The Prodigal Yogi

I havent written about yoga lately
I havent gone near as much
I miss all the yogi kids
I miss the family I sweat with
Starting tomorrow I am setting a goal of 16 classes in the next 7 days
I need motivation
I need to wear myself out
I need to feel the glory of total exhaustion again
Tomorrow, well actually 6 hours from now, the prodigal yogi will return...

Thomas the Steam Engine

Tonight was miserable for many of us, but mainly I felt the pain of the grateful dead girl, myself and the gourmet queen. The gourmet queen and I both (until now) pride ourselves on never giving up and lying down during the standing series. We may not be the most flexible or the strongest, but damn we have determination on our side, or did until tonight. The grateful dead girl just told me before class that I inspired her to do a challenge of 3 days of doubles in a row, today was the first day. At the end of class I pretty much ran out the door to catch up with her and tell her not to get discouraged, tomorrow would definitely be much better than today... I desperately want to see someone else discover the joys of the daily double obsession.
You see it was a little warm in the 6pm class and a little humid, and some of us got a little dizzy and sick. The scenery sure was pretty, there were shooting sparkly lights each time you stood up and everything glistened extra bright, even the walls were extra shiny from our collective sweat running in streams down the pretty blue paint. The people even get extra glowy and fluid looking, like they are just suspended liquid. I have no idea how long I made it I only know I laid/slumped down sometime after the grateful dead girl and before the gourmet queen, and pretty much each attempt after that to get back up got more and more weak. I think I could have done better if I had had more water, and if I had been feeling stronger to start with, but honestly it was just damn hot and humid and I was just weak. The humidity was 35% and after the door opened and the room cooled a bit, I dared look at the temp and it was 107. On a normal day I would have cussed Gumby, AKA Tom, AKA Thomas the steam engine, for melting my brain, but, during class I was just too sick to think about why I was so sick. Thomas the steam engine hit hard tonight, and I am currently still miserable and queasy but I'm sure there is something good about this whole thing, something Im supposed to learn from, grow from, bla bla bla. I am just totally unwilling to admit it right now.

Dizzy Girl

I had a slight tumble yesterday and I still feel slightly cuncussed, that along with the amazing heat from the last few week's classes, and some realizations about those I love, is frankly, making me kind of dizzy in general.

The blow to the head was for all intensive purposes,self inflicted, and feels better.
The heat this past couple of weeks has been brutal during class, but I think I am starting to get used to it.
The loved ones, well, I am coming to accept the complicated lives they make for themselves, at a price. The more I accept, and the more I become OK with, the more I realize, I no longer feel as close to them. Loving someone and not getting emotionally bound by what they do, brings a kind of peaceful detachment to the relationship, and the detachment is textural. Like laying next to someone who is wrapped in a down comforter. Its soft and flexible and warm, but it takes up space and creates a distance. My life has just gotten really simple, while theirs have stayed the same. Its a comforting, peaceful loss, but a loss all the same.

Simplicity is something many avoid at all costs, we must stay busy, keep moving, keep talking, keep looking, keep thinking, keep wasting energy. You see, when there are a million things or people or situations to consider, then you don't have to focus. During class focus and stillness are the hardest parts to get. Inside class everything around you is a potential distraction that, if you react to, will drain energy from you and destroy your balance. Outside class they pertain to your mind and the decisions you make in your life, the more distractions you surround yourself with, the more is taken away from you and the less of you is left.

When you spend hours every day in a room with 20 other people, just breathing,just focusing, just pushing yourself, you learn how totally unnecessary all your distractions are.

Familia

Tonight as I muddled through the 6pm class I thought about how the 6pm regulars are kind of like a strange surrogate family:

The Businessman is the friendly stoic father figure
Mr Profanity is the eternal frat boy uncle who rides a Harley
The Gourmet Queen is the older sister who you cant wait to see and talk to
Aunt Dorothy is um, just like my Aunt Dorothy
The Seashell Man is the uncle who occasionally lifts his nose from a philosophy book to smirk at you
And Gumby, Gumby is the uncle who used to torment you till you cried
Also I realized even in a class of three hundred people, and even our every day environments, if you think of each person as an individual and as someone who is part of your life (because everyone, like or not is) they become like family, people you love for who they are, and just accept because its what you're supposed to do. You may find things that drive you crazy about any one, but in the end "WE... ARE... FAM-I-L-E". This realization is a bit farther into the whole dirty hippy, peace, love, bla bla gig than I ever thought I would ever buy into, but as the Metal Yogi said this morning "I am drinking the Kool Aid".

Since I royally screwed up my challenge, I have to figure out what to do next, and refocus. The advanced class is now the one big thing I look forward to every week, and now there is Triple Tuesday AND Triple Friday. I was joking with aunt Dorothy tonight that I need to get a life, so I wont be at Bikram so much, but I really cant imagine a better life than the one I have found the center of inside that hot little room.

For Julia (This is my new motivation for finger stands)

The Smelly Girl

I understand other people have pictures or visuals of some type in their head that correspond to memories, I however have smells. Out of the clear blue sky I will smell a smell that I have not smelled in years, and has no chance of belonging to anything in my area, but does belong exclusively to a person, place, or thing in my past. The thing I always remember most about people or places or things is their smell. For example I still remember vividly how my best friend from 7th grade smelled. Rebecca Willis, she smelled like a warm cotton blanket that just came out of the dryer. I even remember how friends and relatives who have passed away smelled, hows that for strange? When I have memories of them, I smell dead people...

Today in class I smelled Sysco brand cracked black pepper that has sat in a hot kitchen above a stove and has started to funkify, and I thought of my beloved family deli in Queens town Maryland. This place, was for all intensive purposes, hell on earth. Then I smelled Hebrew National brand kosher hot dogs and thought of my little Brian who I made work the hot dog cart all summer long, and I remembered how much he hated me for it.

Thankfully the next thing I smelled was not a memory of corned beef or evil stepsisters or hot dogs, it was the slight ammonia smell coming from my sweat soaked towel telling me I need to increase my carb intake.

People always ask me if Bikram smells bad from all the people sweating, and to be honest it is rather organic and wet smelling, like warm moist moss you would find in a cypress dome in August.

The main thing I think of is that the humidity in the room is made up in part by the sweat particles evaporating into the air from everyone around you, which means you are actually breathing in tiny pieces of everyone in class. That could be rather disturbing or endearing depending on how you think about it and the people in your immediate vicinity.

Today after three days since my last double, when I walked by the front door on my way into class and smelled the warm wet air wafting out of it, it smelled like heaven.

Lance, Church, The Euro Warrior, and Wimpy Yoga

This afternoon as I looked around on the porn box while waiting for it to be time to go to Bikram, I decided to see what Lance and the boys had been tweeting from the tour the past few days. They are surprisingly boring tweeters, but I read a quote that said "Cycling is like church, many attend, but few get it". It stuck with me as I felt the people around me in class tonight. Yogis are the ones who "get" Bikram, and they are kind of like habitual Catholics or rabid Pentecostals, in the devotion aspect (we don't spend near as much time kneeling and I haven't seen anyone speaking in tongues during class yet).
The funny thing is all the different types of people who do "get it", and lately I have been looking for a common thread of what makes people Yogis. During class tonight there was the Seashell Man, Mr. Nasal, The Gourmet Queen, Pippi Shortstocking, Gumby, the Businessman, and the Pink Pirate, who all have nothing noticeable in common, but they all "get it".
Oh, I forgot my new favorite, the Euro Warrior-
I have decided she is some kind of Slavic athlete, maybe tennis. While she practices with great determination and focus, I envision a coach of some kind standing over her ranting in a very mean sounding language. She also has a rather nasty surgical scar on her knee, and I do truly love to be near people with scars, they make me feel less alone. I have developed an entire bio for her in my head (I have no idea if any of this is remotely accurate, but, I am an only child, and we make up vivid stories to populate the world in our heads, to survive the silence of our childhoods. Some people say we have a well developed sense of imagination. I just say we make shit up, that's what we do). Anyway, the Euro Warrior's power feels like a freight train behind me in class, and she, like all the rest, "gets it" and has nothing else noticeable in common with the other Yogis in the room.

We were also talking about different types of Yoga today before class and I had to explain that Ive never tried any other types of yoga besides Bikram, because really I don't like yoga other than Bikram. America's version of yoga is pansy, weak, crap, made up so people can (with out sweat, pain, or much effort) feel like they are doing something good for themselves. I even hate telling people that Bikram is yoga, because I think they will never understand that it is actually hard and challenging and rewarding and that we don't sit around and hum and sip green tea...There. I said it. I am a Bikram snob, and I am tired of people thinking what I do everyday is like an activity someone's grandmother does with her knitting club on the beach on Sundays.

Standing on the shoulders of giants, amplifying the work

This triple Tuesday was fantabulastic. The 8am started with a taped dialog given by the previous owner of the studio who has since passed away. His name was Chris, I met him outside of Bikram, and most of what I remember of him was that he was a giant and told a story of some kind of really strange training thing he went to (sounded more like a cult) where some guy stood on his shoulders. I remember thinking that this guy was probably wackadoo, but he was a very nice guy so hey, to each his own. Now I know this was teacher training and it was Bikram standing on his back as he touched his forehead to his toes and yes, wackadoo would be one way to describe it. During his dialog he talked about maintaining stillness and called it amplifying the work. Everyone has at least one thing they say in their dialogue that sticks with you, this was his for me. The 10and 6pm went well, and after the 6 ended there was a torrential downpour. It was a wonderful feeling to walk out into the cool rain and just stand in an alley, barefoot in a puddle, arms upraised, and amplify the work.

Jealousy

I should know by now never to answer the phone on the way to yoga. I have a friend from Maryland who I haven't seen in 10 years, but who I talk to regularly who called me this morning at 7 am to discuss the current girl her boyfriend is allegedly spending time with and how much she hates her.
I tried to explain that at some point almost everyone has to learn that there is no point in being jealous of other people, especially other girls in the same situation as you. I told her to think of it as they are all waiting at different stops for a bus for which none of them can decipher the schedule, if anything this is reason for empathy, not hostility.
Needless to say, she didn't think my analogy was a good one, and being that girl fights are the national pastime on Kent Island, I'm sure she is somewhere, as I type these words, shedding blood.
Jealousy is a scary thing, and hard to get out of once you get cocooned in it. I haven't been able to entirely eliminate it from my scope of emotions yet, but these days it has shifted from other people to other people's yoga outfits, or yoga accessories, and back bend ability, and today The Queen of Yoga was not at class, so I was the girl with the coolest LULU LEMON outfit on, BIG GOLD STAR FOR ME!!!! However, the instructor to my right in the first class, (who I affectionately call Gumby due to his flexiawesomeness) had the full allotment of today's jealousy supply, during all of the back bends.
The worse part was I didn't even have to look, I could feel his exemplary back bend energy vibes radiating out, flowing onto my mat, snickering and whispering "You really can tell she hasn't been coming enough lately". This is how my brain works, its not Gumby I am jealous of, its the damn cool kid back bend energy vibes who come over to the edge of my mat and whisper and snicker and point their finger at my self conscious, wimpy back bend energy.
Now ladies and gentlemen, there is a new flavor of jealousy/insanity/insecurity about displays of spine strength I bet you never heard of before.
Oh well, I guess its better than waking up early on a Saturday morning and stealing the farm pickup to go over and beat up Jeanie Ann...

The Shoe Fairy, Thank You Gifts, Friends

Today I got two pairs of beautiful amazing shoes from a lady in my class who I will call The Shoe Fairy (she is more like a bad ass/diva/new yorker/yogi/ with amazing taste and humility, but that dosnt exactly roll off the tongue). I am not usually really excited about shoes but these are amazing, and they fit perfectly, and now, I have to find many excuses to go out and wear them. I suddenly realized I have many many people to thank these days, in the last few months I have received so much support and goodwill and gifts and encouragement and praise and on and on, that I am frankly overwhelmed and a little embarrassed. I spent all class thinking of ways to thank people, like giving them cards, disco tickets, any children I may ever have, swearing to never stand them up again, but really, there are a few people to whom a card or a gift will never convey the extent of my gratitude.

I was talking to my friend today about moving to Panama after I finish my masters, and I realized, when I originally came up with the plan to go there, I was going to get away from here, or what I thought was here. I hated Sarasota and all the fake people and all the hypocrisy, and now I realize I was leaving to get away from my own unhappiness(and some of the people). Now, when I leave, I will miss Sarasota and many, many people in it, so while I'm here, I am going to enjoy every moment of it and every one of my friends. Part of me is even looking for a reason to stay.

If looks could kill, the mirror would have been my weapon

Yesterday I did a double, back to back starting at 8am and with not much sleep, then I went wade fishing for 4 hours and again didn't get much sleep. So this morning when I went to class sore and tired, I already wasn't very cheerful or optimistic... AND THEN-
A man I call Mr Vocal chose to be in the front row, one person down from me, putting himself directly in my line of sight and at optimum audio range. Unknowingly this man became all that I hate in the world for about 85 minutes. While my legs burned in standing forehead to knee, I blamed him, while my balance failed in balancing stick, I blamed him, while baby sea turtles washed up on the shore, dead and covered in oil, I blamed him. I proved today that I do not posses the power to will lightening to strike, or it would have. At some point while I was sure that the root of all evil was going to make my head explode I noticed the queen of yoga to my right focusing calmly and serenely in the mirror, and I realized, if anything, Mr. Vocal was a gift I should be thankful for, he was a challenge for my focus and my determination. There are plenty of people who I used to allow to upset me by their behavior, but really when people act disruptive or combative it is simply a challenge to remain focused, and not allow your energy to be consumed by negativity. At the end of class I still would have liked to politely let him know how distracting and inconsiderate it is to behave the way he does, but its not my problem, and its not worth my energy. I left regretting that I spent the majority of my practice allowing myself to be upset and irritated, but glad that I had ended it with a stronger peace and focus. If Mr. Vocal is at the 4pm class maybe Ill ask him to stand directly next to me. After the 4pm I will only have 2 more classes to go by the end of Tuesday to accomplish my challenge!

Today is not Tuesday, I don't care what you say, IT IS NOT TUESDAY!!!!

This morning in my second class a familiar friend came to visit. I remember him well from my first challenge, his name is "Pain Like White Hot Lightening Striking Me in the Left But Cheek and Heading Down My Leg". I call him "Pain in My Ass" for short. He comes to visit when I have once again forgotten that my determination is much greater than my physical strength. Luckily one of our instructors Tom can make my unwelcome friend go away. Without Tom I would not physically be able to have come this far, if you ever have a pain having to do with muscular stuff, he, is your man.
So, I am staying home and pretending that today is not Triple Tuesday as to avoid the 6pm class. I have been cordially uninvited by the instructor for the 6pm due to my gimpyness anyway, so even if I tried to go it would not be received well.
Speaking of pain, today I realised what the most painful thing anyone will ever encounter in a Bikram class is, it happens to me often, and I am totally unable to prevent it.

Rabbit Pose:
You tuck your chin to your chest,
touch your forehead to your knees,
lift your hips to the ceiling,
and the sweat that was previously residing on your chin,
rolls up your nose and into your sinus cavities.
This ladies and gentlemen is what real pain is.
It happens frequently and all I can think of is a white hot burning light in my skull, or Ozzy snorting ants, (if he had been in Florida and they had been fire ants) or my brain floating in a pool of napalm.
At least muscles and ligaments have the good grace to cramp, or ache or feel like someone has just hit you with a spiked baseball bat in your left ass cheek, unlike your cursed sinuses that unleash legions of blinding ungodly pain into your cranium.
So, next time you have a pain in class, just breathe and smile through it, and be thankful you didn't just snort fire ants.

Magic Shirts, rednecks, and 13 year olds

Today I learned that the clothes (or more specifically the way clothes can make you feel) do truly make the yogi.
I got a new shirt, its pretty, its comfy, but, most importantly it doesn't inch up when you bend over, it doesn't twist around when you twist around, and it just doesn't move period. This may not seem like a big deal, but, it is amazing. Today was my best practice yet by far, and I owe it all to a wonderful new shirt (maybe not entirely, but you get the point). I also got what may be one of the most accurate and flattering descriptions of myself I have ever heard today. A close friend told me I was 1/3 redneck, 1/3 scholar, and 1/3 yogi. I almost wanted to cry, and here I thought no one understood me. There was a 13 year old kid in class today who did an awesome job for his first time, and I had a moment when I wished my parents had done things like take me to yoga as a little kid, and then I realized there was a reason they didn't, because it wasn't my time to go, now is.
Namaste

Bikram Hot Yoga in Sarasota, Florida

The New Happy Hour

Bikram says that all sports and exercise trash and injure the body and that yoga restores it... Well, Wednesday I went to boot camp and then swam the next morning and then went to Bikram, and then I got out of bed today, kind of. I was so sore I skipped the 10 and almost skipped the 4. It was incredibly hard, but, it did make me feel much better. I also wore my contacts to class today. I usually take them out before class, I am near sighted and it helps me focus, otherwise I would be watching everyone else. Today with my little eye I spied a girl right behind me who looked like me, ten years ago and fifteen pounds lighter, with a better tan. Needless to say I had a major moment of thankfulness that I had come to Bikram instead of sitting at a bar at Happy Hour making myself older and weaker. Later as I lay on the floor, not listening to a word Tom was saying, I thought of all the mistakes and disappointment that got me to this point in my life, and how thankful I am for what every single one of them taught me, and how thankful I am to be right here in this hot ass room lying on a towel soaked with my own sweat on a Friday afternoon while every one else I know is at happy hour.

Let today forever be known as Triple Tuesday. Today, on this Triple Tuesday I touched my forehead to the floor!!!! No one applauded, no one yelled my name from the top of a mountain, but damn if beautiful amber waves of nausea didn't sweep down from the very heavens above carried on the wings of technicolor angels and steal my forehead touching the floor thunder. Today for each of my three classes I was blessed with a pollen tumor behind my right eye socket. It is still there as we speak, I know I talked chickens (this is kind of like talking turkey, but entirely different), I know I whined about my headache, I know I talked about school, and I know I peeled most of the top 2 layers of my facial epidermis off some time during those four and a half hours, and I planted stuff in the garden, and did homework, but mainly I know I touched MY FOREHEAD TO THE FLOOR!!! This may not seem like a big deal but when you have been straining and stretching for over a year to do this and you finally accomplish it, it is pretty monumental. So, I am going to celebrate, by going to bed early and dreaming of developing callouses on my forehead from spending too much time with it pressed on the floor.
Today I touched my forehead to the floor, and really that was all I care about that happened on today, this Triple Tuesday.

"Hard Way Right", and other random things

As I left the 4pm class today I thought about how my whole day was spent looking forward to this class (sick huh?). It was good, for the first time I actually had more energy leaving then when I came in, a lot more. I got down right hyper during the floor series. No clue why. Today my instructor who has been so encouraging and such a cheerleader (in a very masculine way) informed me that I have completed 22 classes in 14 days. So, I am ahead of my goal so far. I started reading Birkam's book, and he is just as humble as I would have expected him to be... Which for those of you unfamiliar with him, that is not one bit. Really the guy has every right to be a bit haughty in front of Americans, we are sick, lazy, and unhappy, but Bikram has an answer for that! "Hard way right", why is it that people who do not speak English very well often sound more intelligent than we do? Think about that one for a minute or two. I am going to miss class tomorrow and I will be rearing to go on Tuesday, wish me power. Oh yea, Gary always says Mondays are big peace stealing days, don't let anyone steal your peace tomorrow!!!

Today I am Wonder Woman

I really don't know what to say, other than, it was FUCKING AWESOME!!!
The 8am and 10am double went really well so I started thinking about trying my first triple, without really THINKING about it. At 6pm I just showed up, and figured it was an experiment. After I got settled in, I started to get nervous(I have no idea what about)and my instructor came over right before class and just told me to take it easy. So, I did, I took it easy, it was really easy. My legs didn't shake, my arms were not tired, and it may have been one of my best classes, it was effortless. I was the Zen Master... I am really proud of myself, and that feels strange, as I always think I could have done better or tried harder, but this was impressive, if I do say so myself. Some days everything just rolls in right, and if you stand strong and focused and determined you can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
I am proof that any one, any day,can do something awesome! So tomorrow do something really hard. I not saying to strive to impress your boss, or clean off your desk, or get the kids to clean their rooms, do something people will be inspired by, and look at you like you are insane for trying. Be a superhero, just for one day, it feels so damn good.

Today's out of body experience

People always talk about out of body experiences like they are rare and wondrous things. Fact is they aren't, we all have them all the time, they stem from a lack of focus. Today I had a major one in the 10 am class. I began class feeling good, focused, optimistic etc. and then I started thinking about my unfinished term paper due tonight, and Botox and how I would never get any, except maybe in those creases in my forehead, and about how I cant for the life of me remember the name of that lady I saw the other night who had way too much Botox, and about the ex boyfriend I had who was in love with that blond lady who was married to the Botox doctor, and how bad I needed a pedicure, and what to write about in my blog today, and about how bad I am with names, and how you should never name a farm animal if you plan on eating them, and a few other things. Next thing I know class is almost over, I have been on auto pilot the whole time and I only have two postures left to go. Trouble is, the rest of the class had three left to go... I am pretty sure I tuned back in in the nick of time, as I corrected my posture the lady next to me gave me one of those "Yea, honey it's OK" smiles, and the instructor seemed to emphasize the name of the posture we were in just for my benefit. I guess it could have been worse, but it made me think about a speech I heard the other day on cell phone use and how it keeps us distracted from where we are and who we are with.
So I guess the idea is that focus allows you be fully present wherever you are, and to experience, enjoy, and,love who you are, where you are, and who you are with, because right now we are not any where else, or any one else, or with any one else, and if you miss now, you can never get it back...

And today's double was dedicated to my Uncle Randy, the Scotsman, and all three of our livers...

Sooo
I used to be quite the accomplished drinker, I have personally slaughtered many men much larger than I with tequila over the years. During all of this I inherited my dear Uncle Randy, who was a bar manager and is now a scotch rep. Needless to say recently I have cut way back to the point of almost eliminating alcohol entirely. So, last night, when my dear Uncle called and said there was a going away event for his Scottish friend Jimmy, I decided to imbibe, for old times (not so distant)sake...
From that point the story goes pretty much as usual.
Until-
This morning at 7am when I woke up and realized I really could not afford to miss this Saturday double 8&10am session. I argued with myself about how bad this could go for me, but in the end I decided I had to do something to make up for the damage I did to myself last night.
SO, I drank many many waters,took two Excedrin, put on my wet yoga clothes, (which were left in the washer from yesterday) and stumbled out the door...
I am not sure of the exact timing, but at some point between 7:30 am and 11:30 I sobered up, got nauseous, got a hangover, fought through it, became euphoric, and had one of my strongest doubles yet. I do not recommend this behavior to any one but, this was a great testament to why excuse # 2433887 for not going to a Bikram class (#2433887 is being hungover or possibly still being intoxicated) is not any more valid than the 2433886 before it or the 5 million after it.
The bit of yoga wisdom shared in class today that stuck in my head was said at the beginning of my second classes floor series:
"Keep your eyes open and your mouth closed"
Altho she definately meant this in the literal sense it is damn brilliant advice for life in general, especially when there are shots of rumplemintz involved!
And no, I do not plan on putting myself through this again any time soon...

What a difference a day (and two more glasses of water) makes!!!

Yesterday I felt like I was sinking into the floor, today I felt like I was floating
Yesterday I stumbled out of triangle, today I owned it
Yesterday I fell out of standing bow, today my legs were like a lamppost, unbroken.
Yesterday I was excited about going to class, today I tried to talk myself out of it
Go figure...
Yesterday is never like today, and, you never know what this class will be like until its underway.
This reminds me of when the instructors tell you at the end of two sets, to fully relax, and let that posture go.
So... I am learning to just work as hard as I can during a class, and then fully relax, and let that class go.
Just as in every instance in life, all you can do, or are supposed to do, is work as hard as you can until it is done, then relax, and let it go...

36 more to go...

In this class I learned how to know when you didn't drink enough water... You get extra dizzy, and get the chills. Yea, yea, I know, I should know better by now. I just simply forgot, I didn't carry enough with me today and I got distracted. When I mentioned how bad my balance was to my instructor after class he told me "Don't judge it, just observe it". Funny that is a good bit of advice for most things in life, no matter if we are talking about ourselves or others. So I guess I learned two things in class today, to always drink enough water (which I really already did know, but obviously needed to be reminded of) and to not judge, only observe...

Namaste

I am a relatively new (one and a half years) Bikram student. I started off just going a few times a week, and it was incredibly hard. I would skip class for months at a time and when I attended I would go every other day or so. About three months ago I decided i was going to use Bikram to change my life. Four years ago I had a car accident in which I fractured my c1, broke all the ribs in my left side, collapsed a lung, had my spleen removed, broke all the metatarsals in my right foot, broke my left scapula, died twice and spent three weeks in the ICU. The accident in addition to never having been athletic to begin with and not taking care of my self left me in pretty bad shape mentally and physically. I am now thirty one, and feel better than I ever have in my entire life.

When I went to classes irregularly the heat killed me, and I never saw any real improvement in my postures or the way I felt. The weight loss was the only real result I found, but wen I stopped going to class the weight just came back. One day I attended the ten am class after a few months of not going, and I decided to come back to do the six pm as well. That moment was the moment my whole life changed. After my first double I decided to set a goal of doubles every day for ten days. On my third day I forgot the second class was at four not six, so I only completed nineteen of the twenty classes in the ten days, but that challenge changed everything.

For the year or so I had attended Bikram off and on before that I had never really talked to anyone in my classes or the instructors. Once I began the challenge I began to enjoy the classes, and the people in them. I now know many people who I am glad to see and talk to each day.

During my first ten day challenge I decided that teaching Bikram yoga was something I wanted to pursue. In ten days I lost fifteen pounds, I would say my over all body pains have been reduced by 95% and my energy level has sky rocketed. The truly amazing change is emotional and mental. Everything I ever got upset about suddenly became inconsequential. For the first time in my life i felt calm, in control, and at peace. I started eating better, I stopped drinking alcohol almost entirely. I do not drink caffeine or soda, and I drink about two gallons of water a day. All of the changes in my behavior were almost unintentional, I simply did not want to do anything that would interfere with or would not enrich my yoga experience. Every class I had a break through in at least one posture. In ten days I progressed more than I had previously in over a year.

Since the fist challenge I have been attending about four to five classes a week and a double here or there. I am a student and frankly I just cannot get to enough of the classes to practice as much as I would like. This past Monday I started a new challenge forty classes in thirty days... After this six pm class I will have thirty six more classes to take before June third.

I am excited to see my progress in the next month and to see if I can exceed my goal. I am writing this blog to keep you updated on this journey and to inspire others to start their own.