New stuff! New challenge!

I am sitting here at my computer, feeling that nasty twinge of sciatic pain in my right hip. Something's out of whack in my back, and I have sciatica that comes and goes. I was moving some heavy boxes, and I strained some back muscles and also knocked things a bit out of alignment, I guess. I had a very very tough class the day after I hurt myself, but it's been better every day since then. And I've had some really good classes this week.

Today will be my 8th consecutive day of practice. I've really neglected my practice these past few months. I had a whole week with no yoga in June, and I cut back to 4X/wk for most of the summer. I didn't intend to do so, but I somehow just didn't make it to class an awful lot of the time.

Another thing I don't like to think about is this: I gained back about 9 of the 12 pounds I'd lost during my 101 Day Challenge (from Jan 1- Apr 11). :(

I ate bad food too often this summer, and I ate a lot. During the challenge, I could eat damn near anything and still find myself losing weight. That every single day thing makes a HUGE difference in my metabolism, and I got a little cocky, thinking I could have all of the fries I wanted w/o gaining. Well, guess what? Unless I've got an intense daily practice going, I've got to be more conscientious about my diet. Damn it.

Well, things must change! I looked up my attendance, and I found that if I go to class every single day until the end of the year, I will end up with 309 classes for 2010. I have a new goal now: I want to end 2010 with at least 310 classes for the year. I am also gonna do my best to eat right! More vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, healthy fats.

An added incentive to attend class daily is our studios' annual Bikram Yoga Challenge. Every fall, our studio has a 30 or 60 day challenge that's a fund-raiser for Living Yoga, a program that brings yoga classes to the incarcerated, to people in drug and alcohol addiction treatment, and to people living in domestic violence shelters. I've volunteered a little for Living Yoga, but I've never signed up for the fund-raising challenge. We gather pledges of support--a friend might pledge to donate $1 for each class we attend during the 30 or 60 day challenge period. I'm gonna do it this year! I plan to be doing the yoga anyway, so I may as well do what I can to contribute to Living Yoga.

Oh, and I have a new yoga opportunity outside of Bikram: Once a week, I am going to be assisting an Iyengar teacher with a class for people living with multiple sclerosis. I'm very excited about it. I start next week.

I've got a new hobby/project here at home too: Kombucha brewing! Is kombucha a big thing at other Bikram studios? We sell it at ours, and it's very popular. A student visiting from the South was sort of mystified by it, had never seen it before, so I wonder if it's a West coast thing? I used to hate the stuff, but now I crave it. At $4 a bottle, it's an expensive addiction, but it tastes seriously wonderful after class. Several people from our studio brew their own, and I recently adopted a couple of "babies" to start my own brewing. Very excited about this too!

So, I'm off to the studio quite soon. Gonna run the front desk, do the greeting and signing in, duck into class at the last minute, then clean the studio after everyone leaves. Cooler weather and back-to-school schedule changes are already making our classes fill up quicker. It's weird to be up sort of late, doing something yoga-related. I usually don't get home until almost midnight when I clean after a 7PM class.

I am feeling a little of the 'back-to-school' enthusiasm myself. I'm going to be back to daily yoga classes, back to teaching a little bit, and back to a little more focus on my own health and well-being. And I'm going to blog more too!

I'm Back!

I can't believe that it's been so long since I've written anything here! I have been busy--working at 2 jobs for a total of 50-70 hours/week since late April--and preoccupied.

And this is just a quick update. I've been making it to yoga quite a bit, but I haven't had a stretch of more than 7 days in a row for quite some time now. Never less than 3X/week though, usually 5.

I'm not gonna make it to TT in September. No money, not ready, etc, etc. One of our newly minted teachers told me, "If you wait 'til you feel ready, you'll never go!!" I am going to apply for a scholarship for Spring Teacher Training and see what happens.

Tonight I practiced with 3 other women at a class taught by one of our very best teachers and yoginis. After class, in the changing room, she said, "Oh, my muscles are so sore!" I said, "Oh, what from?" and she said, "I don't know!" For some reason, I found this shocking. I guess that I wasn't aware of how much and how often I put skilled yogis and teachers on a pedestal. Yes, even the strongest, most flexible, knowledgeable practitioners of yoga have aches, pains, and challenges--mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical. They put their yoga shorts on one leg at a time too, ha.

When I'm sore or achy after yoga, I sometimes tend to see it as a big negative thing, proof I'm not 'good' at yoga, or one more reason to be grumpy and resistant to my practice. I've also managed, at times, to see aches and soreness as signs of progress, encouragement, proof that my practice is moving somewhere new, doing something to literally change my body.

It's so easy to get caught up in the illusion that my practice is like a job: I have tasks to complete, and then I'll be done. I see my teacher, a woman with an incredible practice who makes every asana look effortless, who's practiced for more than a decade, and she still experiences change and growth and pain in her practice.

No, yoga practice is not like a job. It's like...I don't know...a good friendship: One never knows where it might lead, it can grow deeper, stronger, and more fulfilling with time, and often painful things somehow lead to something sweet. My best friendships are like that...and I guess that yoga is a kind of friendship, with one's self, one's spirit, and with a universal spirit, the Divine. I am so grateful for my yoga practice.

I hope to blog a little more often from here on out.
Oh, and I may be doing another Bikram Challenge soon...

Promoting Bikram Yoga...

in my neighborhood--that's what I've been doing. I never planned on doing it, but it keeps happening. I walk just a few blocks from my home through a residential area to get to my studio, which is in a nearby business district. Almost every night, as I'm staggering home, clutching my mat, with my hair still wet from the shower, people ask me, "Were you at that Bikram yoga place?" or, "Did you just do hot yoga at that studio up the street?"

I've been stopped by homeowners doing yard work, a group of hipster kids on fixies, young mothers pushing strollers around the neighborhood, and an elderly gentleman sitting on his porch. People ask, "What is Bikram yoga like?" I very much loved it when the older man asked me, "Do you think that I could do that stuff?" and I was able to say, without reservations, "Yes!"

I feel really fortunate to live in my cozy little neighborhood, the kind of place where people see our new studio as a part of our community and are interested in checking it out. I hope I see more of my neighbors there next time we have community day. I want to keep spreading the word.

Finding Time...

for yoga, for blogging, for rest and relaxation has been hard! I've been working 50+ hours a week. I know that millions of other people work that much and more all of the time, but it's a shock to my system after a year and a half of unemployment and very part time employment. I missed a day or two or three of yoga every single week since I started working!

Random thoughts about my yoga practice these days:

I feel like the princess and the pea at yoga class a lot. Every little wrinkle in my mat or towel seems to drive me crazy and distract me. I'm working on staying focused on my practice and overcoming the urge to be distracted. I guess the princess in that fairy tale probably needed to fight distraction as well. Bikram would've sorted her out.

My left hip joint did something weird and painful last week...but it seemed to straighten out my left leg a bit. In the midst of wind-removing pose, I felt something crackle and move and hurt, deep in my left hip, right in the joint. I had intermittent soreness and pain for 4-5 days afterward, but it feels fine now. I think that my hip joint is more open, and some of the misalignment in my left leg seems to be diminished. Weird to have it happen so suddenly, especially since I've felt so sleep deprived, tired and achy these last several weeks. But I think it's a good thing.

Radiant heat in the yoga studio flooring is...awfully unpleasant at times. Today, at the end of standing series, the teacher said something like, "Now we'll rest on the floor," but I heard it as,"Now we'll ROAST on the floor." Honestly, I feel like slab of meat on a grill when the floor is really hot. I hate it.

There is a direct correlation between how grounded and balanced I feel in my work, social, and home life and how well I am able to perform balancing postures.

If class ever becomes routine to you, all you need to do is listen very closely to the dialogue and try to have 'beginner's mind.' Just try to hear the instructions, as if you didn't know the posture at all and were just starting out, and you will find a plethora of new things to focus on.

Lots of way too hot classes in a row almost suck the life out of you, but you get really tough from powering through them. When you go to a 'normal' 105 degree class after 3 days of classes with temps over 108, you will feel like Super Yogi, and every posture will seem easy.

I am up way too late again...but at least I get to sleep in tomorrow. Back to work on Sunday, but back to yoga every day. I hope to post here more often, and I hope to have something worthwhile to say!

A picture of my best friend



and two pictures of me.


These were taken just after class on Day 101 of my challenge, April 11. I can't figure out whose legs are in the last photo! I suppose I should try to crop them out, but I kinda like them there.

These are my "after" photos, but I don't have copies of the "before" shots; they were on my ex's camera and computer. You'll have to trust me when I say, there was in a noticeable improvement in my appearance and in my standing bow. My practice improved and changed so much. The challenge was such a valuable experience.

No sleep, plenty of energy...

I had to get up early today, and I didn't sleep well last night. I got four or five hours of sleep, but no more than an hour at a time. I felt very very sleepy during my training sessions for work, but once I got to yoga, I felt great. I had a fabulous class with no fatigue at all.

How weird is that? Especially since I felt run down and ill yesterday.

I've noticed this before, that I often have pretty good classes on days when I am sleep deprived. I've always heard stories of how Bikram keeps everyone up late at teacher training, but maybe there really is some process whereby we tap into a secret store of energy when we don't get much sleep. Hmm.

Changes Again

I need to get to bed because I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow and a busy couple of weeks ahead. Just finished eating late dinner after cleaning the yoga studio tonight. It's pouring rain outside.

My yoga was difficult today, but good, and healing. I woke up with a nasty sinus headache, and I felt crappy all day long. I think I am feeling stressed out, and it's making me run down. I dosed up on some herbal tinctures, and like blogger Bikram Barbie, I made friends with my neti pot. I had several packets of Emergen-C and lots of water and ginger lemon tea. I ate raw garlic too, and I hope that no one at yoga will hate me for it, because I know it stinks when it's sweated out.

Yoga took a lot of effort. I wanted very badly to sit out postures, just purely from fatigue, but I managed to keep telling myself, "just one more set; it'll be okay," and I made it through all of the postures. Well, actually, I didn't stay in camel for the full allotment of time on the second set.

I felt almost human again after yoga. I rested a long while after class, and I drank two liters of water.

I think that a lot of my stress is just about changes in my life. Change is often stressful, even when it's good change. I am going to be a lot busier for the next few months. I've been unemployed and lazy for so long. I'm used to relaxing and reading and walking the dog and going to yoga, teaching a little here and there, applying for a few jobs every week. It's a little jarring to contemplate switching up the routine, but it is very welcome, this change.

I'm going to be spending more and more time at the studio(s): I was offered some part time paid work, cleaning and maintenance along with a little bit of front desk work. My old "home" studio closed last month when the owners opened the beautiful new studio in my neighborhood. The original studio will be re-opening some time in May, so there's a need for more staffing. I am so happy to get a little paid employment, especially since it's at a place I love with people I love to be around. As a person who's been unemployed for quite a while, I can't tell you how nice it is to be offered a job, out of the blue (and not have to write another freaking cover letter)!

I'm also starting temporary work tomorrow morning for the US Census Bureau. I worked for the Census last year, and we were told we'd have about 2 months work, but it ended up being just 3 weeks. I am expecting something similar this time. I will have several 9 hour days for training to start out.

And one more change is happening at the end of the week: I'm getting a housemate. I am renting out the extra bedroom. My housemate is really wonderful, and she will be here through the summer. She's leaving to start a graduate program in September, and I hope to either develop a means of steady income sufficient to pay the bills here on my own by then or else find a way to downsize. Maybe I'd get another housemate then, but I have to say, I like that this is a temporary arrangement, just in case.

I think yoga will kick this sinus issue out of me if I keep going to class every day and get some rest! Yoga is so amazing.