Day 3

Seriously didn’t want to go today. I was in a writing groove and didn’t want to stop. Normally when I feel this way, I tell myself to go but then I look ahead to the next time that I can take a break. It was disheartening to look forward to 27 more days after today before I get a full day without any commitments.

Note to self: no more looking ahead.

In that vein, my instructor, Jodi, gave us instructions I haven’t heard before when we were lying on our stomachs after the first set of mat poses. She said to focus our gaze on the edge of our towels because it will help keep our energy close to us. I feel like that’s a description of my whole life right now: keeping my eye on the part of my life that’s just two inches away so I can keep my energy close.

Writing full time is hard. And it’s tiring and solitary. And it’s really easy to stop doing it so I have to figure out how to keep my writing energy close, how to feed it, how to get away just long enough to come back refreshed but not long enough to lose the thread of I’m writing.

It’s tough. So I’m looking at the edge of my towel and I’m working on it.

Day 4

Holy crap, there were so many people in class today! The Yoga Vida studio is big. You could probably put 20 people doing snow angels in there and no one would touch each other. Today, we had twice that many people. Maybe even 50. It was crow-ded. And hot. The instructor advised us to “figure out a way to rest inside ourselves” because there wasn’t going to be a lot of restfulness in a class that big. And there were a lot of new people so the energy ran a bit to the wonky crazy side.

But it’s instructive to look around a class like that and see all of my assumptions go awry. The tiny dancer girl in the front that looked like Miss Yoga 2011, her half moon had no curve to it at all. The two chunky girls directly in front of me who looked like they might drop in seconds? They totally hung in there. But the guy on the other side, the one that was ripped and tattooed and looked like a Bikram veteran? Wow, he had a tough class and actually left in the middle to go cool off. You can’t ever tell.

It’s my fourth class and I find that I continually remind myself to listen and not assume that I know what to do. Instead, I should listen to the instructions and follow. The instructor said, “instead of pushing further, stay where you are and listen. See what your body needs, where it’s tight, what is working and what isn’t. Make small adjustments. Breathe.”

I find my posture is better when I do Bikram. That’s good.