Day 47: Intense Day!

This morning’s 8:30 class was really quiet, focused…and good for me. I felt like a little rag doll in a dryer - I acquiesced to the (really good) teacher completely, and really let him run the show for the 85 (only!!!) minutes. I just felt very much at peace with being there. Which is a hard feeling to muster up around here – there isn’t a lot of peace around doing yoga right now. But it was just nice and quiet and pensive; and I had a good class physically too. I’ve taken to drinking a Pedialyte each class until my runs clear up, mmm, good. Actually, they aren’t that bad, and again, I forsaked (?) my orange jug, just took my coolish water in my Camel again. It definitely isn’t the water that is appealing I’m realizing – its’ the coldness of it. And that’s what I miss most is that coldness, because I’m not really that interested or excited (it turns out) in chugging water, but I am rather keen on lowering my temperature. I find I’m “rooting” more for ice/coldness than for water. Interesting! But it's going ok :)

On to posture clinic, whoa. Intensity! The other group we were with were all having rough days. Not in a bitchy or cranky way, just in a broken-down sort of way - rather they were just all feeling really exhausted, emotionally and physically. I rocked out my Rabbit, and still need to work on not sounding rehearsed (but, er, it is rehearsed at the moment) and then we were on to Separate Head to Knee with Stretching Pose! Can you believe that?! Shocking. Anyhow, I was completely ill-prepared, with my bout of not feeling so great, I opted for sleep last night over studying and paid for it. But, first, I have to tell you about this one proctor we had – she is from Zurich. She made one (large-chested girl) do very fast, fully expressed, jumping jacks for the whole posture to get some energy into it (it's a longer one, too). It was so interesting to watch. She started, then you could see her get tired, then angry, then started to cry, but she kept going. As soon as it was done, she had to do it again right away. And in the end, she was happy for the experience – it did make her a little more authoritative, firmer, and louder (she was “too sweet”).

SO then it was my turn. I said I had been sick and just wasn’t really prepared. For me, she said I just was still really stuck and needed to get more energy, so she had me SCREAM the whole posture. And scream I did. I even yelled at the top of my lungs, “Lock the mother f*cking knee.” After, I felt much better. And then I had to do the posture again right away, and it was actually better. And now that I have shown that side of myself, I’m wondering how well I will do the last posture. We’ll see. But I definitely feel less inhibited!

The intensity continued at the 5 p.m. Bikram-taught yoga class. Now, for me, the class was pretty great. I had a really nice practice, again, I missed my ice, but it’s getting easier and the water is less and less appealing. Anyhow, it was a hot one, and the intensity in the room is hard to capture in words. He was hard on us, but again, since I was having a good class, it didn’t feel egregious. Still, I haven’t seen so many people have to get up and leave the room in weeks – Christian estimated 20; I saw around 10. But what was interesting was how bad off the people who left were. They were in a catatonic yoga trance, or else unable to walk (in at least 5 cases, had to be nearly carried out). I don’t know what it was. It was just heavy energy in there. And, it was wicked hot - in fact, rumor had it they turned off the air circulation. I wonder, because we haven't seen yoga carnage like that for many, many weeks. But Bikram was just himself; and at the end, he played another track from his CD (oy) and then said this, “That was the best class you have done yet. I worked you so hard! And you were fantastic. You worked so hard. Good job!” And you know, that is just so cool – because he doesn’t have to say anything. But those kinds of things at the end make me come back for more. (Along with the sigh-in sheet, that makes me come back too. ☺)

Lecture brought us a surprise. Bikram talked for only 30 minutes about the importance of non-discrimination. It was short and sweet, and then he wanted us to watch a movie. A current, normal Indian film (Joodha Akbar) that basically dealt with the topic of religious discrimination. It was a lovely film, albeit long (ended at 1:15 a.m.), still, I was wise and had earplugs which made it a totally reasonable volume. I actually enjoyed it!
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Classes #71 & #72; Bikram with a footlong/movie food; and a shot from Joodha Akbar, which though loud, it was a pretty good film!