Day 33: Again, I Heart Thursdays!

Today was a good day overall – though another late night. I could write more, but with the mere 4 hours of sleep we were afforded last night, my time is a little crunched. Last night was the next installment of the movie, which began near midnight and went on until 2:15 a.m. Before that, Bikram lectured and it was interesting – he talked about renunciation, non-attachment and other aspects of life. It was a good and interesting talk. He has a way of talking for a really long time about something and right when you start to zone out, he drives the point home in a meaningful way.

My morning class today was an experience. How can I write this…let’s just say, the PMS truck that dropped off merely a little sample on my white towel last week; this morning the whole order arrived with a vengeance. My God. I thought perhaps I’d forgotten to ‘manage’ myself based on the volume (later, to my horror and surprise, I found that indeed I HAD extremely signficant protection). I dealt with this through an intricate series of towel origami folding that left me with one towel (normally 5 feet x 2.5 feet) folded to the size of a washcloth (1 foot square), about a foot high, that in the end, I just plopped down on and straddled during final breathing and waiting for the lights to go out before moving off of it. I stayed in the room though. The girls behind me were generous and gave me sympathetic smiles; and I said to one, “I don’t want to leave” and she said, “Don’t!” So I carried on. My rule was I’d leave it something was projecting out of me (vomit, diarrhea, etc.) and while this seemed a hearty gush, I felt fine and was actually having a great class! Gross, I know – but we were all laughing about how little grosses us out here. I may get together with a few other people and write up a spoken word piece for graduation, “Towel Origami to Manage Bodily Fluids: Tips for Eloquent Management of Puke, Blood and Snot.” ☺

We had a lecture in the afternoon about fascia in the body, and the connection of our feelings and psyche to our body. I could go on, but time is limited. Most had a "I groove on some of what he said, and some of what he said was wicked out there...." The speaker was Jon Burras, his website is here. I actually really connected with some of what he had to say; but like others, some of it felt so far out that it had a slight credibility damaging impact for me.

Afternoon class was great. I haven’t been up front in a while and being in row 2 (which made the morning even more awesome, btw) gave me a chance to really see myself. It was like, “Oh, hey! How are you? Let’s have a good practice!” and I did – really gave it up in standing series, it was really energetic and I felt great still through the floor series.

At the dinner break I got a package from Jill!!! In addition to more protein powder, a new water bottle (handy, since I just lost mine a couple days ago…) and some other practicalities, she send me a super cool new shirt, chocolate and a love note. ☺ Made me super happy!

Special to Sparkle: The postures you see sometimes done in Bikram yoga that aren't part of the 26/2 are advanced postures. There are actually 84 classic postures (the "Classic 84") from which Bikram selected the 26 that are his series. So, the advanced class, which you have to be a certified teacher or gifted beginner to be invited to take, include these other postures.

Classes #49 #50 - holy crap! Bikram, cracked a coconut open with his head and drank the milk in front of us (yes, really); my cute new shirt from Jill! Thanks honey! :)