, which involved completing two sets of exercises on their hydraulically resistive machines.  I might have stayed longer if the franchise owner hadn’t allowed a horde of product hawkers free access to her customers.  Perhaps it’s too much to ask, but I wanted to exercise every day without being accosted by people selling Avon products, shoe inserts, real estate, pet sitting services, and life insurance. To make matters more untenable, the franchise owner began inserting her religious views and political leanings into the mix.  As soon as that happened, the atmosphere rapidly deteriorated beyond acceptability.  I ran, not walked, to the 24-Hour Fitness gym across the street.

At 24-Hour Fitness, I didn’t have to worry about political agendas or religious proselytism.  In fact, I signed on with a personal trainer who was quite brilliant.  She coaxed, bullied, and encouraged me to try all sorts of challenges I had always deemed out of reach.  So far, so good.  Then one day my excellent trainer informed me she had been fired.  Why?  She had not pressured me (and all her other clients) into buying enough “supplements.”  She referred me to another trainer who seemed competent, but, from the moment he set eyes on me, I was just a fat lady with a disability.  I was no longer someone who could do things she never thought possible.  It was like I was back in fifth grade again.

So… what to do?  Back a couple thousand years ago (okay, 1983), I was living in Greece.  I took yoga classes and liked them.  Maybe, I told myself, I’d like yoga again.  I looked online and pretty quickly found Bikram Yoga Pasadena.  Location?  Perfect.  But what the heck is Bikram?  Again, the Web was quick to inform me.  It took me a month to get up the nerve to try it, but in mid-November of last year, I made my way to the corner of Colorado and Oak.

Which brings me, not so many weeks later, to the mat next to Adonis.  For me, one of the most affirming and empowering aspects of Bikram Yoga is that no one is weak or impaired.  In that hot room, we are all just practitioners.  We are all on the journey, whether we are old or young, fat or thin, tall or short, male or female.

Okay, I’ll admit.  Some of us are gods.

A Leap on Hump Day

Or should that be, “A Hump on Leap Day?”  Either way, I had a big ol’ grin on my face after Erin’s 11:00 o’clock class this morning, because I managed to grab one of my heels during a Camel.  Camel may not look that difficult to someone who’s never tried it, but ask any Bikram practitioner if you want to hear about its unique challenges.  Camel can make you see stars.  It can make you lightheaded, or even totally dizzy.  You might even cry, or feel like you’re about to throw up.  At the very least, it just feels wrong when you first try it — as though your spine just wasn’t meant to bend backwards.

“Oh, but it is!” the teachers say.  “Don’t be afraid! Camel heals the spine.”

I haven’t been practicing Bikram Yoga very long, but I’ve been at it long enough to know that the instructors speak the truth, even if it sounds crazy.  If they say Camel is good, Camel is my grail.

I’ve been doing a halfway Camel (a Marlboro?) since I started, and sometimes even that was too much for me.  Today, however, I kept listening to Erin’s instructions, and whoa!  The ballet barre appeared upside down before my eyes!  My mind, usually quick to say, “You’re insane! Pull your head up immediately!” instead suggested that if I could see the barre, my feet couldn’t be very far away.  I dropped my arms, and — holy moly! — my right hand grazed my right heel.  I never did find my left heel, but I must have been close.

So nice to have a Camel breakthrough on hump day of the 60-Day Challenge.  Even cooler that it’s also Leap Day.  I’m celebrating by coming back tomorrow and trying to locate my evasive left heel.

Pausing at the Halfway Buoy

Even though today is February 28th, I completed class number 30 this morning.  (Thanks to a couple of doubles, I’ve managed to get two days ahead in preparation for my excursion to Las Vegas next week.)  By the numbers, then, I’m halfway there.  It seems like a good moment to pause and look back, especially since I’ve been silent for the last few days.

Somewhere around the 23rd, my energy plummeted to unexpected depths.  Although I never once entertained even the smallest thought of dropping out, I did feel a little lost and quite a bit beleaguered.  If the Challenge were a swim from Miami to Havana, this is where there was nothing on any horizon except water, water, and — oh, my God, is that a dorsal fin?

Nah, no sharks.  Just aching muscles.  I kept at it, and a few days ago, everything changed.  My energy level rose, along with fresh confidence that I will reach Cuba by the end of March.  Yes, my muscles were (and are) still sore, but the pain feels proactive again.

I have really enjoyed my last few classes.  I’ve made progress with a number of poses, and my balance is showing clear signs of improvement.  Today, I actually looked forward to attempting Standing Bow.  (I can’t wait until that happens with Triangle).

Right now, I have the sense that the second half of the Challenge will take me into uncharted but exciting waters.  Replacing the slight depression I felt a few days ago is a sense of almost magical possibility — the feeling that I can do things I never before thought possible.

These feelings, too, will change, so I’m enjoying them while they linger.  Can’t wait to find out what the days ahead hold in store.

With Apologies to Edgar Allen Poe

Once upon an evening dreary, while I sweated, weak and weary,
Thirty-seven days until the Challenge sets me free,
While I wobbled, nearly falling, suddenly there came a calling,
As of someone gently nudging, nudging me relentlessly.
“‘Oh, please not tonight,” I muttered, “Just this once, please let me be–”
Quoth the yogi, “Lock your knee.”