Day 80 110 Percent?
Uh, not when the thermometer says 110 degrees.
I’ve had some pretty strong days lately, I’m happy to say. I’ve given it my best effort and am making progress. Can straighten both legs (momentarily at least) in Standing-Head-to-Knee. The clicks and pops in my hips now occur at a much deeper stretch. My backward bends are getting much deeper – without pain. (“You want that stretching-pain sensation,” they say. “Back’s gonna hurt like hell,” they say. Well, unless I’m having a baby, I do not push through pain, I don’t care how long you studied in India.)
But today I was dripping before the class even started. Hot flash? I wondered. Malaria? Denge Fever? I simply cannot be this hot already.
Since hot flashes are pretty much a given these days, I lay back in Savasana, closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. Drops of sweat trickled down my temples and into my ears. My limbs were slick and shiny, my clothes sticky, my towel damp.
All this, I’d like to emphasize, before the class even began!
I managed the standing series, but then when we hit the floor, I just sort of … stopped. I haven’t done that since the early days of my practice but I’m trying to be yogi-ish, so I allowed myself to do what my body instructed, and just observed the sensations.
Here are my observations:
The air entering my lungs felt thick, as if there wasn’t enough oxygen. The floor felt hot. The walls felt hot, shrinking around me. (Oh dear, that sounds like claustrophobia.) I could smell the breath of the woman behind me. (It reminded me of my long-dead grandmother and hers was not a generation that valued oral hygiene.) I could feel the thud-thud-thud of my pulse in my ears, matching the steady drip-drip-drip of sweat from my now wringing-wet top onto the towel. My mat squished like a sponge when I moved, so I stopped moving.
At some point I stopped observing and simply waited for it to end. I skipped the deepest backward bend and deepest forward bend. Camel makes me feel panicky at the best of times, and Rabbit, well, I could see choking on my own stench, then drowning in the sweat dripping up my nose, too tired to figure out how to get out of the posture.
A couple of people left the room today, which hasn’t happened in quite awhile, too. At least it wasn’t just me.
When I saw the temperature, when we were finally done, it all made sense.
“It’s not really 110 degrees,” Angela said, smiling indulgently at me. She hadn’t even broken a gentle glow. Usually the teachers are at least a bit red-faced by the end. She looked fresh and dewy as a daisy.
“Okay then, 120.” If she wasn’t so sweet, I’d have decked her. “Whatever, it was freakin’ hot.”
Someone setting up for the next class overheard me.
“Yeah,” he added with a worried frown, “it feels a little … soupy… in there.”
The only thing worse than doing yoga in 110 degree heat?
Being in the class right after.
Day 78 Tripping on the Finish Line?
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Pl7d2fyc8]
I just signed up for a workshop with acclaimed screenwriter Michael Hauge, sponsored by my local chapter of the Romance Writers of America. (Same guy, different event from the one advertised above, but wasn’t that a cute clip?)
Michael Hauge is a story and script consultant, author and lecturer who works with writers and filmmakers on their screenplays, novels, movies and television projects. He has coached writers, producers, stars and directors on projects for Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Lopez, Kirsten Dunst, Charlize Theron and Morgan Freeman, as well as for every major studio and network.
He’ll present his unique approach to creating compelling fiction, and eliciting emotion in readers through story concept, plot structure, character development and theme, plus reveal his proven method for getting manuscripts noticed by the people in power.
And it’s happening right here – not in Hollywood – but in Vancouver.
This is all well and good, however, there’s one small glitch: it happens to fall on DAY 90 of my yoga challenge.
You know what that means.
I’ve got to do another double-day somewhere in the next eleven days!! ARGH!
Day 75 McYoga Bad Boy
There’s another woman at my studio who’s also going for 90 days, Heather, and we compare notes whenever we happen to be at the same class. We’re both a little amazed, I think, that we’ve made it this far.
Today Heather brought her brother in with her. She’d been talking it up, I guess, and he finally decided to give it a try. As always, it’s a bit entertaining when there’s fresh meat in the hot room. (For a few minutes anyway; as soon as we get going, it’s all you can do to pay attention to your own breathing, never mind anyone else’s performance.)
But unline Naked Sweaty Boys, Heather’s brother was of mature years and girth, and our gentle amusement gave way to alarm as reality landed on him. He spent the last few postures listing sideways on his haunches, one hand on his chest.
“Is he okay?” another woman asked in the change room, after class. Several of us gathered around to hear the answer. It had crossed my mind that if I do Bikram yoga long enough, I’m bound to see someone pass out or throw up or something eventually.
“He’s fine,” answered Heather, waving away our concern with typical sisterly nonchalance. “Probably has a bit more respect for me now.”
Fortunately, the instructor told him, as they do all beginners, to lie down if he began to feel dizzy, light-headed or nauseous. The goal, we’re all told, is simply to stay in the room.
But some instructors are more stringent than others. Bikram Choudhury himself has a reputation for insulting students, chastising them, berating them all as part of his unique – and copyrighted – version of yoga. Maybe he can get away with it because of his broken English and chipper accent, but I don’t think I’d have gone back for a second class, had it been my junk body he was poking at.
I like my studio and I like the workout, but the man himself… well, you decide …