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.”

Bring Your Husband To Yoga Day

It’s Day 21 of the 60-Day Challenge.  For me, it was not only that, but also a super-special red-letter occasion.  My husband Mark, who has been my cheerleader, coach and bottle washer for the last three weeks, joined me for Bernadette’s nine o’clock class.  And wait — there’s more.  He has already signed up to come back tomorrow!  Looks like I’ll get to do some cheering now, along with some extra laundry.  (Which I don’t mind at all, Mark!  I’ll wash the water bottles, too!)

I’m very happy that Mark has decided to give Bikram Yoga a try.  It’s done so much for me already, and I’m thrilled that he’s going to get to see what it’s like with his own experience.  Better yet, he won’t mind hugging me after class, because he’ll be just as sweaty!

I’m heading back into the “torture chamber” for another go-round this afternoon.  Got to get another couple of doubles “in the bank” in preparation for a three-day trip I’m taking in a couple of weeks.  I’m also planning to attend the special class on Saturday, February 25th, that Jeff Rangel and Valerie McCann are teaching.  As an added treat, these two Southern California Yoga Champions will demonstrate the advanced versions of the Bikram poses.  The class will also raise funds to help send Jeff and Valerie to New York for the National Yoga Asana Championship next month.

See that second-to-last line?  I swear that’s not the reason I’m going.  Will I accept an extra star?  You betcha.

The View From The Floor

“Making it to the floor,” I learned quickly after beginning my Bikram Yoga practice, means surviving the first 45 minutes or so, which are dedicated to standing and balancing postures.  I wish I could now say that “making it to the floor” is no big deal, but I would be fibbing big time.  By the time my legs have turned to jelly trying to do Triangle, Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee, Tree, and (someday) Toe Stand, “making it to the floor” is a polite euphemism.  “Crashing to the floor” is closer to the truth, but I try to pull off a slow collapse.  I plaster what I hope looks like a smile on my face and slump to my mat, kidding myself that the instructor will think I’m in control of my lower extremities.

The irony of it all is that the floor postures are every bit as demanding as the standing ones, if you do them right.  Because I have such a hard time with the standing ones, I make a point of throwing everything I have into Cobra, Half Locust, Full Locust, and (gasp!) Bow.  (If you’d like to see somebody competent demonstrating all these postures, click here.)  The great thing about the floor series is that in between each pose, you get a Savasana (a more romantic name  than “Dead Body Pose”).  The instructor is careful to explain that this brief time is for rest and complete stillness — a chance for your body to assimilate everything it learned during the preceding work.  “Find a spot on the ceiling,” they say.  “Keep your eyes on it and practice stillness.”  I’m still working on the stillness, but finding a spot is right at my skill level.  I’m getting quite familiar with the lovely symmetry of the square air diffusers overhead.

I completed my nineteenth class today.  It seems like only yesterday that I began and a thousand years till I paste on my 60th star.  Time’s a mysterious thing.

The Old 1-2

My trip to Las Vegas earlier this week meant that I had to double up at some point to keep a “60-in-60” pace.  I seized the opportunity yesterday and managed to attend a class at 11 and another a 4:30.  Neither was easy, but I did get a great fist-pumping feeling of accomplishment when I walked out the studio door at 6:15.  Sore muscles seemed almost insignificant compared to the satisfaction I got from doing something I never would have thought possible three months ago.

Just to get another one “in the bank,” I’m going to double up again next Tuesday.  Not quite ready for a triple yet.

First Quarter Down

Day 15 already!  I should really claim only fourteen days, though.  I had to make a speed run to Las Vegas, which meant no yoga on Valentine’s Day.  I did squeeze in an early class on Monday, though, my first ever at 6:30 a.m.  I had been wondering what it would feel like to imitate a pretzel without breakfast beforehand.  Good news — it was fine!  The room was less crowded than it is for afternoon and evening classes, creating an entirely different sort of energy.  (I’m not complaining about crowding here — I actually like the feel of a “sellout” class.  A sparsely populated room just has a whole different feel to it — very pleasant at dawn.)

So then I motored over to Sin City and spent the next day and a half darting about and taking care of business.  How I wish I could have taken a yoga class at one of the Bikram studios in Las Vegas, but that’s going to have to wait for a less hectic visit.  What it means now is that I have another double in my future.  Knowing me (an accomplished procrastinator), I better take care of that ASAP.  I’ll put it in writing:  tomorrow I’ll knock off two classes to make up for my excursion to the eastern Mojave.

A couple of general observations.  The first is huge, but I keep forgetting to mention it because — I’m almost ashamed to admit — I take it for granted now.  I was reminded this evening in Jeff Rangel’s class because he mentioned that certain poses support the lymphatic system.  I used to have fairly serious and chronic edema in my left ankle — the result of poor circulation and multiple surgeries.  The swelling subsided almost as soon as I began practicing Bikram Yoga.  As long as I keep coming, it’s a complete non-issue for me now.  Seriously, it’s GONE.

My second observation is that my mind likes my body more  It’s like mind and body are a team now, instead of a machine and a harsh critic.  Bikram Yoga naturally promotes a “we’re all in this together” message.  I mean, there we all are sweating away — all ages, both genders, a variety of backgrounds, goals and outlooks — trying to achieve the same set of poses.  This external experience seems to penetrate to the exceedingly personal and to unite spirit and flesh under one yoke.  It’s so much fun to be cheering my body on and admiring its changes and responses.  I never really hated my body, but I am guilty of taking it for granted and blaming it for stuff that wasn’t its fault.

The 60-Day Challenge is not the Super Bowl, but if it were, we’d be heading to the snacks table now.  First quarter down — I’m happy to be reaching for coconut water instead of beer.

It’s All Good

Yesterday was tough, so I can’t say I was looking forward to heading into the “torture chamber” today.  Thank goodness for blogs and Facebook and stick-on stars.  Sometimes those are the things that move the flesh when the mind is weak.  They got me to Valerie McCann’s 3:00 p.m. class, where I was pleased to see Val Sklar (owner of Bikram Yoga Pasadena) in the row ahead of me.  Bolstered by Valerie’s motivating dialogue and Val’s inspiring example, my determination to see the 60-Day Challenge through got a huge boost.  It’s a wonderful thing that the Bikram instructors don’t merely command, “Do as I say.”  Every day they’re also communicating — in part just by looking awesome in their yogi suits — “Do as I do.”  We all know that when teachers are also role models, a whole lot more learning takes place.

In addition to feeling energized by this afternoon’s class, I also enjoyed a breakthrough in my quest for better balance.  I’ve been using the ballet barre at the back of the room for help, but today I watched Val and noticed how she entered each standing pose.  The result is — I figured out I’m better off without the barre!  I now know how to progress toward my goal more effectively without relying on external support.  Yay!

At some sweaty point during the floor series, Valerie said something about how we might be noticing that we’re hot or out of breath or uncomfortable.  No argument there, I was thinking.  But then she said, “The thing to remember is that it’s all good.”

Maybe you had to be there, but when I heard those words, I very nearly laughed out loud.  Fifty perspiring bodies  spread-eagled on a carpet in an overheated room might seem to the casual observer to be anything but “good.”  Even so, Valerie was absolutely right.  It was all good, from the salt stinging my eyes to an incipient cramp in my right knee.  My shoulders instantly relaxed, and the struggle — but not the intention — subsided in all my muscles.

That’s the power of well-chosen words spoken by an instructor who knows from experience whereof she speaks.  I have something to say about teachers like that.  They’re all good.

When You Think You Can’t

I knew it was coming — just didn’t know when.  Today was a “do it anyway” day.  I really don’t know why it was so difficult.  Erin, the teacher, is wonderful.  The weather even cooled down from the atypical summerish temperatures we’ve been enjoying for most of this winter.  I can’t blame it on anything external.  It was just a tough 90 minutes.

Mostly from my writing career, I have learned to embrace a “do it anyway” philosophy.  I’ve found my way to the end of several manuscripts this way.  On the days when everything flows, a plain Nike “just do it” suffices.  On the days when the  fount is dry or the pipe clogged, a little something extra is required.   Do it anyway.  With writing, this means do it even if what you’re turning out looks alarmingly like crap.  It means do it even if you’re positive your editor will scowl, and you’ll probably have to write the whole damn thing over.

I think this translates well to embracing a yoga practice.  Some days, your mind and body collaborate to do everything perfectly, or at least make an effort worthy of pride.  Other times the mind and/or body renege.  I have always been able to attempt the final two stretching poses without needing a break.  Always, even on Day 1.  Today was a different story, and those weren’t the only poses I couldn’t muster the strength or determination to undertake.  I’m not sure if the failing was in mind or body, but the result was disappointing.

The up side is, I truly believe in “do it anyway.”  I’m not proud of how I performed, but I am proud that I showed up, did what I could, and was still lying there gasping at the end.  I’ll be there tomorrow, too.  And when we count up all those stick-on stars at the end of the Challenge, the purple one on Day 11 will look the same as all the others.

Is That A Goal Post In the Distance?

I’m thinking about setting a specific goal that I’d like to achieve by the end of the 60-Day Challenge.  I’ve been reluctant to do this, because:

1. I wasn’t sure what would be realistic.

2. Committing to completing 60 classes in 60 days seemed like a goal in itself.

3. I’m enjoying the process without thinking about a specific desired effect.

On the other hand, there is one thing I would really like to be able to do that I have never been able to do before.  I would like to be able to balance on my left foot for more than a few seconds.  I know that should be easy, but with the foot I’m working with, it would be a fabulous accomplishment.

Southern California dawn

What I’ve learned over the last week and a half is that I just might have the potential.  My body has convinced my mind to entertain the possibility that I can do something I have always believed would be out of my reach.  It’s like a new sun peaked over a far horizon and lit up a dark landscape I never knew existed.  Strange and exciting territory.

So now I have a goal besides completing the Challenge.  It’s a little scary.  I might fail, and I’ve never been a fan of defeat.  On the other hand, I’ve always believed that the journey, not the destination, is the thing.  If I can’t balance on my left foot by Day 60, it’ll just mean I get to try again on Day 61.