I Love It When A Plan Comes Together...

Rumination: The Pits

...but with all apologies to the A-Team, I love it even more when unexpected paths put you onto awesome things that you SHOULD have known existed but that had somehow eluded you.

Such is the case with The Rumpus, which I just stumbled upon during a passage search for work. A hyperliterate blog devoted to music, comics, poetry, literature, and culture, it has both a monthly book and a poetry club in which each month, an advance copy of a given book arrives on your doorstep PRE-PUBLICATION, and you participate not only in an online discussion of the book with other enthusiasts, but in an online discussion with the author--how many opportunities do you get to talk to an author about their work? In my case, not many--especially not fiction authors.

The comic I attached above is from a series called Comiques--one of many awesome comics featured on the site (they had me at Tony Millionaire, but my ardor intensified at the sight of all the artists I'd never heard of, like Anne Emond). This one resonated with me simply because this is a phenomenon that I have experienced many, many times--obsessive rumination over a perceived gaffe, no matter how trivial, could potentially enmesh me for a whole day, sometimes even more. I don't think I understood that not everybody has experienced obsessive rumination--what is often referred as being "trapped in your own head"--that it's not a universal state. Some people have the gift of "getting over it," of letting things go.

And I don't think I even realized, until reading this comic, how long it's been since I've obsessively ruminated over anything. I've felt bad or silly about things, but I haven't been paralyzed by them, and that--well, that is something to be incredibly thankful for.

In Honor of Groundhog Day...

Spring-Seeking Mini-Playlist

At least I can pretend it's springtime in my mind:

1. "Meditation Song #2," Cloud Control

A great song to play when you start the car to go anywhere. Makes you feel like the windows are down and you're going somewhere awesome, even when they aren't, and you aren't.

2. "Time to Run," Lord Huron

Bad guys with hearts of gold, on the lam with nothing left to lose. Sounds like freedom! And like springtime.

3. "Shuggie," Foxygen

This song sounds like an early thaw. Not like Walt Disney after a premature thaw, or like your freezer during a power outage, but like playing beach volleyball in late March when the air feels like no temperature at all.

4. "Global Concepts," Robert DeLong

A shameless, self-aware pop song that makes me fucking dance, d-d-d-d-d-dance.

5. "Coming in from the Cold" (Bob Marley)

One of my all-time favorite Marley songs, and like a robin, an unmistakable harbinger of spring's impending arrival.

 6. "Come to the Sunshine" (Van Dyke Parks)

He was like Ariel Pink, before there was an Ariel Pink. Oh, and also, so much way awesomer than Ariel Pink. Yet another thing that makes me wish I'd been in Los Angeles in the 60's.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: February 5

Come on winter, end already! It's time for some fresh yummy stuff.

Look Around, Leaves Are Brown, There's a Patch of Snow on the Ground...

Why is it so hard to get motivated to be healthy in the winter time?

One of the cool things about practicing at the Plainsboro studio is that I get to drive by Whole Foods on the way home. And I'm sorry, but I LOVE WHOLE FOODS.

I know it's not cool to say that. It's shamelessly bourgeois, vaguely hypocritical, and appallingly expensive--as anyone who has walked out with a $75 bag of groceries (containing no more than five items) can attest.

But when the weather outside is frightful, and the landscape and the sky blend into each other indistinguishably, both the color of dingy gym socks, Whole Foods provides an oasis of abundance and vitality and when I walk in there, I can pretend for just a moment that it's spring. Colorful, beautiful fruits and vegetables as far as the eye can see... Fine meats and cheeses, actual butchers and fishmongers... A salad bar brimming with bright raw veggies, heaps of garlicky kale, tabouleh and quinoa and hummus and grape leaves... Soups and soups and soups and soups... I could go on and on. My politics jump ship in the face of a simple need to passively absorb what I can only call "brightness."

For whatever reason, I hit that winter moment today where I decided it was time to really get serious about eating healthy. Cutting out the weeknight booze, rethinking how I eat when and where, and why. I've added "dropping ten pounds" (or a more experiential version thereof) to the Universe List, but really, weight loss isn't the point so much as feeling good--healthy, balanced, vigorous, abundant.

I have been treating my body well with the hot yoga, but I acknowledge that I do not treat my body as a temple in other ways. I'm ready to experiment with health--Lord knows, I've already experimented with just about everything else. Many excuses to go to Whole Foods. And an opportunity to explore my yoga practice more deeply, in a deeper commitment to health.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: February 1

Some like it hot... and some like it even HOTTER.

Hot Yoga Mystery #16: The Strange Case of Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana

Gentlefolk of the hot yoga community, I present to you a conundrum.

Shallow inhales, deeper exhales. Yeah, yeah.

If someone were to ask me what my favorite pose has traditionally been--or, rather, what is one pose that ranks consistently among my favorites--I'd have no trouble selecting this elegant bit of contortion ------------------>

However, if this same person were to ask me, moments later, which pose I most consistently sit out, I'd have to confess that it is this cruel, heartless mistress ------------>

Huh? That doesn't even make any sense. How can that be?

She is among my favorites because she is good for my thyroid. She is good for my pituitary gland. To me, she seems analogous to Ardha Khurmasana, only standing--which admittedly makes things trickier.

She is also supposed to bring my heart rate down. The jury is still out on that one.

I often find myself crumpling out of the first set, however, because there is sweat in my eyes and running up my nose and I am struggling to breathe--try as I might to take the suggested "shallow inhales, deeper exhales," my body refuses to register this purported influx of oxygen. As I choke my throat, the discomfort is only compounded.

Am I doing something wrong?

Maybe this pose is difficult primarily because it comes right after Trikanasana, which I cannot pretend to love as much, despite or perhaps because of the fact that it is the "master pose" or "climax pose" of the Standing Series. So why not just sit out a set of Trikanasana?

Because I have got cajones, hombre. No one with big ole brass cajones like I got is gonna sit out a set of Trikanasana--what is this, cotillion? A quilting bee?

No, man, the quilting bee comes later. Thirty seconds later. In Dandayamana Bibhaktapada Janushirasana. Cuz I'm tuff like that. Tuff, and completely ridiculous.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 31

Have to confess I'd have rather been here... but just barely.

Dawn Patrol: Yoga Style

Yesterday was one of those days. A terrible rotten no-good very bad day, to paraphrase a favorite from my childhood.

So I decided I'd start today off right by dragging my somnolent carcass out of bed at five (already dressed for yoga), pulling on twenty million layers, and heading over to Plainsboro for their 6 AM class.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that dragging yourself to a 6 AM yoga class in the winter is harder than dragging yourself to any other yoga class ever. It's dark outside, and cold, and your bed is inevitably warm and womb-like, and it calls to you, "You can go to the 6:45 PM class, why do this to yourself?" And its siren song is well-nigh irresistible.

This morning had the added benefit of being completely and utterly storm-tossed, tempestuous. Insane winds, branches falling, rain dumping in buckets from the sky, each drop a long slash of shine in the darkness, blown sideways by the wind.

But the angel on my shoulder prevailed. "This is why you have galoshes," she said, pointedly. "This is why you drive a Subaru." Too exhausted to come up with a more compelling excuse, I slid into said galoshes and sloshed toward said Subaru, muttering and cursing, sure, but headed inexorably toward class.

I am not going to say it was easy. It was a struggle. But being in that safe haven, a still puddle of light and warmth in a stormy, violent universe--that feeling of gratitude and security in and of itself was worth getting up and driving through the storm.

Something about morning classes just make the day amazing. You're focused, alert, relaxed, and ready to tackle whatever comes at you because there's no WAY it can be harder than Ardhachandrasana at 6 AM--or any of the poses, for that matter.

That said, I can't make any promises about the frequency with which I will attend these classes while the winter drags on. The summer, however... now that's another story.

 

Six Years Ago, Round About Now...

I posted this rumination/rambling in my second semester of grad school. I'm reposting it now because it's kind of amazing how powerfully it reverberates with my current interests. I guess we really do evolve along a continuum...

(Originally posted on Facebook on February 22, 2007).

Today is Thursday. February is almost over. It's gray outside...

...and something ate my brain in the night.

Seriously. As February extends its short-month tendrils into seemingly endless days and weeks and months I feel like it's quite possible that I'll sleep myself to death. I keep hoping sleeping will restore my eyesight, but that's probably kind of a stupid thing to hope.

Yesterday finished Rushdie's Satanic Verses. I'm still processing that since it seems that part of its point is that it resists digestion. One of my professors, John McClure, said of it, "Our reading practices are our method for trying to approach the test that is this book, and if our aim is resolution we will fail the test," or something to that effect. Still, I'm not sure that solves some of my problems with the text, chiefly the problem of the women. Again, at the suggestion of McClure I've tried to understand that the women in the novel not only reflect the novel's preoccupation with the negotiation of hybridity, but also exist to kill and be killed, that they absorb, are the objects of, or provoke male rage--and that this is ultimately the rage that fuels acts of terrorism, etc. The anger in the book, he suggests, is a warning about acts of performative terrorism like that of 9/11, but about 12 years before the fact. If our reading practices had been more finely honed outside of a Saidian paradigm, perhaps we could have caught this. But we didn't. Of course, the fact that the chief terrorist is a woman is puzzling if one chooses to embrace this reading. McClure's response: "Women are terrifying in this novel." They are. But not so much as the men in the novel. And here's the kicker: even when he's writing about women, loading them up with ambiguous and contradictory significances, doubling their names--certain details accumulate around the descriptions that make him sound like a dirty old man... Why I think that of him and not Kundera, I can't say.

Anyway, it's a relief to turn to Gwendolyn Brooks after all that. I loved Satanic Verses, but reading Maud Martha--well, it's soothing. A long time ago, in Vermont (God, it really feels like a million years ago), I remember Michael Wood, whom I worshipped then and worship still today, saying, "Good Lord, give me cold minimalism over bovine warmth any day." At the time I chuckled and nodded as though I, too, were drawing upon decades of scholarship to confer my avowal upon such a pronouncement, and looked around the room at the others who, I imagine, were trying to impress Wood just as hard as I was. But I've done some thinking about that statement since then and I've come to the conclusion that I might be a closet sap. Well, heck, I'm not even in the closet. I'm outing myself right now, but I can't imagine you all didn't already know. I say "you all" like there's anyone else reading this. Wishful thinking. Though would I want anyone to read this? Beside the point.

Anyway, moving along with this sentimental thing... In Satanic Verses, McClure outlined three subjectivities that are at war within the text. I haven't had time to process them, to see if I even agree with them, but here they are: 1) the "schizophrenic" subject celebrated by the postmodernists--decentered, proliferate, etc., 2) the fundamentalist subject and 3) the sentimental subject. The novel seems to privilege this last subjectivity. The open-your-heart even if it kills you. The lose-the-secular-rationalist-post-Enlightenment-modernist-honed-secularism. So maybe I'm no kinda scholar at all, because all this opening-your-heart business... it makes sense to me. I don't see why anyone wouldn't think that's a good idea.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 28

Awesomeness crossing.

Just read an awesome blog post that compared hot yoga to adventure traveling (by teacher trainer extraordinaire, Carly Miller), and it got me itching to put on my adventure shoes and get out there on the road. This is all the more reason to go back into teaching: nearly 3 gorgeous, uninterrupted summer months in which to do all the things you want to do that require a sustained number of consecutive days off.

Like hiking the Appalachian Trail, for instance. No, you can't do the whole thing in a summer, but you can do a healthy chunk of it. Added bonus: you could try to plan your supply stops around areas with hot yoga studios. I traveled a chunk of the AT when I was 16, as part of an Outward Bound crew, and it changed me forever--and yet how distant that little person seems, with her backpack that weighed half as much as her and her mother-hen instincts for all the younger crew members... who went on to actually lead freshman backpacking trips for Princeton's Outdoor Action program. What happened to that person? I haven't backpacked in 15 years!

Or I could follow a band around for a little while, crashing with friends from town to town, reconnecting during the day and dancing my ass off at night. Who says this is undignified at age 36? Well maybe it is, but who cares? Dancing my ass off to amazing improvisational music is my form of worship--I need it as a vital form of cleansing and renewal, and it's every bit as powerful for me as yoga is--though less sustainable. Who's to say, furthermore, that I can't combine these things--yoga in the cities where I'm seeing shows, to stave off the creeping effects of late nights in sweaty venues?

A friend of mine is putting together a month-long kayak/raft trip through the Grand Canyon in October. This is something I'd really love to do, but how to get a month off in October? Would my loved ones be able to handle it? And would my work let me take unpaid time off?

You never know until you ask, I guess. Maybe it's time to take a plunge.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 24

We're Going Home...

Why is it that some studios just feel like home?

I'm obviously a yoga nomad--circumstances force me to be adventurous and diverse in my choices of where to practice yoga--but in my heart, I'm a homebody. Glenda the Good Witch had it right--there's no place like home (I can't say I entirely agree with Dorothy's closing sentiment: "I know that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire, I'll never go any further than my own back yard. For if it isn't there, I never really lost it..." Witches and flying monkeys aside, Oz was waaaaaay cooler than Depression-era Kansas. I mean seriously, no comparison.

But each time I get to practice at Riverflow, it starts to feel like home. And I don't think it's just because I'm doing my teacher training there and there are often other trainees in my classes to boost my energy and sharpen my focus. Even when they're not there and class is being led by a teacher I've never been in class with before, there's a camaraderie, a family-feeling that I really enjoy.

I don't think it's the ambience that creates this communality--though the cookies, the thieves' oil, the sandalwood lotion in the bathroom that I dab on before class to help me get through the last of the standing series, the overall coziness of the place are all awesome, don't get me wrong. But looking at the studio, which is definitely no frills, you know it's not material objects creating that make this a safe haven--migun rug aside. It's the people, and the tone that's set by the respect the teachers have for one another and, unfailingly, for us.

That's the best gift a hot yoga teacher can give her students, I suppose: seeing them in the most positive light, in the way they wish they could be seen and more than often cannot see themselves. And in seeing us this way, they are also seeing us as part of a community that is equally supportive of one another, so that we in turn become that community. 

Awesome. 

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 23

Translation: It's getting hot in herrrrre...

Hooray for tonight's class. 9 degrees out as I left class tonight. Yep, that's what I said. 9 degrees. Can we just ponder that for a moment? And then... ponder why I left California? Or Florida?

Thank goodness for Zach and Riverflow and the 100+ degree awesomeness that was class tonight. Zach--the youngest yoga teacher I've ever encountered, but who comports himself with a striking maturity--kept it REAL. As in, some long, long-ass Trikinasanas. I got a bit sick to the tum and had to take a knee, but it was just tremendous. I was running on 3 hours of sleep; I think I might have been hallucinating a little. Final savasana was like an out-of-body experience.

Wish I could write a little more, but I think it's time for bedskies at the moment. I'll live to write another day.

Hasta manana!

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 20

I guess I shouldn't complain.

It is still an incredible inconvenience to get to the Financial District from Jersey City right now. Which has put a bit of a cramp in my yoga routine. What was once a three-hour-plus trip is now more like a five-hour one no matter how you slice it. Which is tough. Given the thirty-day challenge.

But in the words of Gloria Gaynor, "I shoulda changed that fucking lock, I woulda made you leave your key if I'd'a known for just one moment you'd be back to bother me!!!"

Wait, no. I meant, "I will survive."

Because when you look at the havoc wreaked above, I guess it's easy to understand why things may not be functioning smoothly even now, almost three months after the disaster.

Still, I won't lie. I'm struggling with the time management. Hours in the day, plus sleep, plus all the people I love and miss and want to see. Hard to maintain perspective.

Look at the picture above. Breathe. Be thankful.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 18

Poots-asana.

My cat seems to like sitting on my wet mat.

And my mat is wet. Because I sweat so much in my class tonight that, once again, the nice old ladies in the class were concerned for my well-being. And also grossed out.

But I've reached that point in the 30-day challenge where all bets are off, people. I'm all in. In it to win it. Stinky. Mildewy. Googly-eyed. And yes, sweaty as shit.

It's all coming out--not much in the way of blockage. Not in terms of gunk in my lungs, my organs, my pores... Soon will come the emotions, the limiting beliefs... streaming out because I've provided an outlet.

Will I want to punch someone at some point in my last three classes? Will I start sobbing uncontrollably?

Maybe. Probably.

I can't wait.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 16

Do what it takes!

So I took a 5 PM class yesterday in Plainsboro--snuck out of work early, got there in the nick of time (actually late but they're always running a little late there), and expected to see Meredith--all day long, for reasons I can't explain, I thought it was Thursday--but instead there was Leo. Because it was Wednesday.

I've never been in a class with Leo, and I wasn't sure I was going to like being there--he has a certain affect that can seem like a put-on. Lots of "bros" and "dudes" and "mamas" and "bubalas," etc. Plus during the second set of Ardhachandrasana he adjusted me--TWICE!--and made quite a spectacle of me, to the extent that I burned with shame and embarrassment--I don't like to be noticed, period, but particularly not in a negative way.

But yet again, teacher training wisdom came to the rescue. I'm the student, I thought, he's the teacher. Put your ego aside (shyness, after all, is a form of egotism) and see what he has to teach you.

And he was INCREDIBLE. A charismatic, someone who can clearly cultivate a passionate following of adoring students (females, mostly). Committed to proper form. Not afraid to be hated to help you go to a new level. Funny, thoughtful... I'll definitely go back. I think I have much to learn from this person.

Oh--and at the end he mentioned that next week he would be missing class because it was his birthday--his 63rd. If you could see this man, you would never have believed it. Looks in his 40's, tops.

Hot yoga really is the fountain of youth!

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 15

A little late-night Melville humor never hurt nobody.

Wow, I'm tired. Tired tired tired. A great class tonight, followed by a good three hours of scripting practice with my dear friend Jane, whom I've mentioned before in this journal. She's been a huge motivating force getting me through teacher training, and tonight seemed like a scripting breakthrough--not like a "perfect no stumbling no faltering full-confidence" type of scripting session, but so much better than it has been... I feel like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders--I feel, all of a sudden, that this is possible once again!

My great white whale, the script, has now transformed to something more akin to the cutes-patoots pictured here--though I may well still be every inch the scowling Ahab. I like to think not, however.

Class was awesome. Riverflow, mat-to-mat, Alyssa did an amazing job keeping the room on point and everyone seemed to have a great class. I am continually astounded at my ability to embrace the full hot room after all these years of dreading it! Guess I'm a sucker for that we're-all-in-this-together-type camaraderie.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 14

Today I tried a totally new studio, bringing my grand total up to... geez, I don't really know how many. Mellow--kind of a cool (temperature-wise) studio, with a very politically opinionated teacher, and there was music, which was awesome.

I'm feeling really good and strong, still not needing the allergy meds since that wonderful Ask and Receive session with Toby. What a great name, Toby. In the running, perhaps, with Dale Cooper for the name of my first child/next pet?

It's amazing how a music class helps me to better internalize my script in an embodied way. Might be a good idea to practice on my own at home with music, while narrating my movements according to the script.

New suggestions for the hot yoga music class playlist: "Hide Your Love Away," Beatles; "Stranger in a Strange Land," Blitzen Trapper.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 10

You'll surely be happy to know that I am no longer a Sergeant Grumbles in crowded classes. Yippee! Also, this cartoon has approximately nothing to do with this post--I've just always liked it.

The challenges of the 30-day challenge, in addition to the yoga teacher training workload and this other thing I have called a "job" that often gets in the way of my fun, have meant that I haven't been able to keep up my mad blogging pace--attempts to document the 30-day challenge have clearly become more sporadic. But what I lack in documentation here, I will make up for in script practice!

Tonight was notable because yet again, it was inspiring and humbling to watch Rhonda handle a class so full that everyone was mat to mat--not another human being could have squeezed into that room. Instead of feeling chaotic or claustrophobic, it was awesome--as a serious claustrophobe, I was impressed that I hardly noticed the crowd.

Could it be that I've finally come around to the joys of practicing in a crowded room?  That I can feed on the energy and overlook the flinging sweat (I seem to be the main culprit in that department, actually--ah, the irony!), the various stenches, the close, thick air. The trick, as always, is setting the appropriate context--which Rhonda does beautifully. Even if that chick with the fruit punch gatorade ends up writing a bad Yelp! review.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 7 & 8

Each day just keeps getting better and better.

Yesterday I kind of spaced on concentrating on releasing during savasana, but we had a fantastic teacher that I'd never had before--Mark. He's subbing on Mondays for Beloved Anthony's evening classes (B.A.'s freelance stylist gigs are starting to pile up, whoot!), and I have to say, those are some big shoes to fill--even though BA's feet are likely quite tiny (I've never really examined them, and now this is getting creepy so I'll stop). But he was "wonderful," as one woman said--a packed house and he was attentive to everyone, newbies and regs alike--high energy and rigorous without being sadistic. I wish I remembered more about it because it was a wonderful class.

Tonight's class was with a challenging teacher I've had once before--she's challenging mostly because she races through savasana, so people who need the time to breathe don't always get a chance to do so. However, she's mindful of proper savasana during the floor series, and that's where it really counts (in my opinion). Today I was mindful of Jane's advice--surrendering, letting go in savasana of the stuff that has been stirred up by the poses, and once again, it was amazing.

This time was different--the release was an intense lightening that once again manifested in the feeling of having an enormous (literal) weight lifted from my shoulders. I had a hard time keeping my eyes completely open so I just let them go wonky but stayed resolutely in the room. I walked out of that class with relaxed shoulders, an easy smile and a fantastic attitude.

I also tried one of Rhonda's tips from the Riverflow Online Community Website--the one about anchors and how we can bring our experiences on the mat--of joy, of peace, of equanimity--into the world. During Standing Bow, I got my leg as close to a standing split as I'd ever experienced, and I felt a moment of joyful accomplishment, so I rubbed my left thumb and forefinger together in the subsequent savasana. And I actually balanced for a few seconds in toe stand on the right side--SCORE!--so I rubbed my left thumb and forefinger together again during savasana.

Now I just need to remember to attach an anchor to my intensely wonderful floor savasanas--post-standing-series, post-Camel, etc.--and I'll be golden, walking the world with ammunition against stress and frustration.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 6

Everybody needs a little savasana every now and again.

Wow. I can't tell you how psyched I am to be reaching the home stretch of my teacher training and doing a 30-day challenge at the same time. I couldn't have planned it, but it's perfect. It's like everything's coming together.

Yesterday was a Teacher Training landmark for me--a breakthrough. There was sobbing, and hyperventilating, and I left feeling like a very heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders--literally. I was lighter and happier than I'd felt in years--and the dreams I had--oy vey, it was like being at the movies for 12 hours (yes, I slept 12 hours last night, deal with it).

My dear friend and fellow teacher trainee, Jane, told me to bring everything that happened yesterday into class with me today. And I don't really even know how to describe how amazing it was.

The class was hard. My beloved Anthony was teaching, and he never takes it easy--just when you think you have escaped his notice, just when you think he's not talking to you (he doesn't often use names, you just somehow know he means you), he makes it clear that he is indeed trying to get you to surpass yourself. Only when you appear to be ignoring him does he actually use your name--showing that he knows it. And if you're resistant to something he thinks you can do: "I don't care if you hate me forever, just try it." He and Rhonda would be fast friends. I want to drag her (and Zach, and Carly) to his class.

I took a few poses off in standing series, my hamstrings sore and tight. He let that slide. Then, in floor series, I tried my usual "first pose, feel my way into it, second pose go for it" thing I do when I am exhausted. But Anthony wouldn't let me get away with it.

I got angry in my head. I directed daggers at him with my thoughts. "What do you want from me? I'm giving all I have? Can't you see that? I don't need this."  

And then--I had this weird epiphany. I thought Anthony was expecting too much of me and I got angry. Then I realized it wasn't him at all--he respects when you sit out, when you need a pose off, he sees somehow what you're capable of and when--it was ME (grammatically incorrect, but necessary for emphasis) that was expecting too much of myself. Like I was letting myself down, and projected it onto Anthony, like he was judging me. And so, if I could accept that I was at my edge--that I was honest to goodness at my edge, having trouble sustaining my breath, on the brink of holding it and moving into "FORCE" mode--then that would be absolutely and wonderfully enough.

I don't know how or why, but the rest of the class was one of the most amazing I've had. I thought of Jane often, because she told me to remember that in each savasana, all of the stuff that had been stirred up was releasing, and I FELT that to be true for the first time. And then, after Camel, I felt--or saw in my mind's eye--a golden thread of light emanating from my heartspace. Did a little muscle testing--do I have a heartwall? Yes. Okay--I'd imagine I have several. But did I just break through a heartwall? Yes. Amazing. I thought so. After all, the savasana was like a wave of joy crested, broke, and washed over me.

As I was preparing to leave, sitting in the lobby tying my shoe, I could feel someone watching me, and I looked up to see impish Anthony eying me curiously.

"Great class, as always," I said.

"Thanks. You're glowing, by the way."

I kind of thought I might have been.

I walked out into the cold, past the World Trade Center, through the crowds and onto the PATH train that miraculously shuttles me under the Hudson in under five minutes.

In the words of the truly immortal Louis Armstrong, what a wonderful world.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 4 and 5

Two classes in a matter of hours in Plainsboro--one at 5 PM and one at 10 AM--funny how things can feel so different at different times of day.

I really struggled on Day Two, but managed to get through it without skipping any poses--a real feat, I think, on four hours sleep (one down-side of evening classes is that I sometimes get so wired I have trouble sleeping--I was up reading my trashy novel until the wee hours. Lesson one, perhaps: Don't start a trashy novel at 11 PM or you may well read through the night.)

Warning: Do not begin me at 11 PM

Anyway, after it was over I felt GREAT! And one thing I was impressed with--the class was packed, Groupon newbies galore (I think half of the class were first-timers!)--and the chaos did not bother me. I was just so happy to be there, and to be doing something amazing for myself.

Day Three reminded me of why I unconsciously avoid morning classes--they are harder. I feel extremely tight, have a hard time eating enough beforehand, have a difficult time hydrating sufficiently. But I should also actively try to remember the primary advantage of morning classes--and a crazy-good advantage it is--the feeling you get knowing you have the whole day ahead of you, and the hardest part is over, and you feel relaxed and positive and amazing, like you can do anything!

Two major take-aways from Saturday's class:

1. The teacher's experience really does impact the students'. I am 99.9% sure that the teacher was fairly newly certified, and at the beginning, she was very nervous--you could tell because, while she had a very endearing persona and you wanted to support HER by following her instructions to the best of your ability, you yourself didn't feel all that supported. But by Standing Bow she had relaxed and was settling into her personality, letting it infuse her instruction and influence our practices in a positive way--she was a VERY supportive teacher, VERY focused on making everyone feel as though what they were doing was absolutely what they should be doing right now, no judgement. Sometimes teachers say that and you feel like it backfires--people become more aware that judgement might somehow be taking place. But her delivery, her intention--you could feel it, that it was about disengaging the inner critic, and it worked--there was a very calm and focused feeling in the class.

2. While I felt strong physically, my body was SORE. So I decided, in each pose, to take the first set easy, feeling my way into it but not pushing myself to my max, and then going for it in the second set. This was a really cool experience--when I've tried this in the past, I think I worried that my teacher would call me out for not trying hard enough, or for being in the front row when I wasn't willing to provide motivational energy for those behind me. But this time I felt no self-consciousness whatsoever, and in the first sets, my body went from feeling cranky to grateful, exploring what it could do THAT day. And oddly enough, in the second set, I found my way deeper than I though I'd be able to go without a "pushing" effort. It also helped to use my breath as my guide--if I found myself on the verge of struggling to breathe, I did not push the pose any further.

For the 30-day challenge, I think this mentality will come in handy. The first time I did it, my teacher Genelle told me I should allow myself to work a little LESS hard--something no one had ever said to me in my life. And of course, I never really understood what that meant--to me, not working so hard meant pushing myself to my limit in every pose, every set--and then allowing myself to rest for one set of one pose when I hit a wall. But now I think I understand what she meant. I think she meant that you can get to the same place in a softer, gentler way--and still be a warrior. I'm going to try to remember that. No, strike that--Carly reminded me that there is no "try," there is only "do." So I WILL remember that.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: January 3

Wow. Tonight was such a kick-ass class! A whole lot of new people came because of the Groupon, and they were really cool--and it seemed like a lot of them really liked it--like they'll come back soon and often. It's like they slid right into the community. One even agreed to do the 30-day challenge with me and Zach--an arrangement we'd made only moments before, in fact... The Universe seems to be all over it right now, getting me to do something that I was hemming and hawing about--something that would be undeniably great for me--by putting two people in my path who wanted to undertake the challenge together. Yay!

One of the cool things to observe was how Rhonda established the context with a roomful of beginners that was quite firm and unmistakable, yet supportive. It was a tough class--I felt like I was on uber-detox and even my smile was quivering during final savasana--and people came out exhausted, but they were psyched and happy. What a good lesson--you can be tough AND loving, and it can indeed bring people to surpass themselves--even if surpassing themselves means simply staying in the room.

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: December 29

Indeed.

 This three days in a row business has me itching to do another 30-day challenge--and what better way, frankly, to ring in 2013 than with a commitment to health, commitment, and surpassing your expectations and perceived limitations.

It's a little bit easier to practice yoga down here in Tampa--classes every day at times I can go, warm weather to walk into once class is over, no snow to plow through to get to a 6 AM class... But one good thing about a 3-day challenge in a cold climate is that it makes the winter seem so much more bearable--and so much less of an obstacle to overcome.

So I think I'll start the Monday after Brendan's birthday... I think it's time! :)

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: December 28

Two days in a row, baby!

Feels good, feeling more like a human being and less like a human trash compactor.

Super mellow instructor--gentle, but attentive to the needs of her students and certainly no Lay-Down Sally...

This is a good little span of momentum to ride into the new year.

Who knows--maybe 2013 will be the year of the toe stand?

Yoga Teacher Training Journal: December 27

Stuffa you face.

Oof. Post-Christmas blues, baby.

It was tough to drag myself to class today. Tough to take the time for myself, to take the time away from seeing family... to exercise after a few days of sheer indolence... to look at myself in the mirror in my skimpy l'il costume and see the results of that indolence.

But man, it felt good to sweat. I took it kinda easy, and the room was kinda cool, so I got off easy! But it was the perfect opportunity to recalibrate and recenter after all the pre-Christmas travel and hubbub, and just the right thing to put the brakes on a cycle of excess that couldn't lead anywhere good for the body or the spirit!