frustration and discomfort (and things I actually do like about fall)

The thing about winter, and why it doesn't get my wrath, is because it's supposed to be cold. I'm simply resigned to that.

Well, it's been a little while since I've posted. I'm hardly on the computer at home, and this is the crazy-busy time of year at work.

First things first, I suppose:
While I did not come close to finishing 30 classes in 30 days, I think I did between 15 and 20, which is a far more regular practice than I've had in a long time. I think it really helped in getting better results with the chiropractor, too. On the 26th, I did my first class without water — I think it was the first, anyway. I didn't plan on it, but I got to the studio late and didn't have time to fill my bottle nor grab a bottle from the cooler.

I didn't die. Actually, it wasn't even that bad. I wouldn't want to make it a regular thing, as I like having the option of taking a sip when I (think I) need it. But water-free class went fine. Class on the 30th was cancelled because of flooding and a power outage in the area, and I was crushed that there was no class. I know, it surprised me, too.

These days... ohhhhhh, these days.
Like I've written before, the initial problems that got me in the door to the chiropractor's office are pretty much resolved, which is fabulous. But my muscles are quite, very, surprisingly, unbelievably sore in the hours and day after my appointments. Then my weird skin pain kicked back up into high gear. I scratched an itch on my shoulder one night, and it felt like I was digging into a deep bruise. Awesome.

The BF and I took the dogs for a hike this past Saturday afternoon, and although the scenery was stunning, the hike was really physically challenging for me. Within a few minutes, I was out of breath, and my muscles (HELLO, HAMSTRINGS!!!) were screaming at me. I kept up, and threw sticks for the dogs while he climbed, but on the trip back to the car, my legs felt like Jell-O. By the time we got home, it was all I could do to take a shower and pass out. This hike wasn't exceptionally long, either. Gahhhh... Couldn't help but think, What is wrong with me???

And over the past two weeks, it has felt like my back muscles have been slowly developing the texture of beef jerky. Everything in spasm, all of the time, especially between my shoulderblades and spine. And the exhaustion, oh mannnn. Normally, when I get on the train in the morning and evening, I get a little something done before I sleep for about 20 minutes, whether it's knitting, editing, reading, or playing stupid games on my phone. Now, it's hard to stay awake for a few minutes until the conductor checks tickets. Then, my head drops and I probably drool all the way to work (or home).

Something funny:
All last week, I felt bombarded by "I love fall" sentiments. I love that everyone else loves fall, and some people write about it just beautifully.

Me, on the other hand, well, I do not love fall. Not even pumpkin spice lattes. After about a week of glorious 60ish-degree days, I've had enough, thanks. It portends only colder things to come, and cold makes my body very, very uncomfortable. (I once read a piece called "You Know You're From San Diego If..." and it included "...if it's below 60 degrees, you're freezing, and if it's above 85, you're dyyyying it's so hot." It's pathetisad, but mostly true, for me.) So BF's mom was waxing poetic Saturday about how lovely fall is, and made the mistake of asking if I didn't love it. I'd had it. I said something to the effect of, No, I don't. It gets cold, and I don't like being cold. It makes my body hurt. I'm ready to move to Southeast Asia where I can love hot-and-wet and hot-and-dry year-round. (And the food!)

Well, my little friends, I've learned to be careful what I wish for.
I went to yoga Sunday, and the room felt extra-hot. Maybe it's me, I thought, as I took a knee for the umpteenth time (the HAMSTRINGS!!! from the hike, 'member?). But then I noticed my neighbor R, who I've never seen sit, was sitting. And he's usually on the hot side of the room, anyway! The teacher temporarily opened the door between the studio and the lobby, and put the fans on full blast, and generally tried to cool us down even a smidge. In the first, long, savasana, it felt like the bottoms of my feet were actually on fire. Which I've experienced before (the feeling, not actual combustion), but never at this studio. Thank goodness this was not an accidentally-water-free class: My lips were cracking.

Turns out it was 116 degrees.

OK, UNIVERSE! I get it. I will not express my disdain for chill any longer. I will accept the temperature as it is every day, and rock the heating pad as often as I need to in an attempt to stay reasonably pliable. I will invest in SmartWool and live another several months wearing their long-janes under my jeans (I heart SmartWool).

Stay Positive:
In an effort to be positive, the BF and I are going to come up with one thing every day that is good about fall. (He loves autumn because it is prime rock-climbing season here, and prime surfing season at home [amazing that I still call it that, but that's another post for another day].) This is an easy list for him.

Through the fog of my crankiness and crybabyness and general wahh, wahhh of the past few weeks, and which you've just read through, I've come up with a few things I like:
Fewer tourists in the way at Grand Central and hindering passage along the sidewalks on my walk to work.
The smell of wood-burning fires.
No mosquitos!!! (This is a big LIKE.)
Wearing beanies.
The crunchy noise leaves make underfoot.
Rain. (Which I realize isn't limited to fall, but it reminds me of my very favoritestest season "at home": winter at the beach.)
Rooting for the little guys in the baseball playoffs. (Go Twins! Go Rays!)

Another positive: After one particularly chilly train ride home, it occurred to me that as hot yoga has helped me learn to love the heat, perhaps cold yoga would help me better deal with chills. My plan: Start a worldwide empire of yoga studios, renting out old meat lockers wherein we can practice a predetermined sequence of postures to a dialogue delivered by someone wearing a snowsuit. Class temperatures will not exceed 40 degrees (Fahrenheit, to clarify for any non-U.S. readers I might have) — mind over the matter, right? Instead of coconut-water coolers, we'll have hot chocolate and soup ready to serve up after class.

I think it could work... you?

;)

Day 20: Not two-thirds done.

I so wish I'd been able to practice this yoga on each of 30 days. (That brings to mind the saying, "If wishes were fishes..." — what does that even mean?) But this month, it wasn't to be... It did, however, get me into the chiropractor's office, and on a path to minimizing daily pain. If the primary goal of every endeavor is to learn even one little thing, then I've met that, as I've learned a bunch by trying to complete this challenge.

Last night, the BF was out hiking with the dogs when I got home, so I did two sets of each posture in the standing series, and a single set of the remaining postures before they got home. The dogs needed baths IMMEDIATELY, smelling vile after rolling in who-knows-what. Once they were clean and fluffy, I went back to my mat and goofed around with more postures. I did a few sets of standing head to knee on both sides, a couple standing bow pulling poses, and some other random postures. Anything involving toes touching your head is a hell of a lot easier in a warm studio, you know?

Something possessed me to work on headstands. They, like my living room's floor, are HARD!

One thing I really appreciate about a home practice is the flexibility to do an extra set of postures, or hold something just a little bit longer than we would in class. I'm not sure anyone really likes standing head to knee, but I am enjoying it for now because I've been feeling a progression in it, especially as my hips start to even out. On my 30 Before 30 list, I have "Do 29 backbends." I love backbends, I really do, but I'm thinking of editing that to-do, changing it to "Do 29 standing head to knees." So much more of a challenge. We'll see...

Days 10, 11 and 12: The picture I wanted to post before

That's pitcher Jered Weaver, one of my favorite players on my favorite team, practicing crow pose before a game on April 21, 2009.

Day 11 was good. Would you believe I took class from Bikram himself? It's true: he taught in my living room! The CD is cool like that. For a long time I really didn't like the CD. It aggravated me in ways that are hard to pin down now.

But now, I giggle at most of the Bikram-isms and really find a kind of comfort in the rest of his dialogue. The man is funny. His accent and pidgin English are also kind of funny (except "much more higher." That is not funny. It just hurts my ears.) He segues into singing at times, from silly ("Don't look so sad/Don't look so lonely/Long way from home/To kill yourself...") to more somber tunes (he intones something during a savasana in the floor series, and he could be singing Britney Spears for all I know, but it just seems less jokey).

I went rock climbing later in the day, finally some "easy" stuff (the routes my BF finds are not usually easy enough for me, and it's never truly easy). I climbed the strongest and fastest I have in a long time, and with less hesitation/freak-out about moves. Yes, it was an easyish route, but I wasn't scared. Pretty sure that's the yoga effect, my friends. :)

Since I'd missed Friday night again (it's not even like I'm going out and partying, I just cook longer and relax longer and start drinking wine earlier...), I had to do a double Sunday and make up for at least one of my two missed classes.

Previous experiences with doubles had not been good: I had done one class early and one class later, and the later class was usually really hard. So of course I was realllllly intimidated by the idea of doing back-to-back classes, followed by my usual hours of cleaning. I'd carefully planned out that in the half-hour between classes, I would chug a coconut water, shower quickly, change clothes, and help as needed at the desk. Well, the desk was chaos from the start, and I didn't have a chance to shower or change. (Importantly, I got the coconut water!)

I ran into the room for the second class just as the teacher was about to start pranayama, and I had a good, strong class. It was small, and nearly half of the students were brand-newbies. I think I decided that since I had to be an example, I *couldn't* have a weak or unfocused class. And I didn't. (And the new kids did so great! I was so proud of them.)

The first class was really aggravating on a personal-space level, and the work-study cleaning after class was really frustrating, and I could go on and on and on here about the specifics, but I'm mostly going to just try to let it go.

One funny thing, though:
I thoroughly cleaned the mirrors during the long gap between the second morning class and the (usually very small) afternoon class. They looked awesome. They were perfectly clean. The later-class's teacher and I had been discussing various cleaning issues/dramas. Usually after class, the mirrors just need to be spot-cleaned. I told D that I'd done everything possible to make her post-class duties easy, and she'd just have to spot-clean the mirrors before leaving. ... ... ... ...

And then The Flinger walked in. As soon as he was safely in the studio, we just smacked our palms to our foreheads. The best-laid plans...

Days 12, 13, 14/30: Ending on a high note

Day 12: Friday. I didn't practice Thursday night because I was headache-y and barfy when I got home from work. Friday, more of the same, plus sore throat. I was in bed at 8:30. Four classes down; this is not good...

Day 13: Saturday. I slept til 10:30 on Saturday morning! I never sleep that much. Crazy. Woke up with the same sore throat, but it went away after a few hours. Thought about going to the $10 karma/donation class at the studio 45 minutes away, but decided to save myself lots of time and do a hot-as-possible class at home. how did I accomplish this? I baked bread and squash all day, so the apartment was warm; it was humid because it's rained for three days; boyfriend built a fire and I ran the space heater; and I left my fleece on over my thermal long-sleeved shirt the whole 90 minutes. Sweaty!

It was probably one of my "worst" home practices. My contact lenses were really bothering me, so it was hard to focus on whichever spot on the wall was representing my eyes or knees at any given time. The lenses just kept moving around. To add to my list of good things about practicing at home: Cursing is less frowned upon. Again, Leo the dog assisted:


(This picture is from a few weeks ago, but this is what he does. Here, his head is tucked under my arm. He was making sure my "exactly forehead" was on my knee.)

Despite the challenging practice, I didn't sleep that well. High winds have accompanied the rain, and we're living in fear that tree branches will come flying through the window at any time. But particularly in the middle of the night.

Day 14: Sunday (today). The real estate office was showing our apartment this afternoon, so we tried to go for a hike. Alas, the place we wanted to go was closed. So we wandered around down by the Hudson instead. (Here's a picture, not by me, of what it looked like.) Walking back to the car, my phone rang with a weird number, so I almost didn't answer it. But then I did, and it was the owner of the 45-minutes-away studio!!! She was calling about work-study, and asked when I could meet her to talk about it. She had a class getting out at 4:30 could I come then?

I raced down there, walked in at 4:33, and walked out at 4:39 with a job! Woooohoooo!!! I start Thursday night, vacuuming and cleaning mirrors (she didn't mention washing towels, but I imagine that'd be part of it, too). I'm so, so, so excited. I have absolutely no idea why she is letting me do this (she doesn't know me at all!), but I am so humbled and honored. Weekend morning doubles, here I come!

Now it's time for me to fire up the heater and roll out the mat. I want to get a good practice in before continuing to cook. I hope you all had a great weekend!

xoxo

Days 5/6: Double double

Friday night's practice was just fine. I love that the boyfriend "made" me practice, and cooked a kickass dinner while I was suffering 90 minutes (not 90 years) (among things Bikram says on the CD that play on "shuffle" in my head throughout the day).

I repaid the favor by hiking up some serious hills today so he could climb, and I'd belay him. It sounds almost risqué, but it just means that I hold the ropes so he doesn't smash his head open or get hurt very badly in a fall from a story or three in the air... We got up to the cliff, and it was too snowy for him to set up an anchor. Ah well. It was 50 degrees and GORGEOUS outside, and I had fun, despite tweaking my ankle (again! grrr.) in a wretched mix of snow and mud.

He left to do groceries, leaving me (and Leo) to yoga, but then a friend called and talked for... 90 minutes. No joke. We hung up moments before Bryan walked back in with dinner fixins. Since I'd planned on yoga-ing while he was out, and then relaxing the rest of the night with him, I went ahead and honored the second part of the plan. The burritos and wine were so worth it. :)

It's easy to think, well, it's the first week of my challenge and already I've missed two classes; what's the point in trying to do this? Well, my friends, doing it is the point. I'm not too worried, either, about getting in my 30 classes in 30 days. Know why? I have a double tomorrow. No doubt I can fit another one in at some point. That's what weekends are for!

I have to be out the door by 6:30 a.m. tomorrow to make it up to my friend's 9 a.m. class, two hours north of here. (Why the extra half-hour, you ask? I need a good spot, so I can be a mirror-hog!) Brunch afterward, then bumming around Saratoga Springs until the "silent class" (set to music? huh?) at 4.

Soooo looking forward to my day of yoga and friends tomorrow. Hope you all are feeling peaceful and content. :)
xoxo

"Long way from home, to kill yourself..."

So I've been keeping up on my little challenge so far. For two weeks in a row, I've practiced three times each week. The first week, it was three full-length Bikram classes! The second week, it was one single-set class and two regular classes. Only the first class of all six was in a studio, but that's OK. I can bundle with the best of 'em.

I was sweating almost immediately yesterday! I wonder if, after the past few years of classes, there's some kind of muscle/body memory that tells my pores to open wide as soon as I start the Pranayama breathing? My iTunes crashed after Fixed Firm pose yesterday, so I did the remaining postures in silence... It was nice.

I got to hold Camel as long as I wanted (yes, I'm one of those sickos who really enjoys it), so I stayed upside-down for ten long, deep, slow breaths. But I made a deal with myself: I have to stay in Rabbit posture for the same length of time that I hold Camel. My upper and middle back are so stiff (e.g. 90-degree backbends from my lower back, wonkily wrapped arms in Eagle, miserable floor bow, among others) that I really have to constantly think about rounding "360 degree angle," and lifting my hips to stretch my back. A teacher once said going into this posture should be like "curling in on yourself like a cinnamon roll." I like that visual, even though it makes me just a little bit hungry sometimes. Increasing flexibility in my upper back is a big goal of mine.

After practicing yesterday, I went on a reeeeeaaaally cold hike with B and the dog along the face of Mount Beacon (an old fallback that takes an hour flat. We call it Leo's Loop). It was so nice to see the sun set over the river. Between the yoga and the hike, I'm sore today. It feels good! :)