And another 2 classes in the bag.
I practiced good yoga yesterday, the 4:30 afternoon class. I felt great and strong, during and after class. Everything was beautiful. I had to rush off to a meeting at 7PM and wasn't home 'til almost 10. We ate a light late dinner, went to bed, and I was still just buzzing with energy, unable to sleep. I read for a bit, and suddenly felt ravenously hungry. I got up at 1:30 AM and ate two bowls of granola! I was just starving. I drank more water too; I was also feeling very thirsty. It must have been way after 2 when I finally slept, and once T got up at 6:30, I was more or less awake for the day, though I lingered in bed for another hour.
As it happens, today I needed to get to a morning class in order to make it to class at all. I really didn't have a lot of time to hydrate more, but I thought that since I'd had plenty of water last night, I might be okay.
Nah. Class sucked. Or my experience of class today sucked. I'm a wimp about morning classes anyway. And the whole water/electrolyte thing was out of whack for me. I was not on my proper (ahem) schedule, so I was feeling some intestinal discomfort, if you catch my drift. The room didn't feel hot, yet there seemed to be no air flow at all. I spent the whole 90 minutes nauseated and trying to focus on anything other than how my guts were feeling.
Everyone jokes that Bikram's Torture Chamber is Hell, because, you know, it's hot in there. Sartre said, "Hell is other people." Well, Hell was other people in my class this morning. Or another person.
Damn it, I let somebody steal my peace. And I was doing a pretty good job of peace-stealing all on my own, with my fixations on my guts and my water bottle and my thirst and my nausea.
Just a couple of days ago, That Girl was in another class with me. That Girl was on the other side of the room, but I heard her burst into tears during class. She spent a good deal of it sobbing in savasana. In that class, I felt like giving her a hug, even though I don't know her at all. I've felt that kind of intense emotional release in yoga class myself.
After that class, a few of us were lingering in the lobby, chatting, and a guy who'd been right in front of That Girl started bitching about her, "Sobbing and moaning and groaning! Why didn't the teacher tell her to leave? What a distraction! I couldn't stand it!" I felt he was being a little insensitive, so I kind of lobbed out a few comments about not letting anyone steal your peace, but none of it was really any of my business--That Girl's sobs, the teacher's response, the dude's reaction. Whatevs, people.
Well, today, That Girl was right behind me in class. And by the time we hit standing bow-pulling pose, the wailing had begun. It was louder and more continuous today. It was a vocal sort of crying, no snuffling or tears. The instructor was one of our young ladies who is fresh out of teacher training and a rather shy person. She finally walked back to sobbing That Girl and whispered, "Are you okay?" That Girl's crying stopped abruptly, like she's thrown a switch. She said loudly, in a tone that managed to combine nonchalance with a hint of indignation, "Sure. I'm just having a lot of emotional release. That's why I come here."
"Um, I'm with you, Insensitive Dude," I thought. "They gotta make her stop."
The poor teacher more or less just said, "oh," and went on with class. My mind was off and running in my own personal Hell of annoyance, blame, impatience, and insensitivity. And I was already focusing too much attention on my physical discomforts and not enough on my breath or my asana. Bah! I let my thoughts suck away my energy.
I gave up. I sat out camel and rabbit. I couldn't bear the thought of them, what with the nausea and all. I couldn't bear being in the room, what with That Girl, hamming it up back there.
I continued to silently hate on That Girl in the dressing room, where she talked loudly on her cell phone, but you know what? I really don't ever want to let myself think or feel that way again.
My original response to the situation in class a few days ago is the way I want to think about such things: It's really not my business--other people's behavior, no matter how distracting; how the teachers respond to other students; what the rest of the class thinks of noise in class. I am there to practice yoga. I can only control me and my own response. Getting annoyed and blame-y doesn't help in any way. It hurts. It wastes my energy, and on some level, even if I think I'm not showing it outwardly, I'm putting out a negative vibe.
I'll quote Sartre out of context, again: "We are left alone, without excuse." That's me, after class. I had a bad time at yoga class today, but no matter what happened there, my practice is mine alone, and I am without excuse.
I gotta take this yoga bull by the horns and get serious. No distractions.
Go Back and Look Again
8 years ago
You could also quote Robert Lowell's "Skunk Hour"/ Paradise Lost: "I myself am hell/ nobody's here." That quote has always stuck with me, and it jumped right into my head here. Sometimes all you can deal with is your self.
ReplyDeleteYikes, Sisya. That sounds like a rough class. But it's great that you made it through, especially after a rough night.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to make of the sobbing girl. I realize that part of practicing means being in a group setting, letting go of trying to control the environment, etc. But sobbing? Every time? Does that cross the line of unacceptable behavior in class? There's a guy who used to moan and groan a lot, and my teachers always told him to shut the fuck up. (ok, so they put it more delicately than that ;-) He eventually stopped. Maybe sobbing is different, though. I have cried in class, and while it was quiet, I probably wouldn't have been able to stop if the teacher noticed and told me to.
Dunno what to make of that one!
J, Once again you said almost exactly what I was going to say.
ReplyDeleteThe reason Bikram can be hell is because you are forced to face yourself in that room. No excuses, nothing to hide behind. That is why we are so keen to blame the heat, or the teacher, or the person in front doing whatever. We are just trying to find any reason not to look within. This isn't a criticism. It's part of how we are brought up. A well understood defence mechanism.
I was going to go with some witty paraphrase of Oscar Wilde's ode to Absinthe:
"After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally, you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world."
It might be horrible, but we need to see it so we can fix it.
I love those quotes, dancingj and Johan! It definitely is all about dealing with ones' self.
ReplyDeleteYolk E, thank you for your empathy! If it were my studio and my class, I think I would find it unacceptable for someone to routinely make a lot of noise, especially if the person seems capable of NOT making a lot of noise. I'd tell her to see how the emotional release might manifest if she did it silently with smooth breath!
But I only get to be in charge of ME!
An instructor from my Vinyasa Yoga teacher training told us we were all wimps to want to have these mellow, quiet, peaceful places to do yoga and/or meditate. She said, "In India, in cities, everywhere you go, there's noisy traffic, nerve-jangling music, and people talking at the top of their voices. There's no quiet outside of you. You have to find the quiet INSIDE of you."
Oh that is so true about india. It was the hardest thing for me there, just once ever so often (maybe once a week) I would have liked and hour to just get a way from everything and just be with myself. That is completely impossible there. I remember one day we hiked for 3 hours into the mountains and we were still surrounded by people. Then when they finally thinned out we came over a ridge just to find a gigantic 'Have a break, Have a kitkat' billboard, ARGH!
ReplyDelete