One week, one yoga studio. Two Bikram teachers, two very different styles.
One gave us some great quotes to ponder as we were struggling for breath down on the mat between asanas.
For when you’re working towards a goal: I am comfortable with my plan. I am at peace with my power. I achieve my dreams and outcomes with ease.
To stay out of needless drama: I am a lighthouse, not a lifeboat. I do not rescue, but instead help others to find their own way to shore, guiding them by my example.
PRETEND LIKE YOU’VE GOT A FLASHLIGHT IN YOUR BUTT AND YOU’RE TRYING TO LIGHT THE CEILING!
He also made us sing Happy Birthday to one of the students during Triangle pose. Twice.
Photo credit: the amazing Kristen Lamb, via WANA commons
I love both those teachers. I love that even with it always being the same 26 postures, you never know what’s going to happen. I dig opposites. Learning how to comfortable with uncertainty is why I keep coming back.
I’m never going to go into that second set of Triangle now thinking that I can’t breathe and have to fall out, knowing that I can actually sing Happy frickin’ Birthday while holding the pose.
I’m also never going to go into hands-to-feet pose without picturing the entire class…um, lighting up the ceiling.
For Bikram Yoga Etiquette, check out this post on Joy is so Yellow.
When we commute into the city for work, we’re usually on the reverse path of everyone else. People with more regular-type jobs are leaving; we’re coming in.
I like to imagine that a salmon swimming upstream to spawn has moments where it goes My God! Why am I doing this? Oh right. Happy ending.
Swimming the wrong way in a sea of people can be a pain when you’re not terribly tall, like me. And have demophobia that only gets triggered at a certain crowd capacity and/or speed, which is pretty much always reached in Penn Station and Times Square.
I usually try to tag a mark– some person bigger than me who appears to be going my way, behind whom I can fall in, while they make the path. This is much easier when I’m with my husband.
Because when I’m by myself sometimes I guess wrong. I tag the wrong mark and find myself pinned up against a wall, unable to make it to where I need to be without just ramming into a crowd of people willy-nilly. That isn’t taken too kindly here, and isn’t terribly effective given my size.
I finally figured out how to clear a path all by myself. How to get a seat alone on the train or the bus, how to get space around me on the subway, how not to get shoved accidentally down to the LIRR instead of the C train at Penn Station.
Look crazy.
Do you hear Patsy Cline? I totally hear Patsy Cline.
The woman about to ram into me as I was exiting the elevator stopped dead in her tracks and let me pass. Nobody rushed at me when I was getting off the subway. I lead the way with CC behind me through Penn Station and I felt like Moses.
I saw people looking over their shoulders as I passed by. Observed people whispering as they passed me. But nobody blocked my path for once, and I had the added benefit of not being able to hear what they said. BECAUSE I HAD FOXES ON MY EARS.
This is how it begins, isn’t it? How we start to not give a crap what we look like or what we say in public as we age. It’s only a matter of time before we’re wearing fuchsia leopard print flannel pajamas in public while sucking on a long, empty ebony cigarette holder, being trailed by about a hundred and fifty cats.
I can’t wait.
Here are your links.
Richard Van As and Ivan Owen teamed up to create a robotic prosthetic hand, intending to post the design in the public domain so that anyone in need of one could make it. They recently completed their design and the recipient was a young boy named Liam (at a cost to his parents of $0). This is such an excellent project which is still in need of funding- their intent is to assist anyone who asks with parts and supplies as well as expertise. Please check out coming up short handed (the Robohand blog)
Hmm. I’m sensing an encouraging theme here. Jen e sais quoi wrote this piece recently encouraging her friends that are going through a very rough time. Since I have several friends in a similar place, I’m including it here. You Are Not Alone.
Okay, I guess I’m late to the party, but I had never heard of Sam Gordon before. You neither? Sweet! I saw a clip of her during the Superbowl. She’s this 9-year-old girl from Salt Lake City who just finished up a season of completely kicking ass on a boys’ pee wee team. She’s got some crazy stats, and can also take a hit. Here’s a link to Kavitha A. Davidson’s article and the video on Huffington Post.
Finally, I know we got a little snow here on the east coast this weekend, but in Brazil, it’s raining spiders. (ummm, Darla? Are you aware of this?)
Along with the recently-issued mandate in our house that the kids make their own school lunches, we’ve also started buying less junk food.
It’s amazing how much damage junk food has caused to their eyesight. They look in the pantry and can’t see that there is any food left.
One kid, who shall remain unnumbered, attempted to offer helpful suggestions to all the other kids who couldn’t see any food for lunch snacks. A different kid, who shall also remain unnumbered, said “This is gross! There’s nothing to eat in this house!” and went to her cave room and slammed the door, it is rumored.
Three remaining kids banded together and made snacks for lunch, which just thrilled my heart to no end.
In the pantry were an unopened package of graham crackers and six unopened boxes of table water cracker of varying flavors. In the fridge were grapes, baby carrots, a pear, apples, an orange, cheese and eggs. We had bananas, peanut butter, celery, jello and dried and canned fruit. There was bacon. Not that it all counts as health food, but they couldn’t see any of that because of the junk food disease.
So they made Cinnamon Toast Crunch muffins from a mix that one of them got for Christmas, and popcorn.
#4 made the muffins. She thought they seemed a little plain and never voluntarily eats anything without added sugar, so she gave them Christmas sprinkles. Then she found the packet of Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumble in the box. So she put that on too.
There’s always something to eat here. You just need to know where to look.
JM Randolph, accidentalstepmom 