what's in store?

Holy Cow, it's Thursday again.  Thursdays are still the only day with a consistent dedication.  Thursday morning classes are still for the Lovely M (kick that C's ass!).  I did good today, lots of positive healing energy coming your way!

Another TMI alert.  Okay, so the Bikram yoga waltzed into my central control system found the big RESET button on the hormones console and whacked the button with all it's might.  Do things really have to insist on getting worse before they get better?  Yes, yes, it'll fix any issues I have in the body... yadda yadda...  but holy cow... a second period only 20 days after I started the last.  Urk.  The worst part of this, is that my cycles dial all aches and pains up several notches.

On a bright note, despite having to go to the lecture hall after posture clinic last night Bikram did not keep us up until 4:20am again!  Yay.  We got let out of the room at 2:30.  I miss sleep... I wonder if it misses me?

Bathed in sweat!

Welcome to week 3.  During the night somebody snuck into my room and used a binding agent on all of my joints (although it may have been a 2 night operation).  I would like to thank the culprits for they did me a favor.  Despite prior admonishments from teachers about pushing to hard I had consistently failed to find a balance between my recurring pain and a consistent practice. Saturday one of the peer advisors very kindly asked what was going on as she had seen me struggle in my practice.  We talked about me going into poses slower in order to find the point before the exploding pain.  It was the very thing Rajashree had told me at a seminar last year.  Yet, it was so hard to follow here at TT where one pressures oneself to do better, faster, harder.  I knew she was right.  I mentally prepared myself over the weekend, knowing my ego (a wretched thing to take into class) loathes to back off when it knows it can go deeper if only it pushed. I won't bore you with the details, but this is the first class ever that I have walked into with stabbing pain in areas and not once had my breath stolen from me.  Wow. 

We had class with Ren Soriano this morning.  Let me rephrase that.  We had a fabulous class with Ren Soriano this morning.  He is quite the comic and brings a great deal of passion for the yoga to class, not to mention a boat load of energy.  Lecture this afternoon will be anatomy with Dr T.   Class at 5pm will be with I don't know, because the big guy is out this week.  Evening lecture from 9pm onwards will be posture clinics!

My practice

Other than the fact that I feel like a bunch of rabid monkey's broke into my room last night and beat me to a tender pulp (I must have been lying face down at the time) with baseball bats, I am doing better so far than I had expected myself to do.  Body pains seem as likely as sunshine here.  As I was warned, my practice varied A LOT.  What surprised me is that it did so from the very first class. As we all know, there are two kinds of yogis.  Those born strong and those born flexible.  I am NOT the bendo doll, trust me every millimeter I can move from perfectly rigid was earned in sweat (and many cases tears). Well, for the first 2 days I could not balance on one leg for more than 10 seconds at a time.  While it is getting better, all the poses I traditionally find "easier" have taken me work.  Elements of poses that formerly took no effort are now my nemesis :(  On the bright side I can forward bend all of a sudden.  The bad news is that I am so not used to being able to do this that I am struggling to find the happy medium between trying hard enough and injuring my back further than I have already (2 pinched nerves to date).  Please bear in mind that this will not happen to everyone.  I have some pre-existing conditions I have to contend with.

TMI ALERT

I knew before I came that I would have 3 cycles while here. I will tell you I had my PMS dialed up to a 12, Spinal Tap style.  OMG I wanted to punch everyone in the nose! I have never in my life felt so enraged. I tried to contain it but I would not be surprised if some folks are like "yeah I met her and WHAT a bitch!"  If you are not used to doing class during your TOM I advise you do some before coming to TT so you can gauge what typically happens to you (I typically get dizzy, and knowing this allowed me to be prepared and take some honey which is the one thing I've found to help).

I want to deliver a gargantuan THANK YOU to all the instructors that corrected my form and the form of those around me. I want to thank you for every "lock your knee", "straighten your arms", "flatten your hands", "keep still!", "heels together", "NO towel!", and other admonishment ever delivered before, during or after every class I was ever in. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. While it is true we have some rubber people here we also have many folks that are going to get such corrections delivered in a less nurturing way.  I accept I will be corrected, but I am grateful that it will not be for things I aught to know better about... things that you all cared about enough to make a habit for me.  So next time I suck in my gut, tuck in my tailbone and relax my shoulders away from my ears without so much as thinking about it... that's thanks to you guys!  I luv you and miss you all!!! (PS, thanx for all the texts, messages, emails, etc... keep em coming!)