Talk about a challenge!

I've completed 5 classes in the Living Yoga 2 month Bikram yoga challenge. Every fall, the NE studio (now 2 studios) holds a yoga-thon challenge to raise money for Living Yoga and to encourage yogis to deepen their practice.

Living Yoga is a local non-profit that brings yoga classes (taught almost entirely by volunteers) to the incarcerated, to people in rehab, and to those living in shelters. It's a great organization, and at some point, I want to blog a bit about the program and the profound difference it's made for so many. All of us participating in the challenge are collecting sponsors/donations (hey, feel free to contact me by email if you want to pledge--no donation is too small!) and trying to ramp up our practices' frequency during the period from September 15 until November 15. My goal is 62 classes in these 62 days. Five down, 57 to go.

I am also finally going to try to drag myself into advanced class, and possibly to the 'coached' class for participants in the local/regional yoga championships. I do not want to compete. I mean, I really really don't want to do this thing.

I am old, my back's not flexible, and I don't have a very pretty practice.
I wobble, I grimace, I sweat and grunt and can't go very far in many many asana.
But my teachers encourage me to train for the competition, to do deeper work on my practice, and to challenge myself. Since I've expressed interest in teacher training, I'm told that taking part in the competition will be an especially valuable experience.

I'm not ready!
I'm gonna do it anyway.
Wheeee!
God, I'm scared.
Yikes!