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.
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