Day Twelve

from http://www.buzzfeed.com/peggy/the-emo-elephant

Great class with Luke this morning, especially given that I had a few glasses of wine last night and woke up with a mini-hangover. Then, partly to remedy that and partly because I made the decision to sleep it off a bit and go to the 10am class instead of the 8am, I also indulged in a pretty full on breakfast (before 8am) of avocado and bacon on one small piece of toast and a poached egg on another. I wouldn't normally eat this much before yoga but I was really hungry and I hoped it might help the class rather than hinder it. I did worry, when asking around this morning and noting what other people ate for breakfast before class (answers were - nothing, bircher muesli, fruit, porridge) that it might have some effect on my class, but this morning it worked out just fine. I felt good and strong in most of the poses, except for a bit of a wobble in the awkwards, eagle and triangle. And I came out of the class full of energy which was great.

I'm really starting to enjoy how alive I'm feeling after I come out of a class these days. My early yoga classes weren't like that. When I started in March 2010 I remember thinking Bikram yoga was like a hostage situation - you couldn't leave the room, you had to do everything the instructor said (and I remember thinking they all talked like those guys that call horse races, because the dialogue seemed to be so fast and rapid fire) and it was incredibly uncomfortable in there - and when you came out at the end you were just bloody grateful to be alive! It was very much a survival thing for me but it had so many benefits that were impossible to ignore.

I went to Bikram yoga originally to lose weight. I had started to look at my weight problem (I was 80 kilos which is borderline obese for a then 43 year old female who is 165cm tall and I had also just come off medication for high blood pressure and wanted to stay off it if I could) and was trying desperately to lose some of it. I am not a dieter but I did change the proportions of what I was eating so there was more protein and less carbs after talking to a personal trainer at a course I was doing. But I wasn't really eating much then (I eat a lot more now than I did) and I knew I really needed to exercise. Walking around Torbay just pissed me off. If you're unfit and everywhere in your neighbourhood is hills, it's not the first place you look to start your fitness programme. (OK, it might be now, but at the time I tried it it just wasn't for me). But doing this yoga regularly (between 3 and 5 times a week for the first few months) allowed me to lose somewhere between 13 and 15 kilos. My weight has pretty much stabilised at 67 kilos now, though I have dropped a kilo or two below that doing this challenge. My blood pressure is great now as well, and my doctor has said that only 5% of people who come off blood pressure meds manage to stay off them, so that's an added bonus.

Now I am coming to realise more of the benefits of Bikram yoga. I was eavesdropping from the room this morning between classes, while I was lying down waiting for the class to start. I haven't done many classes lately where I've been there for part of the changeover and I'd forgotten the kinds of things you can pick up by listening to people talking to the teacher at the desk after class. This morning I overheard Luke talking about breathing, and in particular, about how observing the breath is our way in to observing ourselves (and I am guessing our essential nature, which is usually what it's referred to in meditation). He was basically saying that as human beings we find it difficult to kind of let go and just be without something to aim our attention at. And it made me think of all the times he's saying to us in class to focus on how we're feeling in that posture, or in that particular place in the posture, or in the stillness we're trying to create at the end of the posture. To observe the sensations, the way the muscles feel, the way the joints are (opening up, not opening up etc), where there might be more space to move etc etc. At great risk of losing one of my favourite places to practice by telling you guys this, if you lie next to that window for enough "in-between" times in classes, listening to the teachers teach their own personal observations of the process, it is like eating from a smorgasbord of Bikram yoga FAQS (some of which you'd never ever thought of asking about yourself). Thank you Luke, for the great teaching but also the animated conversations before and after class, and the jokes during. And to all the teachers who have given me such great feedback and correction and instruction - you're all wonderful! I hope you never feel that you're irrelephant... ;)