Big Decision Day!

Ah, the opening post of a new blog! It seems I blog the big things in my life - and over the past few years, that has centered around weight loss surgery, the aftermath and all the ups and downs along the way.

About a year and a half ago I first tried Bikram yoga. You can read about it all over the internet, but in a nutshell, it's hot yoga for Type A people. :) That is to say, it is the same class each time, anywhere you go in the world. There is an opening and closing breathing exercise, and then 26 postures (which is kinda a crock, in that many of the 26 have 2, 3 or 4 segments). The room is heated to 105 degrees, on average. The teacher does not participate but rather sits on a little box and professes a dialogue through the whole 90-minute class. You wear as few clothes as you can, bring a towel, a mat and a bottle of water. And some chutzpah.

In September of 2007, I got serious about Bikram. (Pronounced Bee-krum though some say Bick-rum, I don't...) I was going 3-4x/week and then in mid-October, I decided to do 30 days in a row. It was brutal and crazy for me! I was exhausted, feeling much like my pregnant friends report in their first trimester. It seemed all I could do was eat, sleep and go to yoga. (Oh, and complain about yoga). When I arrived home soaked and wiped out, my girlfriend would report, "Honey, you look terrible." or "Are you sure this is good for you? You seem miserable." or "You can't even talk after you come home, and we all know for you, this is not normal..." And she was right - all of that was true. And it was anything but normal...

But someplace around Day 17 I realized I was really gonna do it - finish 30 days - and I got inspired. I watched my postures change and my reactions to all of the adversity change. The heat wasn't so...hot. Time seemed to shrink up a bit and 90 minutes started to feel like, um, 90 minutes vs. the 200 minutes it had been feeling like. I didn't need to rest as much (in the end, I only laid down for 1 set of 1 posture (yes, you who know guessed it - the 2nd set of camel)- but sometimes paused a moment longer than was typical...that I considered "resting").

I went on to do 60 days, though I'll admit a couple were Hot Power Vinyasa, but still a 90-minute heated class so I counted it.

Now, the big decision: I'm going to Bikram Teacher Training. In a month. In Acapulco. For 9 arduous weeks. And I'm so excited, terrified and happy!!! This blog will keep you in the know, to the best of my ability once I'm there, of the ride that is often abbreviated as "tt."