dodgerroger

When I first started, I was just like everyone else. I got my ass kicked but I loved it. The day of my first class I went to the library and borrowed both of Bikram’s books and read them both. I went every day for the first three or four months at least. My first week, there were times I wanted to go twice a day but I didn’t know that people actually did doubles.

I think in the early days, I was largely motivated by the ego. I hated sitting out. I vowed never to fall out of standing bow. In Bikram they push you quite a bit because Bikram thinks that Americans are lazy. What he did not realize is that Type A personalities are drawn to Bikram yoga like moths drawn to the flame. I don’t consider myself to be Type A - my nature is responsible but lazy. However, when something captures my interest it’s basically balls to the wall, all out. Another thing that feeds the ego is the rapid improvement one experiences at the beginning of their practice. I’m not sure how long the early part of the learning curve lasts for most, but my spine was so frozen and my body so inflexible and messed up from playing sports that I saw many changes for a long long time. I would say my entire first year I seemed to improve weekly. My spine was sore for the first two years of my practice. People would catch me doing the Bikram death grip (half moon) randomly at the dinner table.

The amazing thing about doing Bikram is how much your experience in class varies from day to day. You go in feeling terrible and you are so scared and wary and then you end up having a great class. Then there are days you are all pumped up and basically waiting all day to go to class and then you go too hard and end up bonking before you even get to standing bow. 

I would say the first year or two of my practice I primarily used my Will to push through anything and everything in my yoga practice. I began to investigate the difference between what I call the Will versus willpower, which to me are two different things.

After about a couple of years or so the changes came much more slowly. Certain things improved in ways I could never imagine, but I had figured after a couple of years I would be able to touch my forehead to my knee in standing separate leg forehead to knee… but no. In order to keep improving I increased the amount I practiced. For someone like me, this has consequences, because I sweat a ridiculous amount. Basically, I’ve never met anyone that sweats more than I do, even though I generally practice in the cooler part of the room. Practicing so much and losing so much water and good stuff through sweating I ended up having even more variation in my practice. I started building up a long term dehydration and I would have some pretty tough moments in class.

The next phase of my practice involved using bunch of tricks to get through the tough parts. I used all sorts of visualization tricks. I would imagine the “Silver Bullet” Coors Light train driving the room. If you haven’t seen the commercial, it’s a sweltering hot summer day and then they paint a hole in a wall and the train drives through and everything is wintery cool and everyone is refreshed (and drinking beer). I used that trick a lot. Especially when they gave a burst of fans.

For a long time my breathing was a big weakness. I’d huff and puff. I’d sound like Darth Vader. I’d push and push… I knew it was a weakness and I started focusing on the breath. Paying attention to my breath became the main goal of my yoga. I devised all sorts of tricks to keep my focus on the breath. I stole a meditation trick where you count your breath as follows: inhale one, exhale two, inhale three, exhale four… when you get to 10 you start over. Sounds easy, right? You don’t know how many times I would be inhaling on an even and go “how did that happen?” Or I’d find myself at 14 and realize I forgot to start over after 10. It’s basically a mindfulness exercise. I learned how to calm my breath even when my heart was pounding. Another mind trick I used was the following: I’d visualize I’d be standing on the top of a cliff and the shore curved in a crescent below me. My breath was like the waves of the ocean. The exhales would be the waves going out to shore and the inhales would be the water receding back to the ocean. Then I would slow the waves down which would slow down my breathing as well. My breathing now is much better than before but there are still days when I struggle with it.

After the breathing phase I worked on self acceptance. So many of us beat ourselves up. For me, self acceptance was acknowledging that there are certain things that are going to take a long time to change. A lot longer than I anticipated at least. When you are driven to improve and you sort of plateau or even regress after the summer months this self acceptance phase is not easy. This is particularly hard to accept when you’ve seen continual improvement the first 3-4 years of your practice as I had. My yoga practice opened the door to me to a whole new world that I had never even imagined. I came from a world of science and logic and math. I didn’t believe in “energy” or anything that couldn’t be established by science when I first started. I met all sorts of people that I perhaps would never have met before and these associations changed my life. These days it seems like everyone I meet influences me in some way and opens new doors. Even the annoying as hell people either teach me something or give me an opportunity to practice something I’m working on.

I feel like over the past 5 or 6 months I’ve gone through spiritual changes at a particularly accelerated rate. I have friends that I’m able to share this journey with and we grow together. I’ve found that I am much more open-hearted and compassionate. While I still get incredibly frustrated at times, I feel like I don’t really experience anger anymore. There are times where I know I should be angry, where regular people would be angry and where I’d be perfectly justified feeling angry, but the anger just isn’t there. I am constantly questioning whether I am repressing my anger, but I can’t seem to find it. 

Recently, I’ve entered a new phase in my development. I’ve started a regular meditation practice and have been greatly inspired by reading Jack Kornfield’s A Path with Heart. Kornfield says if your are strong in the mind then the mind is NOT your teacher. Your weaknesses are your teacher and I definitely come from the world of thoughts and ideas. My mind is constantly working and analyzing and scheming and planning. For me, my teacher is my feelings. These days, I try not to come up with excuses or theories. I steadfastly avoid creating false narratives. I try not to assign blame or create explanations. Instead I just try to open my heart up, surrender without resistance, and feel whatever happens. I allow myself to become totally vulnerable let the waves crash against the rocks. I’ve found that not trying to protect yourself with deluded explanations and allowing yourself to be completely open and vulnerable actually gives you strength. You still feel pain but you don’t suffer. You actually feel the pain more intensely but you feel the joy more intensely as well. I think it’s the resistance that causes the suffering. 

I’ve found that opening yourself up completely and not holding back has transformed my life. I feel a freedom and lightness that comes from total self acceptance. There are certain ideas that I thought I understood before but now I understand so much better. For example, one of the ideas in Buddhism is “right speech”. I had always interpreted that as don’t use bad language and don’t talk shit. I am sure that there are books on Buddhism that say this as well. But now when I think of “right speech” I think it means speak from the heart. Speak plainly and honestly. In my mind it’s not what you DON’T say, it’s more about speaking truly. It’s making everything you say meaningful.

So, now I want to feel everything that comes up without any filters. I know I will survive and I know that the shit may hurt like hell but that ultimately I will survive and be okay. Yesterday, I went to class after doing a long run (I never run) and after having not practiced in three days and sitting in a chair for two days straight while trying to write a textbook. We had a work retreat that was like being on a cruise ship because all you did was eat and sit (except instead of lounging we were working). The retreat ended earlier than I expected and I ended up making it to 3pm class. It was a hot day and the fan on that side of the room was broken. I had eaten a biggish lunch that ended around 1:30. I went with the intention of bonking because I didn’t want to fight the bonk, I just wanted to take it and feel it and experience it. The universe did not disappoint. So for the first ever (almost 4.5 years and probably well over 1200 classes) I left the room. There were points where I could’ve used some of the mind tricks to get myself through the class but I don’t want to do that anymore. 

So these days, my yoga happens outside the studio as well as inside. Through practicing the physical aspect of trying to master the asanas I’ve ended up re-shaping my mind and soul as well as my body. Above all, I’ve come to view pretty much everything as a practice. I now accept things and myself for how they are and I work with the intention of improving. 

 

He said that the first part of awkward works the outer part of the thighs and you should feel it.

In the second part you work right through the center of your thighs down through your toe.

In the third part you are working the inner part, and you shouldn’t just squeeze your knees together but you should seal it all the way up your inner thighs.

I love how he talks about “the edge” and how one uses consciousness to neither fight nor flight…