Another announcement of sorts, I guess

Wishing I could shout much of this from my rooftop while not actually engaging in conversation with many of those who would want to engage.

On "performing."

I was so very surprised to see the comment from "Dave" singled out as an NYT Pick. The replies give me life. Hallelujah and amen.

Had a persistent thought yesterday: I need to write. Probably deserving of a new blog space, but this is the one I have for now. So here we go.

Teacher training...

I'm applying to a hot vinyasa teacher training (a few things have changed in the past couple of years/months). Here's the essay I wrote. You're in it! xox

“You can do anything for 10 seconds.”

Those words popped into my head as I stood in the ICU waiting room, waiting for a doctor to come tell me how my husband’s emergency surgery had gone. I had first heard those words in my first-ever yoga class, six weeks earlier. The surgery went OK, but that was only the first surreal, terrifying moment in what would become a month of them. Those words became my mantra over the next four weeks, while he was in the hospital. Over the next couple of years, while he was recovering. Over the year it took me - once he was back to “normal,” whatever that means - to leave.

I had seen the yoga studio, Bikram Yoga Sandy, a million times. It shared a parking lot with my preferred Dairy Queen in the canyon suburbs of Salt Lake City. In a ridiculous last-minute attempt to “tone” right before my September 2004 wedding, I signed up for a 10-day introductory offer. I went to classes on nine of the days. I fell in love with the studio, and the owners, and yoga itself right away. Then I went out of town to get married, and five weeks later my husband got in a car accident that killed his three closest friends and nearly killed him.

We were 1,000 miles from my family and 2,000 from his. My friends, though awesome, couldn’t help to the degree that I needed with his brain injury. And his friends were dead. It was an isolating time, despite the outstanding medical resources we had, as we worked through his physical and emotional recovery. After a few months, I e-mailed the yoga studio’s owners to let them know how “you can do anything for 10 seconds” got me through some of the worst months of my life. I was able to go back to the studio, off and on, for a while. On Memorial Day, my apartment’s water heater broke, and I really needed a shower before going back to work on Tuesday. There was only one class that day, and it was packed. But the energy of everyone in the room was electric and supportive. I was hooked.

I started going to class five or six days a week. A work-study opportunity came up, and I traded computer work for unlimited classes. The yoga studio became a safe place, where I could go and just feel whatever came up. “You have to feel it to heal it!” was only one of the cheesy-cliché-but-true sayings I heard often. So, I felt it. And over a year or so, I started to heal. The teachers there and fellow students were an amazing source of support and friendship.

More importantly, though, hot yoga taught me that I could look at myself, perceived flaws and all, in the mirror on a daily basis and be OK with the person looking back at me. If I could stay calm in a ridiculously hot room with sweat coming out of every pore, I could stay calm in most other situations. Even as broken as I was when I began yoga, I knew that practicing could heal me. So the second I knew I couldn’t stay with my husband (he had recovered by then), I also knew leaving would break me open again… but I knew yoga would be there to heal me again.

And little by little, it did. I started a home practice when I moved to New York, working nights at a newspaper in White Plains. I started writing a yoga-focused blog, and connected with other writing yogis from Malaysia to London. I occasionally visited a Bikram studio in Westchester, but the class times didn’t mesh well with my weird schedule. Once I started working “normal” hours in Manhattan, I tried a few Yoga to the People classes after work but hated getting home so late. After a random weekend class at the Yorktown studio, the owner mentioned she needed a work-study person to clean, work the desk, and handle new students. I committed to two days a week, and did that for a year (then another year paid). It was great to have the dedicated time and space for practicing, but the atmosphere could be awful. The owner treated many of the teachers poorly. When she screamed at me for suggesting YttP to a Brooklyn-based college student, I knew it was time to move on…

I don’t remember how I stumbled on the 38th Street Yoga to the People studio a year later. I had gone to others, but this one was in the right direction, between my office and Grand Central. (Always thinking of those trains!) It felt like a secret, like only people who really wanted to be there climbed four flights of stairs to this kind-of shabby, shower-free, occasionally smelly, noisy-as-hell studio (with occasional music from the vinyasa classes below, ugh) for the Fire Sequence classes. The instructors were some of the best teachers I’d had - I mean, over the years I had practiced in more than a few studios in a few states. These teachers were kind, of course, but also really knowledgeable about anatomy and philosophy in equal measures in a way that seemed actively discouraged at other Bikram-based studios. The teachers - Alena, Talia, Brian, James, Aubrey, Kristen, Molly, Ben, Mara and others - were so generous in spirit, which really struck me.

I liked that place so much, I even kept going once the 90-minute hot classes were discontinued... And then I learned to love vinyasa. It was - it still is! - hard as hell, but my hips feel brand-new and my arms feel a little bit stronger after every class. (And then the next day, they feel like they’ll fall off.) It’s been fun to try to figure out this whole new world of asana. And - who knew? The music can be an awesome component of class. The teacher’s playlist might include Fugazi, or the Pixies, and it helps draw me out of my head and back into class every time.

Sometime between Yorktown and 38th Street, I found NP Rock Yoga. I don’t know if I’d been Googling “‘hot yoga Hudson Valley” for the hundredth time, or if my boyfriend’s friends at the climbing gym had mentioned the studio. I came once, and loved a super-mellow class with Maggie. I came back a year later, and fell in love all over again with a studio, practice, and teachers. Between constraints on finances and time (living 40 minutes away), I’ve never made it here as much as I’d like. But as I stood in class on New Year’s Day a few months ago, I was thinking about intentions, guiding principles for the year ahead.

Two concepts surfaced: The first was to be open to new opportunities that might arise. The second was to really devote myself to those things I chose to spend time and energy on. It was no coincidence, then, that when I heard about a job in my field less than a mile from my house, I busted my ass to earn it. I started in late February, and even though there have been serious trade-offs (a little bit of money, a lot of Thai restaurants), the relative ease with which I move through most days now has been so, so worth it. By ditching the commute to Manhattan, hours have opened up to me. But so has a ton of mental energy. I have literally giggled in awe, while eating lunch in my backyard with my dogs. On a Tuesday. In the snow.

Back in October 2013, after a suggestion and encouragement by a teacher (Talia), I began the application process for an NYC YttP weekend hot yoga training. I couldn’t work out the finances, but even if I had been able to, the idea of commuting to the city seven days a week was really daunting. It’s OK that it didn’t work out then. Maybe it will never feel like the “perfect” time, but this time, enough of the pieces feel like they’re in place. I worked out the financial investment, I’m excited about the time investment, and honestly I’m a little terrified about the emotional investment… But not in a bad way.

I’m so, so grateful for the teachers and friends I’ve met along the my yoga journey. But I’m absolutely blown away by how much gratitude I have for this system that helps me get back to me. Every class, without fail, I learn something. Whether I worked on my wonky hips or my wonky heart, I’m grateful I showed up. It would be an amazing privilege to help other people heal themselves, too!

The only thing I got out of "The Natural"

"Experience makes good people better."

She was staring at the lake. "How does it do that?" "Through their suffering." "I had enough of that," he said in disgust. "We have two lives, Roy, the life we learn with and the life we live with after that. Suffering is what brings us toward happiness."

Seriously, I am the only person I know who's read this "best baseball book ever" and not liked it. I just, ummm, didn't get it. But don't let that stop you from reading it. Maybe i'll try it again in a few years. For now, the reminder that "Suffering is what brings us toward happiness" was all I needed from this book.

Bikram (the man) says pretty much the same thing, several times over the course of the recorded class that I occasionally practice with at home. (He also hammers it in his books, particularly the newer, orange one.) For all of the disenchanting stuff that I hear about the man, he seems fine in the class. If you haven't listened to the CD class, I highly recommend it. It's available at iTunes, and probably your studio.

All this messy stuff

Sometimes, though, it is convincing. Once you start to see little messages of hope all around, it's easier to believe them. A vast conspiracy to promote happiness, maybe.

xo

180 degrees

I posted. You commented. I cried with gratitude. You gave me Internet hugs. I don't feel so crazy and/or alone anymore.

Today I skipped out on work for a little while, despite the busy-ness, for some time with Lala, visiting from Toronto. We ate pizza and a "banh mi hot dog" in drizzle in front of the Flatiron Building and it was awesome. Her bright yellow scarf has lingered in my mind - a ray of sunshine, a beacon of brighter things to come.

On the train home now and saw some leaves turning across the river, on the Palisades... A week ago that would have made me weepy. Tonight I smiled at the colors.

It's gonna be okay. It's already okay.

:)

A footnote, chronologically anyway

(I couldn't realistically make this a footnote on that last post, right? I mean, it was painfully long already.)

I want to be clear that there are plenty of things that I am or have been actively working to make better.

At the same time, it feels good to get all of that shit out of my head and onto "paper." It's been percolating much longer than I'd like to admit. Honestly, I already feel lighter. Happy Friday, y'all.

Love love.

So what I really need is a few more hours in the day. And time off. But mostly yoga.

Here I go again, starting another post with every intention of finishing it. I feel like there's a long story or confession to tell here and I don't know how to do it other than however this turns out... But if I wait for this to be perfectly edited, I won't post it at all.

The truth is, I think I'm depressed. I've never felt this way before. No professional has ever declared, "You are depressed." I'm not crying all the time or anything. Most of the time I operate basically fine, in terms of immediate tasks and life interactions.

But since shortly after I started this job, I've been falling out of touch with friends and family, and not doing much of the things I love. There are reasons for this.

• My commute hours: I'm away from home essentially from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays. Riding the train is rarely a positive experience, with chatting day-trippers, seat-sharers who are oblivious to the mores of personal space (the seat delineations are color-coded, for goodness' sake), and people bustling up the aisles whacking me in the shoulder or head with oversized bags. The slightly later, non-express train is much more mellow when it arrives at my station (no guarantees for riders at later stops), but I can't get to work by 9 (I'm there by 9:15, though) if I take it. Same is true for the ride home. This would seem to be a good time to catch up with friends via phone, but convention holds that talking on the phone on rush-hour trains is rude. I could stand between cars and call, but no one would be able to hear me. Try as I might—by reading, listening to lovely meditation podcasts, listening to new, interesting music, trying to nap—I have yet to find a way to make the train ride restorative. Last night I was lucky enough to have a river-side window seat, and I took some pictures of the incredible stormy skies on the river. That was nice, and I'm pleased with some of the pictures, but it was definitely a one-off. Believe me, I am grateful for that moment.

• My actual work hours: When I worked nights at the newspaper, I could (and did, lots) hike on Mount Beacon with Leo and do yoga at home and cook complicated things and complete extensive chores and blog in the big-ass chunk of DAY I had before leaving for work at 4 p.m. When I got home, I'd take out my contacts, brush my teeth, and go to bed. Done. Now, I try to cram a little bit of everything into the space between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. It doesn't help that I am a horrible multitasker, and exhausted when I get home. Home is fabulous, but is also so much boyfriendbarkingdogbarkingotherdogcatwhohatesmedustyeverythingpilesoflaundryanddishes. Weekends are a little better, but it feels like there is just so much to do. I am not one of those people who glories in being a "busy person": "They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence." This is not me! This could not be further from me! Gardening is a choice, yes, but it is directly a food source (a big deal, with the paucity of funds for comparable [kickass] produce).

• My actual work: My job is deeply difficult right now. Not my actual duties, but the situation. I feel stuck in this because of financial obligations. Also, my boyfriend and co-mortgage holder was laid off a month ago. Some people are bold enough to "take the leap" and jump into the unknown and trust that things will work out. That is awesome, for those people. I have evaluated situations in the past where that has worked out for me. Right now, I am not comfortable doing that. Debt is a bitch, kids. (Too bad I had to go and move cross-country a few times, and have medical problems, and get divorced. My first credit card purchase in 2002 was a pair of glasses. I still have them, and they are just strong enough to keep me from running into sharp corners early in the morning or late at night at home.) (Also, my 850-square-foot home's monthly mortgage is less than apartment rent would be, and I get tax deductions! And a yard where I grow food!)

• My former work: Working at the yoga studio was hard, physically. It entailed being away from home from 6:45 a.m. to after 11 p.m. on Thursdays, and 7 a.m. to 4 or 5 p.m. on Sundays. Yes, I loved taking classes for free, and yes, it was even greater after I started getting paid for the deep cleaning I did. I took pride in it and I appreciated the extra cash. But the hours were killing me. And more physical work after class was killing me. I'm glad I stopped at the end of March, it was absolutely the right decision, but I need need need the yoga. It has never been more clear. (The money would be nice, too.)

• My intertwined senses of compassion and duty: The political climate and local and national events have really taken a toll on me. "The personal is political," the '60s feminist line goes. And while I believe in taking a step back and re-orienting oneself if news events get to be a downer—I am all for temporarily sticking one's head in the sand if that helps—I also believe in the importance of activism and strength in numbers. So this summer, amid all of the sexual-trauma triggers, I felt like I had to be strong and stand up with other women. Talking about and processing trauma, "legitimate" or otherwise, is hard work.

• Health problems: Something that is personal and painful, that doesn't have ribbons and stand mixers and to-go coffee cup lids. That is unresolved. That is expensive.

Also, the Angels had a kind of rollercoaster season and missed the playoffs. (I'm just being honest here.)

Some people will see all of the above as time, money, silly excuses for being down. I've been hard enough on myself to see them that way, too. But I'm the one living them, and taken en masse, I believe they amount to more than the sum of their parts. There is no way to quantify the expenditure of psychic/mental/emotional energy.

Attention span? What's that? The lack of it is the main reason I haven't blogged, or replied to emails. Lord knows how long this post will take to write as I jump among writing and staring blankly at work stuff. (ETA: I did end up getting a few work things done in the six hours I've been writing.) It's one reason I have tapped into Twitter with such force over the past year. The briefest, ADD-est of interactions on there with friends, many inside the computer and some outside of it, allow me to feel like a functioning, valuable, connected person. Thanks to the incredible Twitter yoga community (mostly Bikramites), I did the first two weeks of a September 30-day yoga challenge. I was inspired to commit to an October one, too, but it's off to a rough start.

So yesterday, on the train home, I found myself in almost-panicky tears, scared that I will always feel this sad and stuck. I am dreading winter's pending arrival and with it, only ever being home in the dark. I couldn't shake the dread.

This is of course almost silly, because I have lived in places with "real winter" for more than 13 years now. This logic is how I know that something is actually wrong. My muscle pain (irrespective of activity) and skin/nerve pain have amped up in the past few months. But alllllllll of those stressors, less B's layoff, have been ongoing, for probably a year, more for some.

The difference? The main, obvious, glaring, flashing-neon-sign difference? Yoga. This feeling, this withdrawal has amped up since the late spring. Yoga does not solve my problems. But practicing yoga helps me deal with them. It helps me detach from them, in a healthy way: Distance and perspective are what I need most when I am feeling down in it.

Earlier today, a Bikram yogini-teacher-friend tweeted something that instantly brought everything back into focus for me: "Learn to listen to your body. Focus on the feeling. The mind is a trickster but the body never lies." My head feels like a swamp that is the backdrop to a rave right now — why on earth would I trust that? My body is telling me that no, I don't have it all under control. Her next tweet contained the solution: "People who experience FLOW on a regular basis are happier than those who don't." So, as always, the solution is get back to the mat and allow that flow.

It will come at the expense of sleep, whether I practice in the early morning or late at night. But it will be worth it. Two of the toughest, saddest moments in my life happened in October. By re-committing to my yoga practice, I hope to enter November a little brighter.

(Dear god, how did you read this far?)

Serious inspiration (updated!)

Go ahead, please watch the entire eight minutes.



What an amazing time
What a family
How did the years go by?
Now it’s only me…

Tic toc
Tic toc...

Like a cat in heat stuck in a moving car
Scary conversation, shut my eyes
Can’t find the brake
What if they say that you’re a climber?

Naturally I’m worried if I do it alone
Who really cares cause it’s your life
You never know it could be great
Take a chance, cause you might grow

Oh, oo, oh

What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting for?

Take a chance, you stupid ho

Like an echo pedal, you’re repeating yourself
You know it all by heart
Why are you standing in one place?
Born to blossom, bloom to perish

Your moment will run out
Cause of your sex chromosome
I know it’s so messed how our society all thinks (For sure)
Life is short, your capable (Uh-huh)

Oh, oo, oh
Uh, uh

Look at your watch now
You’re still a super-hot female
You’ve got your million-dollar contract
And they’re all waiting for your hot track

What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting for?

I can’t wait to go back and do Japan
Gimme lots of brand new fans
Osaka, Tokyo
You Harajuku girls
Damn, you’ve got some wicked style

Go!

Look at your watch now
You’re still a super-hot female
You’ve got your million-dollar contract
And they’re all waiting for your hot track

What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting
What you waiting for?

What you waiting for?
Take a chance, you stupid ho

I'd been a fan of No Doubt for years and years. I'd read all sorts of interviews with Gwen Stefani in which she talks about her struggles with weight and body image and how it's damn hard to be glamorous, and in the kind of shape she wants to be in. So when I see that she was this girl, I am blown away (go ahead and skip to 5:10 if you must). (Update: From a Fall 2005 interview with The New York Times: "What she does possess is ... a rigorously self-enforced humility. ... 'Everybody out there has a team of people behind them. That's just the way it is.' "

What are you waiting for?

What am I waiting for?

Pain in the Ass

My left hip/butt has been excruciatingly painfulbothering me for a few months now. I should get it checked out. Of course I know I should get it checked out. But seeing my primary doc, to get a referral to the higher-copay ortho doc, to get an MRI scheduled, to be prescribed physical therapy that I can't afford, seemed like a very expensive rabbit hole (which under normal circumstances would be a stretch, but I'm on the hook for $500 of a big car repair, so, yikes [fucking deer fucking running into me]). My leg isn't falling off, and I'm not even taking Advil or Aleve most days, so I've been fine with just sucking it up.

Until!

Today, the super lovely Josie posted on FB this article, "A Common Cause of Low Back and Sciatic Pain — The Piriformis." Through some web-sleuthing, I'd become pretty sure that the culprit was my insanely tight piriformis, but all the stretching in the world hadn't been helping, just making the pain worse (which is can be pretty characteristic of fibromyalgia, but that could be another post entirely).

The article discusses trigger point therapy and self-myofascial release, even backing up (in the comments section) the idea that stretching is not helpful until the trigger point is released. This is sort of groundbreaking for me to hear.

Doing the work with the foam roller and a tennis ball will be hard; it will be painful. I am notoriously bad at following through on commitments to do anything for more than a week; the writer recommends starting with two weeks of daily work. But it's the least (and least-expensive thing!) I can do for myself to try to bust up the knots that have so negatively affected my quality of life the past few months, specifically.

Perseverance has never been a strong suit of mine, but now's as good a time as any to work on that. I can't wait to get home tonight to sit on a tennis ball.

A little horn-tooting

Last night after the 7:30 class with KTO, an intermittent student gave me (I think) a huge compliment.

"How many classes do you take per day?"

I gotta say, I swooned a bit. After a class that started out with a lot of wobbles, I did find some strength (and KTO noticed, too). It felt pretty good to know that a few of my postures are lookin' good.

My practice has been so all over the place (especially since February, when I busted my knee), as has my mind. I have something like 27 posts in draft version here. As work winds down in November, I hope to get back to blogging on a fairly regular basis. I miss our conversations!

Take a breather

This is one posture that makes me grumble.


I think I coined my new favorite Bikramism last night:

"If you're laughing, you're breathing."

The 7:30 pm class had four new people, and they (mostly) did great. (And by that I mean three out of the four had great attitudes. The one who walked in with an "I can do everything" vibe left the room halfway through and left the studio altogether, against the teacher's directives. Frustrating.) The girl who ate pasta an hour before class didn't throw up; I'd consider that a victory these days.

One woman, this tiny, spunky smoker, had had a nervous laugh-snort out in the lobby as I was giving them the new-student rundown. She ended up behind me in the studio, so I felt like I had to be a good example.

She did great with all of the things newbies usually have trouble with—hands to feet, grip in standing bow, staying still... I fell out of a couple of postures and was sort of grumbling to myself when she caught my eye. A bit of a giggle-fest ensued. She did the snort-laugh thing again. How could I not crack up?

I don't want to be a class clown, but I also want new students to know that it's ok—hell, even encouraged—to have fun in there. We were "debriefing" after class, seeing how the new students felt, and talked about the frequency of fainting (I haven't seen it myself, but I have very nearly done it). All the time, we hear, "As long as you keep breathing, blah blah blah." Talking with the snorter, I said, "As long as you're laughing, you're breathing."

At least for me, this one's a keeper, and a reminder to not take every posture myself too seriously.

Anniver-se-rary

I searched flickr for "gratitude," and this came up. fitting!
image via eekim / flickr

Just a quick shout-out and gigantic "Thank you" to the Bikram bloggers and everyone else who has commented here over the past year-plus.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of starting the work-study program at my New York studio, and although it by definition will never be the same as my first, original, home, home-away-from-home studio, it is what I have now, and I am incredibly grateful for it.

I can say with 100 percent certainty that if it weren't for this Bikram blogging community, I would never have had the courage or motivation to ask for work-study at this studio. It's at least 40 minutes from my home. I wasn't a regular student there (I'd been about three times in two years). I have had tons of drama with my car. And yet, the studio owner trusted me.

Last night, she expressed surprise that a work-study student had been "at it" for a year. I am not exactly sure what she meant by that, but over the past year, I've seen four or five people sign up for the program only to drop out a month later. I'm sure there are a host of reasons that happens. But when she seemed surprised, with a dash of being impressed, that I was still going strong, I myself was surprised. Not holding up my end of the bargain — cleaning and folding towels and signing people in and reassuring newbies — was never an option. Not practicing was never an option.

But I never would have started down that path, a path that has lead in many ways to the fulfillment of this blog's name, without my friends in the computer. Thanks, friends!

Australian news article on Rajashree

(Click on the page, then click on the little magnifying-glass-thingy to enlarge. Or, original is here but who knows when they'll take it down.)

Thanks to @jimwehmeyer on Twitter for sharing this, and Rachel at Alive in the Fire for retweeting it.

I'd so wanted to go to Rajashree's seminar at Kripalu last weekend, but it was just too expensive for me. Everything I've heard about her leads me to believe it would be amazing just to be in her presence, and try to soak up drops of her wisdom, and compassion. Been feeling like I could use some of those lately.

Hope everyone's doing well, and staying warm!

"They are themselves. They are so good."

via davedash / flickr

“We don’t have to run away from this world. We don’t have to feel harsh and deprived. We can contribute a lot to the world, and we can raise ourselves up in this world. We should feel so good. This world is the best world. If you drive into the mountains, you may see the mountain deer. They are so well groomed, although they don’t live on a farm. They have tremendous head and shoulders, and their horns are so beautiful. The birds who land on your porch are also well groomed, because they are not conditioned by ordinary conditionality. They are themselves. They are so good. Look at the sun. The sun is shining. Nobody polishes the sun. The sun just shines. Look at the moon, the sky, the world at its best.”

- Adapted from Chögyam Trungpa’s book, Great Eastern Sun, by way of Ocean of Dharma (by way of Yum & Yuk)

Well, I tried.

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, really. It comes down to knowing myself, and I know that I'm a total flake. I desperately want to prove to myself that I have the discipline to do (or not do) X, but then I pretty much inevitably don't do (or do) X.

E.g: Do 30 straight days of yoga (well, I did do that once, but life was so different then). Don't bite my nails. Do walk to work instead of taking the subway unless weather is totally heinous. Don't eat crap. (I originally typed "carp," which I haven't eaten - success comes in mysterious ways!)

When I started the work-study program at my studio in March or April, the cleaning days assigned to me were Thursday and Saturday. Since then, I have rarely missed a single Thursday or one weekend day (I switched to Sundays) of practicing at the studio. I cleaned early one Saturday morning in June before driving five hours to Cape Cod with my dad, but I didn't take class. More recently, with my car's increasingly frequent freak-outs, I've corralled my fantastic boyfriend into driving me down to the studio. (I'd just take his car if I could drive a stick. But this way he helps me clean, too!) I missed both days when I went to San Diego at the beginning of November, but I took one class (at training, woot!!) while I was there.

So, for almost a year, I've been taking two classes a week, pretty consistently. (My home practice has become almost nonexistent since 1. buying a house, and 2. getting a second dog.) I'd like to step it up, but I feel like planning to practice every day is just an easy way to set myself up for disappointment. Another idea had been percolating for a while; I decided last month to add in one home practice a week (ideally on Tuesdays or Wednesdays to balance out the Thurs./Sun.).

My first attempt was yesterday, when I stayed home sick from work. It went something like this:
Give bones to Leo (2) and Lucy (10 months).
Try to keep dogs off rug long enough to roll out mat.
Roll out mat.
Separate dogs, who are fighting for the "good" bone (?).
Remove Lucy from mat.
Press "play" on iTunes Bikram class.
Start pranayama breathing.
Transcend these odd barky noises.
On fifth breath, throw bone into kitchen so Lucy will leave me alone.
Transcend, transcend, transcend.
In forward bend, untangle (my) hair from Lucy's mouth.
In through the nose. Out through the nose. I am the perfect picture of peace.
Balance tested severely during standing head to knee, when Lucy walks underneath my picked-up foot.
Fall out five times, get back in six times.
Apologize profusely to Leo for kicking him in the ribs while stepping out for triangle. (He shouldn't have been on the damn mat!)

I got as far as standing separate leg forehead to knee. Working that pose, this is what I saw:

Leo's tail is the blur. I think he was trying to get the "good" bone away from Lucy (on the floor). On the other hand, this is how they play, constantly.

At that point, I gave up on trying to practice and chased them around the 20-degree backyard for a long time.

Chalk it up as a learning experience: Now I know that home practice goes much, much more smoothly when the boyfriend can distract/deal with the dogs. The hiccup there is that he's spending hours every night, post-dinner, studying for architecture exams. It shouldn't be a big deal to ask him to *not* study one night a week. Right?

I might have to get the dogs their own mats. Lucy would look great in Shakti.

Be moderate in everything, including moderation.*

*Horace Porter, 1837-1921


Gorgeous shot via Gregg Le Blanc / flickr

Yoga for Hangovers

This New York Times Wellness blog entry is harmless, but some of the comments on it have gotten me a little steamed. Some of the same people who define (their style, natch, of) yoga as one glorious thing go on to define alcohol drinking as one awful thing, when it seems so obvious to me that people can only speak to their own experience. Yet that caveat is never included in the comment.

Maybe my hackles are residually raised from my time in Utah, and I'm still hypersensitive to all-or-nothing, us-vs.-them claims. Or maybe my perspective on this has come from being in the Bikram community and exploring its place in the larger yoga world... It's so often under attack; it's not "real yoga," according to someone(s) who've declared themselves deciders for the rest of us. That judgment, that sense of superiority that makes it OK to judge, really bothers me.

And maybe oddly, the same goes for comments like this one:
The purpose of drinking is to numb oneself to life’s challenges, forget your troubles, lower ones [sic] inhibitions, and enable oneself to have a good time, It requires no work or effort. It has the potential for bringing short term bliss and longer term misery, unpleasant recuperation, and long term physical harm.

It's simply not true across the board. No doubt there are people for whom numbing and forgetting is the purpose of imbibing (in fact, I dated one of those people; it was terrible). But there are many, many more people for whom some alcohol is healthily integrated into daily life. As far as the commenter's claim about alcohol consumption bringing "long[-]term physical harm," well, he or she must not have heard any of the science linking red wine with heart health. And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

It may seem like someone who gets so amped up about this must be on the defensive, must have some deep personal attachment to drinking (or insert any vice here). But I'm not, and I don't. Yes, I work at a wine magazine and on some level, surely have a vested interest in people continuing to consume alcohol. Yes, I really like the taste of beer (IPAs, mostly). I'd guess that I drink four times a week, including a glass of wine with dinner some nights. But if for some reason I had to stop ingesting any alcohol right now, I'd be fine. It's the principle here, people.

I just looked up quotes about moderation, looking to cite this post's title, and it was funny how many of them, across cultures, related to "the drink." I particularly liked this one:
It is better to rise from life as from a banquet - neither thirsty nor drunken. ~Aristotle

So go and take part in that banquet, and enjoy its bounty, and rise from life knowing, reveling, in that fine place of balance we've worked so hard to create.

And for Pete's sake, can we stop the obsession with defining what's correct for everyone??

(Grrrr. There are so many things I've wanted to blog about in the past month; it feels a shame to start with this one. And so ineloquently, too. Harrumph.)

But I don't know the secret handshake!

My studio's owners are hosting Diane Ducharme tomorrow for a teachers-only posture clinic at their Bronx studio. I asked the owner if she needed any help setting things up, taking them down, signing people in, whatever. I just wanted to be humbled in the presence of greatness (not just Diane, but *all* of the awesome teachers that'll be there). She said she'd get back to me, I think. That was well over a month ago.

So last Sunday, during my regular work-study shift, the owner's husband asks if I can work Saturday instead this week, so the teacher can go straight to the seminar after the morning classes.

And then he said when I finished cleaning, I could come down to the other studio and join the teachers-only posture clinic.

May tomorrow evening's class with Diane be better than my last class with Diane, aka "The class where I almost died." (That class, by the way, has since been surpassed as worst class ever. Gonna have to write about that one of these days.)

I'm so excited (and I may even pull a double tomorrow)!

The perils of a desk job, and long commute, and sleeping in a ball, and not practicing yoga enough:

I still don't know which one it is that hurts.
(Upper-leg graphic via via CompFitness.com)

Well, one of the perils, anyway, is that your hip flexors will shorten. Sorta like wearing spike heels all the time can shorten the Achilles tendon.

I practiced yoga at the studio on Sunday and went to the chiropractor Monday, where she worked on my left hip a little bit. My left shoulder was achy, like usual, after I left and on into Tuesday. What surprised me Tuesday was an ache in my upper left leg, near the [insert technical/anatomical name here] crease. (It's true; all of the issues in my tissues are on the left side.)

I figured I'd slept funny. Meh. I did some lunge-type stretching at my desk when I got to work. It was still bugging me Wednesday morning, and I figured I might have aggravated it with the previous stretching. Smart girl that I am, I walked 1.66 miles while running errands on my lunch. Wake up this morning (Thursday) and it hurts so badly that I briefly consider calling in sick.

But who calls in sick with a hurt hip?? I popped a bunch (OK, just 800 mg) of Advil and came on my merry way to work. It took the edge off, for a while. I took 600 mg about two hours ago. And I've had a heating pad on it most of the day.

(It occurs to me that the heating pad is doing exactly what I took the Advil to prevent - increasing blood flow to the area. Ice probably would have been a better bet. But it's coooooold!)

So I'm debating whether to take class tonight or not. I mean, it hurts to walk (but only because my default stride is a long stride, I think). I've been trying to take these goofy, short little steps while walking around the office today, and it doesn't hurt too bad. But how does one take class in a way that doesn't stretch the hip and front of the thigh? There's definitely a pulled muscle, and it's not at the "Just give it a gentle stretch and see how it feels" stage, not yet.

Guess I'll work on my shoulders, and forward bends. YAY. (Can you hear the sarcasm, people?)

So far, my only real experience taking class while injured has been with back problems. I've never had a front problem... How do you take class with an injury?

xoxo
:)

apologies for being out of touch

I'm cross-posting this from Facebook, because it applies to my blog buddies, too:

Howdy all,
This is for anyone who's messaged me, posted on my wall, sent me a text or email, or called over the past six (at least) months, and hasn't gotten a response... It's important to me to be a good friend; unfortunately I haven't acted accordingly.

I have no excuse, but here's an attempt to explain:

My friends mean the world to me, so when it comes to correspondence, I want to write something thoughtful. But then I wait until I have enough time to write something thoughtful. And it's like that saying goes: If you wait until you feel you have enough X (in my case, time), you'll never do Y. (And although I have time on my commute, my thumbs lack the fortitude to type anything of consequence on my Blackberry.)

So - I am so incredibly sorry for what may have seemed like a blow-off. I'm going to catch up on correspondence over the coming week. If I don't, feel free to hassle me about being lame and not being in touch - that should elicit a response. :)

Hope you'll hear from me soon!

c

Just a link, but a good one.

How to Know When Yoga is Working for You, via Elephant Journal.

My favorite from the list:
9. You no longer think about what you're cooking for dinner while in Savasana.

What's your favorite way to know the yoga is working for you? It doesn't have to be from this list, either. :)

xoxo