An 8:15, Again

Ooof oooof oooof. Did you ever have a day where--no matter how well rested and how great your weekend was, how blissful you felt gliding into the long swan song of Sunday, how ready and fueled up you felt, how prepped you were--Monday was just a giant fail?

Monday was a not-giant fail. But not a great day. By 2nd period, I was irritated with my students, and irritated with myself for being irritated, and for not being a masterful teacher who could turn a class around and make a lesson work. Instead, I forced it through in two different periods, and ended up feeling a little broken. Oy, these students. Such power they can have--and so often, they choose to let it go--mostly, because they aren't old enough to recognize what power they do have, or how to use it wisely.

But I left school feeling keyed up, planning on how to prevent failure instead of ensuring success (TOTALLY different things, especially in the classroom) and am still nervous now, because my supervisor is observing me tomorrow in my history class. NOTE: I am not a trained history teacher. So, this would be my...oh, third...history class EVER, and I am feeling fairly wildly out of my element. I have prepped and planned and Xeroxed and created, and frankly, have no time before 8am tomorrow to hunt down any genies in any thrift store bottles.

And, I face down demons of neurosis every day, demons that tell me that if I'm not pouring myself into every worksheet, every project, every nuance of every word, every decision which should really be guided by a goal and a mission, every every every detail of classroom life--well, then I'm not dedicated enough as a teacher, and I really need to either change or leave. Do other professions come with such soul-searching, so constantly?

Tonight, I find myself yearning, just yearning, for both the power of Bikram and the soothing certainty of it. Although I can't guarantee anything about class after the first minute, I can agree to find myself in some moment of some posture tonight. I can agree to find myself, a little bit truer to myself, and a little more real. Rabbit will follow Camel, and all I need to do is show up to that moment, and let someone else figure out what comes next. I can thank Bikram for helping me realize that a fail day is just a day, not a life sentence, and that at some point, the galloping horse that is teaching will seem less like a death threat and more like an adventure.

Erm. Theoretically. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes.

Makeovers from the Inside Ot

To feel more beautiful:

breathe.
sit by the ocean for as long as you can.
think about things you love.
drink coconut water and kombucha and green tea and water and feel juicy from the inside out.
laugh at babies screaming with joy as they run on the beach.
find something wonderful to focus on. if you can't find wonderful, choose good. good is still great.

soak yourself with your own sweat for 90 minutes. in those 90 minutes, try to focus on "so....ham" as you breath. try not to focus on Drill Sergeant Instructor looking at you. try not to focus on anyone else's practice. remember that you are loved and wonderful and amazing. be proud of yourself for showing up. do what you can, as much as you can. and give it up when it is over. let the sweat drip in your nose and ears and eyes. smile. feel the calm light glow inside you during those silent 20 seconds, and know it's yours, and it lives in you, and it is you, and it is a certain, true thing.

resolve to never let 4 days go by without yoga again.

Paige Williams says it best, in her recent part-2 of her O Magazine featured Bikram journey:

"One afternoon in the middle of ustrasana, or camel pose—a killer backbend that some consider the toughest posture in the whole practice—it occurs to me that if I can remain calm and focused while in such a physically stressful state, I can get through anything. The studio around me is full of people who know just what I mean. They practice not because a Bikram studio is a particularly lovely place to spend 90 minutes a day but because without it, they would be angry, inflexible, immobilized, fatigued, intolerant, petty, pained, and maybe even dead. The type-A personalities feel calmer. Every student has a story. "

It's exactly like that for me, too: with Bikram, I am calm, focused and engaged. Open, willing, fierce. I can find myself more easily. I can stop those tearing, wild jags of stress and strain and even self-hatred before they become storms. I am beginning the construction of an inner harbor that holds me safe, and keeps me healthy--not just physically, but as Iyengar describes it: healthy of mind, body, and soul. Four days, and for each (well, every one except Friday; I was just plain lazy last night) I had an excuse. And really, I thought today's class would be so impossibly difficult it would set me up for a reason to never go again--you know, oh, sheesh, I went back, and it was just so terrible I never went again, oh whoops, oh jee-willikers.

But it was beautiful. From start to finish, it was like a stream of water being poured into me. I had no attachment to any part, any pose. I was just there and I did what I could, and it was the fastest 90 minutes yet. I felt like I was dancing with all the different elements: my impatience, my fear, my breathing, my tight right side and my weaker left side, my willingness to get back up, my sweat, my inner voice, my points of calm--and everything was just weaving together into some greater journey.

Really. It really did feel just that good. It is not lovely. I don't particularly like having sweat drip inside my ear. or into my eyes, or trying to hoik my legs up in Locust, or try to rotate my hip down in Balancing Stick. But I do love loving myself. And I certainly do love being calm. I hope to find myself in a hot room again. Because in that hot room is the road to myself.

And I feel like making a discovery.

This is Why I Do Yoga

It's 6:25pm, and I am halfway through a bottle of wine and a box of Cheez-Its.

I realize that does not sound like a normal beginning to a yoga blog, but here's the rest of the story.

I teach middle school. Grades--for the entire semester--are due the day after tomorrow. I just finished inputting my final grades, and realized that the average midterm grade for one of my classes was really low. So, I went to go ask my administrator what to do--scale them, curve them, write a letter home, etc. And he said, ooh, those grades really do suck, you should delete the progress report if you can. So, I went into the grading software system, and hit what I THOUGHT was delete for just that one test grade--you know, thinking that I could just re-enter them tomorrow, really no biggie.

Except.

Except, I accidentally deleted EVERY SINGLE TEST GRADE FROM THE WHOLE SEMESTER.

Now, take a deep breath to get the full enormity of what I just said.

If you are a teacher, you are CRINGING right now.

I had to send out an apologetic email. My gradebook may not be able to be fixed. I may have to enter in only the two test grades I have a record for (because oh, yeah, I sort of forgot to record the third test in my paper roster, so I only have three grades on hand). Or, it may get fixed. Or, it may not. I have 36 hours to fix it. And, I'm teaching two brand-new, never-ever-been-taught-before classes tomorrow.

Where does the oh-goody-I-do-yoga thing come in?

Because I'm not all that freaked out. Aside from the initial crying fit, I feel pretty okay. I know that one way or another, everything is going to get worked out. I did what I could to fix it. I've been honest with the parents, and I'll get their kids' grade to be as accurate as I can. And right now, that's the best I can do.

It's not the wine talking, either: it's something deeper, more real, and more lasting than just a nice wine buzz. It's the calm that I earned from the last four nights of committing to being steady, present and doing as much as I could, as I could do it.

So: do Bikram so on those horrible days, when you haven't eaten anything and you planned a class badly and you accidentally delete every test from your entire semester with no immediate means of retrieval and you still need to cut up the makings for an entire quilt before you go to bed and you have no clean coffee mugs, underwear or plates because you've been so busy you haven't had a moment to do errands and yes, you GET that Cheez-its aren't dinner...

So that on THOSE days, nothing really steals your peace.

gratitude and appreciation.

I'm grateful for...

--the cards and notes my 7th graders made for me after their finals were done
--that I've got 3 out of 6 classes graded
--that I just woke up from a nice nap
--that I'm going to be able to make a 6:30 class tonight--thank goodness for multiple studios in one city!

Headed to the bigger studio, further away for class tonight. It's the one that I began going to a few weeks ago, when all this yoga madness started, and at the time, it was the only one I knew about. I just spent a week at a smaller studio closer to my house, and...look, after 3 classes, the instructor was calling out my name and giving me corrections, which is NICE. It's got fewer classes, and the changing room is small, and the room itself is pretty small--but it's also more human.

I need this class so much--my cramps this month have been worse than they usually are, and my lower back feels like someone spent a few hours knotting it. I'm tired tired tired, and my wrist is sore from grading 100+ essays and exams, and I'm tired tired tired--but I will not take two days off in a row again if I can help it. Don't think, Miss M.--just go.

Will I Make It?

I took two nights off--one, the planned-on rest day, which was very nice, and after which I really wanted a class. So, Tuesday night, I'm driving to the studio, having accidentally (I think I was surfing the old Net-ski, or something totally useful like that) and get caught in traffic SoCal style. Which meant going about 15 feet every 5 minutes, and which meant I got all of half a mile closer to the studio before I officially missed class. Self, I said, that's fine, you really want to get to class, and you should. So, I planned on the 8:30--the class I knew they had because they had it the night before...right?

I head back out, all clothed, all watered, all ready, and I drive all the way back (which is not so far in SoCal terms, but it's long enough to make it an annoying waste of gas)...

And they only have the 8:30 class on Mondays and Wednesdays. Shit, to be totally blunt. Shit.

I was a little annoyed. The happy spot, she was not to be found. My own fault for not checking the schedule, but AAAAARRGGH.

Work, by the way, is impossibly difficult right now--it's finals, and everyone is stressed, teachers and students alike. Teachers are pissy because we have to grade 100+exams and write 100+ report cards and deal with 100+ stressed-out students, and students are stressed because they now have to be able to recall 9873 bits of information they're really never going to be called on to use again. I am not a fan of finals. And, major administrative drama takes place. And, it's just a long, long week in general by this point.

So you'll understand just how much I wanted to make the 6:30 class last night--and I did, by the skin of my teeth. I was peeling off my heels and tights practically as soon as I hit the door--threw on my bra and shorts as quickly as a human being ever has, and was the last person in the door.

God, it was nice. Two days off is too much, really. It was a hard class in a lot of ways--I hadn't eaten very much yesterday, and was really lightheaded by the middle of the floor series, and my balance was just off, and to be honest, I had a hard time getting out of my own head. But I was there, and I did yoga, and it was good.

I am going to try my best for the 8:!5 tonight, but it is my moontime, nudgenudgewinkwink, and I am crampy and sore. I know plenty of yoginis blaze right through, regardless, and I know I'll feel better....someone convince me...

(As soon as I typed that, my next door neighbor started blaring evil European techno. Yes, that will get me out the door.)

A Rest. And, a Lesson.

Tonight is a rest night, after three classes in a row. And a lesson: no matter that there's an 8:30pm class offered at the studio:

I do not want to take it. I am constantly lulled by my relative get-up-and-go at 6:15, when I'm home and chilling out finally, into thinking that hey, 8:30 is doable! And also, great! Let's go!

And despite the fact that classes are like pizza--in general, it's very rarely bad, I am winding all the way down by 8:30, and don't want to be out driving around San Diego at 10pm.

So, this week, I'm planning to succeed to find myself in class at 6:30--which means packing clothes and keeping them in the car, bringing good food to school so I don't have to drive home but also don't find myself eating the leftover Hanukkah candy for dinner, and I think most of all, realigning my intention. The idea of going to the 8:30 class does not create peace, but sets up a struggle for yea!/ eh...domination.

Plus, it's finals week. And no matter how hot that room gets, no matter how many drops of sweat make their way into my eyes and ears, no matter how challenging the entire Standing series gets: it is better by far than grading.

Class #11: It's Interesting That I Don't Want to Teach

It struck me yesterday that I had no desire to teach Bikram, really.

Which is interesting as all get out to me, since in every aspect, every arena, every experience of my life, I have thought:

I could do this. I could do it like this. I would do it this way. I can see myself up there, and when I get there, I'd do it like this. I have spent entire vinyasa yoga classes running my own dialogue through my head; I have entered grad programs--yes, plural--and spent countless hours analyzing and rethinking and, let's be honest:

Snarking. Sadly, there is no other way to gloss it that is authentic; I may have thought about improvement, but it was really me saying, "I am better."

And really, was I even listening? All those hours, and jobs, and bosses, and programs, and classes? Was I even there, or was I waiting impatiently for my imaginary moment to shine and be seen?

Now, maybe the difference lies in the fact that I really am a teacher, and exquisitely, painfully aware of what it means to teach--of how hard it is, and how challenging it is to remain authentic and honest and open and turned out instead of in. Many have been the days when I drag myself to the car and drag myself home and make a something for dinner, too tired from the emotional life of school to think about anything. Many, conversely and of course and thankfully, have been the days when I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to my calling, where I could stay in a classroom forever, when I know what I'm doing is right the way rightness is meant to be...

But the point is that teaching is h-a to the capital effing RD. And when I get to class, and the excitement is building, all I'm thinking about is the giant 90-minute break hidden inside a hellaciously sweaty and almost-but-not-quite too hard experience.

In those 90 minutes, I just do. I do and I push and I stretch and try and fall and gulp and sweat, and maybe I check in with the thought that says, "nope, not this!" and try to make it eat itself--but I don't think. I don't plan. I'm just there.

And I think that's a really freeing thing for me. I set my intention and I throw myself off the bridge and I get through, however gracefully or ungainfully those 90 minutes prove themselves to be. I'm not a teacher. I am taught.

And I like that enough to not try to do anything else about it.

Class #10: I Had An Unfortunate Outfit On

But fortunately, that was the worst thing about the class. (And the leggings have now become bedtime-only, since when wet, they weigh about 67 pounds and give me a cameltoe, to put it bluntly.)

Another lovely class; I was exhausted all day today, just feeling very down--and some self-caused financial woes didn't help. I napped, sat out on the patio, listened to a favorite personal growth podcast, journaled a wee bit, and was basically a lazy bum who doesn't take enough advantage of the sunshine-y loveliness of San Diego.

But around 3, I started to perk up--yoga! in 1 hour!--and by the time I got to the studio, I was genuinely excited.

I think it's Camel. I've done both sets, two days in a row now, and I am positively giggling when I get out of it. I'm still clinging to some residual habits of mind--oh, I'm going to be scared, oh, I'm not going to like this--but once the instructor had me switch my handhold around, it felt much more open, much faster.

So, yeah, now I like it. And I like this new studio. It's less hardcore; the dialogue is the same, and the heat is the same, but there's a more laidback feel to it that I like--and plus, the class is about 1/2 as big, so the instructors actually use people's names, and getting corrections happens a lot more often. I'm using up a free week pass, and then we'll see. I'm thinking about going all the way and getting a month pass. Shut your mouth, I know, but really: I think I like this stuff. I think I am positively addicted to this yoga. I think I like giggling in Camel. I think it's helping a revolution inside myself that I had stopped believing was possible. So I try not to jinx myself--maybe I should just continue to pay drop-in rates, because every time I ever joined a gym, I stopped going after the 3rd day....maybe I shouldn't invest in a monthly pass, because what if I get really busy at school and then don't go and then I'll feel bad and then I'll feel guilty and then I'll be right back where I started....

And so on.

Which is so NOT the thinking of 20-Amen, right?

So we'll see. Again, I think: well, I'm definitely in for tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll pack my bag, chug some water, head to school and get the weekend work done. And then, I'll drive down Gennessee, getting more and more excited. Maybe tomorrow, I'll find myself giggling in Camel again.

Who knows?

Class #9: New Studio, Less Water--What Makes the Magic?

Last night was my best class yet. Unequivocally--from the way I felt during to the way I felt after (angelically strong, effortless, light, content, giddy, young, healthy, calm) to the way I practiced the poses (content, good effort--not efforting too much but giving just enough) to actually doing the poses the best I have so far--it was amazing. By Camel--which I did both of, a thing that has only happened twice--I was goofily smiling at the ceiling in Savasana.

And I totally didn't think it would happen that way. It was Friday, it was the end of a long week, I had decided to go that morning because I didn't want to go two days without practicing (which is odd, because normally, I am quite okay with no physical exertion). And, I hadn't been able to eat that much. Or drink a lot of water--I only had about a liter and half before I left. And I got caught in terrible, pile-up traffic, the kind where you don't even get to make it to the ramp for the first 15 minutes, and so even though I left my apartment with 45 minutes to spare for what should have been a 10 minute drive, I had 5 minutes to spare when I finally got to the studio.

And, it was a new studio, and they made me fill out the paperwork before class, and gave me a teeny bit of shit about paying for water after class (accept and let go, accept and let go). And, I was the last person in the room, in the furthest corner by the wall...

And, like I said, it was wonderful, right from the start. I don't know what magic happened--if it was the relaxed, easy, former surfer instructor who really seemed to like his job and really treated the dialogue as if it were actually a dialogue with the people in the room, rather than canned speech, or the smaller studio, or just ME, but once again:

I am IN for this.

The new place let me buy the 10-class challenge pass for $20, because it was my first class there, and I am IN for that too. I'm off to the 4:30 today, and now, I really have no predictions. Just a greater appreciation for magic.

Class#8: In Which I Allllmost Spewed

So, when they tell you not to eat 2-3 hours before class:

They really mean it. Even 1 1/2 hours is not enough time, so think twice before downing 3 pieces of See's chocolate and a big bowl of popcorn.

I made it through...oh, I think after party time, which means I was feeling pretty great and strong till eagle. And even though the balancing postures--I was falling out of standing bow, but I was cool. But then...then, my stomach started to just bloat. I was burping and sweating and just generally feeling like I had an alien in my tummy, and sat out more poses than I have since my first classes. It was...

Well, really, honestly, it was okay. I was so happy to be in class, and I wasn't particularly attached to doing well or doing badly. At one point, the teacher said, "Accept it and let it go," and inside my head, I nodded sagely and said, "Yes."

SO so much of the drama in my life results from not accepting or not letting go, but trying to shape, morph, define, twist, achieve. I was not at the best I'll ever be last night. But I was who I was. And my practice was just that: practice.

Bikram, more than any other yoga I've practiced (and I've taken at least a few classes in pretty much every style over the years, from Kundalini to Iyengar), resembles real life: chaotic, stressful, challenging--and also, replete with opportunities to learn and be calm. The calm I can produce and maintain during the moments in between each set of balancing stick is the same calm I can therefore produce and maintain at 1:30, when my 7th graders are wired from their sugary lunches and antsy to get out of school. The skill and gift of being able to accept and let go of the effort in a pose is the same skill it takes to leave behind the psychic damage of a difficult day--and maybe even more---to realize that it wasn't damaging, in the first place, just practice.

Just practice.

Class #7: Aaaaaaaah

Oh, that was a hard class to pull through. 8:15 may just be too late for me during the week--probably much better to rush a little bit through the afternoon to make it to the 6:30. I am TIRED. After balancing stick, nothing felt easy for me. I moved leadenly through the spine strengthening, leaving out a locust and a bow and both camels, and by the end of the seated postures, I had a headache. (PS: the headache--a heavy, dull throb around my eyes--happens with some regularity. I don't think it's dehydration today, since I had, oh, 4 liters of water--maybe low blood pressure? I wouldn't mind, but it does linger...) As always, there's the feeling of satisfaction from just doing the class, calm, a lovely feeling of stretched-ness--and sleep, she will not be eluding me tonight.

But maybe a rest day soon? I want it and yet I don't want to take the out...

A Nice Little Happy Bubble, and a Return

At this point today, I've had 2+ liters of water. This is significant, because:

a) I had to get another teacher to watch my class twice in 30 minutes to run to the restroom and pee.

b) One of my neurotic, potentially ungrounded fears (one of my yoga teachers might ask me at this point, "so what is a grounded fear?" but I digress) was that I'd have to give up Bikram and the resultant good, happy, calm, well-balanced me I like so well, and up in curled in a fetal lump underneath my computer while my 7th graders bayed like wolves to come inside. Or something like that. All because I couldn't drink the wa-wa.

So, I made a few minor changes to help ward off this nightmarish...er...nightmare. One, when I woke up this morning, at the ungodly but soon to be regular hour of 5:30, I downed a 22oz tumbler of water. Before coffee, people. Secondly, I forsook my true love, the delicious nectar of the heavenly bean, after that first cup, and had 22oz of yerba mate instead. (Someone please tell me if this is as healthy as I hope it is!) And thirdly, I drank a liter of water with Emergen-C during the afternoon class--and really, the building is so dry, my throat still hurts.

My bag is packed, my heels are off, I am READY for the 8:15 class. On the one hand: lord, I miss vacation. It's so easy to be calm and open-hearted and steady when there is no monkey wrench to be thrown into my gears. On the other hand: the test of this practice is going to come every day, when I'm finding my peace and breathing in the melee that is a high school or middle school classroom. Dedication comes in the form of ounces of water, patience in the form of 100 different students, commitment in the form of late night classes. That's just the layout of the neighborhood I live in.

At this point in weeks past, I would have tossed off a cheeky little, "well, we'll see how long that lasts!" but now, I'm not willing to consider forgoing my health and happiness. I don't want to even introduce it as a possibility, so I'll that I intend to hold true to my intention to create my own peace and happiness, and I intend to find myself in a hot room tonight.

Last night's class was a lovely coda to vacation: not effortless, but very nice. I sat out for a round of something--triangle? and fell out of standing bow, but did both camel and locust, which I sometimes let myself avoid. Doing both felt sweet. I try to leave the pose behind and return to my breath as soon as it's done; even though I spent the first two classes gasping like a mouth-breathing prank caller with asthma, I have really been trying to focus on inhaling and exhaling calmly and deeply through my nose, which does seem to make all the difference. I want to write the lesson into my body: calm is there, at my command, during and after stress. Calm and peace are there, and I can meet them after I'm done.

Pre-Class Jitters: I Should Take My Own Advice

Vacation is over as over tomorrow. So, as of tomorrow, the lovely, lovely schedule I've had for ht past two weeks--which consists mostly of waking up when I wake up, drinking coffee/ water/ peeing, checking blogs, reading, and then rolling out of the house to go to the studio, is over. Today is really the first day where real life becomes a challenge, since I've got to go in to the office and work for at least a few hours. I've set the intention to make it to the 6:30 class, and am focusing on how good it will feel to get there, and still, the little demonbeast of worry is creeping in, along with its symbiotic partner, The Back-up Plan.

The WorryDemon tells me, oh, hey, you probably won't be able to go to class, so say goodbye to the awesome way you've been feeling! You don't get to feel like that during the school year! You're going to have to go back to feeling sore and tired and miserable, I'm so sorry, but it's true, and there's nothing to be done about it. Very sad. Move along.

(Maybe it's not a WorryDemon so much as GeneralMeanness?)

Then, the good cop, Mr. Back-up Plan, chimes in, telling me: oh, hey, it's okay if you miss a class, even if you don't mean to. You can have an excuse, you know, a really good one. No one would take it badly. You can try to get there and then just eat right before hand, or get tired. You're a newbie! Take the night off! You can do yoga some other time. Don' t feel bad!

This is, to be honest, what worries me--despite all the energy I'm putting in to positively manifesting my blessings, despite all the growth and change and rebuilding--despite the fact that it's never too late to change--despite all that, I'm worried that school will start and work will start and I'll start the same loop all over again. Worrying about being perfect as a teacher, because everyone knows that once you achieve perfection, you no longer have to worry anymore! (Right? I mean, it never happened, but I'm sure that someone out there can tell me how good it is, right?) Worrying about my job, my job, my job, and letting it color every other aspect of my life, from when I go to sleep to when I make plans to when I drink water to when I let myself be happy. Because that's normal, right?

That loop SUCKED, my friends. SUCKED. And got me in a a mental state I'm not really looking to buy a ticket back to, if you know what I mean. I sense freedom at some points, some tender, sweet points in class, and I definitely sense it afterwards. And right now, I sense the shackles of a self-imposed limitation trying to extend their mean little lives for a few more minutes.

Seriously--teachers, workers of the world and yogis, UNITE! Tell me how you plan in yoga to your schedule! I'm trying to remind myself that I unquestioningly give myself 45 minutes to get ready in the morning, and that 90 minutes in a yoga studio basically gets me out of 24 hours of funk. The classes seem to move faster and faster--so it's not the 90 minutes as a chunk of time that I seem to resent--it's the commitment itself. Ideas? Solutions?

Class #5: Still In It

Every blog starts someplace, right? With some introductions scattered like breadcrumbs through the archives, with some idea, with some thing, however inchoate or broadly or narrowly or vaguely defined--with some need to communicate to someone something somewhere.

Me? I am now sharing with you that I am very aware of a moving pain in my right shoulder. It's a blocky mass that's been there for years--I blame it either on repressed childhood trauma OR a terrible but persistent habit of lugging around a 50-lb. tote bag on my right shoulder. (They do tend to be massive black hole type things--I once dipped into it and found a roll of packing tape a full month after I'd moved---and I hadn't even seen it once that month.) So, usually I just live with it, and it gets better and it gets worse-r, but in the past two classes, it's moved around. It's now someplace around the outer point of my shoulder blade. Is this normal? It's far from agonizing--it's even pretty far from annoying, but it's there and I hope it's a sign that something is releasing.

After tonight's PACKED class--seriously, about 75 people were packed in, it was FULL FULL FULL and hot hot hot, and people who were obviously regulars in a certain spot were getting all twitchy (I practiced next to one of the teachers, who calmly set up next to me in the very back, calmly set up her towel and calmly did her thing as best as she could in every moment. It was very nice to watch) I feel energetic.

Which is nice, if new, because usually I feel a little bit forked, as in stick a fork in me, I am DONE. I sat out more poses than normal (ha! normal! but really, I do try to do at least one of each set) and tried to use Shavasana more, and tried more consciously to keep my breathing normal, steady and through my nose. All of which helped, I think, and all of which redirected me to the mindgame that is a Bikram class. Can I stay in this environment calmly? Yes, more often than not. Can I be positive about what I'm asking myself to do? Yes, more often than not. Am I twitching, fidgeting, making more out of this, telling myself not to do something, giving myself permission to quit, labeling something "pain", "fear" or "aaaaaaaahhhhthissucks"? Well, yes, more often than not. A gentle turning of the mind to the positive seems to be an asana, as well. So I tried to do that, too.

I have loved things that were difficult, too, in the past, and they ended up redirecting my life. And I find myself, a kapha, Cancerian, luxury-loving diva of a middle-school teacher, loving this, too. There's something beautiful about the choices constantly available in each moment that are more clearly visible to me in that room. There's something about the power available to me at the end, the very end, where I have slain the beast of discomfort and torn down a brick or two of self-limitation and loved myself and the people around me for, where I feel like my intention is clearer and more real and more powerful than in any other arena of my life right now.

Damn, I just sold myself on going to class again.

"The whole world is a very narrow bridge, and the most important thing is not to be afraid."--R. Nachman

In Which it's 3:!7, and I Need To Know: Am I Hydrated Enough

Because that's my big worry these days: did I have enough to drink? It's been (I think) 50-odd ounces of water with lemon, a lot of yerba mate (and I am so amped up on that I can see my fingers vibrating as I type) and another liter of water to go. I think I have control issues with the wa-wa.

Because, come 4:30, I'll find myself in a space that's simeltaneously really tender and really tough: the hot room. At 100-odd degrees and X% humidity, it's not the heat, but the thinking that I notice more and more. You know the thinking, because you've probably got a case of it, too, whether or not you ever find yourself in a Bikram studio: look at that person, they've got more of what I want than I do; look at that woman, is she prettier, yes, bitch, I think she is; what do I have to do after this; I want Cheez-Its; I wish someone would help me with this; I wish I liked myself more--and on and on and on. Whatever your loop is, I have one just like it.

And the thing is, I didn't want to, anymore. After a miserably hard first year of teaching, so hard that I still can't quite wrap my head around my survival, and after a descent into a sticky little mental morass of my own making at the end of the semester, and after 32 years of on-again/ off-again positivity, I was TIRED. Maybe I got to the end of my rope, maybe I had me a little Rosa Parks moment--you know, sick and tired of being sick and tired--and my usual lightweight, meditation-heavy, movement-low, maybe-I'll-do-it-tomorrow yoga practice wasn't helping ENOUGH. And, I'd tried Bikram 2 times before, hating it the first time (so hating it the first time, to be honest) and liking it okay the second, so maybe the seed was planted--but on December 28th, I read an article in Oprah magazine--which I NEVER buy--about one woman's committment to a 60-day Bikram challenge.

And something in me was just like, Hey. HEY. That's what I need.

And I've been every day since the 29th. And I love it. More and more.

The positive thinking? The calm? The investigative, loving, discipline, dedicated mind? The healthier body? The energy?

Off the charts. Or, if not off the charts, than in a way healthier and happier space than I can remember being for a while, a long, long while. It feels pretty delicious, to be honest. Pretty delicious and pretty right and pretty real.

I don't have a goal, except to show up as much as I can, and to honor my intention for 2010:

I will create and participate in my own happiness and peace.

And drink more water than I ever thought possible doing it.