Bikram 101

Oof!!

Past the 60 day mark?  Hooray!  Hard part's over now, right?  Well, not necessarily (sorry sweetheart!), because every day is totally different.  There will always be hard days, fun days, killer days, and rock star days, no matter how long you do this stuff!  (At least in my limited 5 year experience - maybe the people who count their practice in decades instead of years have a different take on this.)

I had an ouch-y class this morning which was entirely of my own making.  I didn't get a chance to practice advanced series last week, so I did the class yesterday for the first time in 2 weeks.  It was a great class and I worked hard in almost all the postures, which meant that all my muscles were awake and saying "HI" to me this morning.  So I replied, "Oh, hello there abs, hips, legs, and every muscle in my back... let's go take the morning class."

This might be weird, but I'd almost forgotten how much I like taking class when I'm all sore and stiff.  On one hand, half moon hurt like heck and I had to distract myself by thinking about some hilarious conversations I had yesterday morning.  (This meant that instead of trying not to cry, I was trying not to giggle.)  A lot of other postures were uncomfortable, too, and it took a whole lot of extra effort to get my forehead anywhere close to my knee.

On the other hand, there's nothing like a little healthy soreness to make you aware of every muscle in your body!  Backbending did sort of "hurt like hell," but it also felt GREAT, because I could feel every muscle waking up and un-knotting itself.  My joints were doing some great Rice Krispy impressions for the first half hour (*snap* *crackle* *pop*), but I could feel things sliding back into place with every little pop.  And rabbit pose felt absolutely phenomenal, one of the best rabbits ever, because I could feel the stretching all up and down my spine - all over the back of the ribcage, from the level of the shoulder blades all the way down to the coccyx.  Rabbit is a brilliant posture; I'd almost forgotten that.  It's totally worth the 75 or 80 minutes of "torture" that lead up to it, because it'd be impossible to open up your spine like that with any less of a warm-up.

It's nice to be reminded that "discomfort" and "suffering" do not have to go together.  Discomfort is something that will happen now and then, no matter what you do.  But suffering is something that you can opt out of, at least to some extent.  I've noticed this more and more, the longer I practice.  At first, I'd feel this "pain sensation" in my body and think, "OUCH!"  Now I feel the "pain sensation" and think, "Hey, what is this new sensation?!  This is interesting, alright... I wonder what is happening..."  No more drama.

**For the record, you guys are all free to remind me of this post when I'm moaning and bitching my way through week 5 of teacher training in May!  And for the record, it's possible that I will smack you in the face for doing so.  You are warned!  Hehehe.**