After this morning’s yoga class I stopped along the 101 to take photos.  I had to tell myself in class today that yoga is NOT a contact sport.  Until this morning, I had never wiped out in headstand.  Today I wiped out and almost took Sharath and my neighbor with me.  MORTIFIED.  At least they weren’t live streaming the class where the camera would be on Sharath and my attempt to hit him again with my big bunny feet as I did yesterday.  He really is a kind, gracious and good man!  I am so glad that he has been so patient with me this week.  One more class left and it is sold out tomorrow so our mats will be an inch apart.  I pray that I can keep all my limbs on my own mat and no more hitting ANYONE with my feet.  Yoga is not a contact sport…

More beach photos…

As promised, more beach photos.

And the great thing is that I have my elbows bent and can upload these items with minimal arm movement since I am all kinds of sore today.  Day 2 of Ashtanga was fantastic again but wow I am tight!! I got to visit with my best friend today and enjoyed a nice big dinner.  The kind that will make me say “curse you cake” when I try to bind my arms around my body tomorrow at 6:30 am.  Of course that will occur after I do about 40 minutes of class and all those postures that are pure agony when you are as sore as I am.  

Until then, beach photos. 

(beach photo as requested, more to follow)

When the alarm went off at 5am today I sprung out of bed like a child on Christmas waiting to see the delights of the season.  I quickly showered, and got in my car. In my nervousness, proceeded to leave the hotel without my yoga mat. Fortunately my obsessive compulsive side built in time for bonehead moments like this and I went back to my room and got my gear.  As I drove from La Jolla to Encinitas, the sun was just rising over the mountains and even my rent a wreck seemed like a glorious beast of an automobile.  Life was grand.

I arrive way too early to the studio and sat for a bit before checking in.  As with all yoga studios, I had to fill out a waiver.  Here is where my anxiety set in.  I had no problem with the medical waiver but the “we have the right to photograph and use all images” struck me.  There is no shame for me in being new to Ashtanga.  It is an exciting learning process.  However having an image of say my rear up in the air, didn’t really warm my heart especially since I was in a group of happy buzzing 2% body fat yogis could have been an ad for Lululemon.  The water in Encinitas has some sort of beauty magic in it I swear!!  Then I started to look around me and it hit me that everyone seems to be friends here.  DUH ~ I was in a room of ashtanga INSTRUCTORS.  Many of these people have spent time in India together.  On one hand that excited me as I am inspired by the people around me in yoga on the other I wanted to run and hide in the bathroom.  The only thing that I had going for me was that I had the courage to spend a week with this group in order to better myself and my practice.  And at that moment, the courage was slipping away.  No one wants to be the bottom of the bell curve.

Upon reflection, I realize that this was like the first day of school for everyone except some people were already friends.  No one could sit still.  Everyone had on there best smiles and big happy eyes waiting for class to start.  Everyone was thrilled and honored to be in that room.  My anxiety was horribly misplaced. The only difference between all of us was the varying degree that we could get into the postures.  

The room had about sixty people in it.  It was packed to capacity.  When Sharath entered, it fell silent.  Then the magic happened.  Instantly everyone was perfectly lined up and Sharath lead us with the “OM”.  Sixty people filled every millimeter of space in that room with the sound of pure joy.  As a recovering Catholic, the best I can equate it to is during specific religious ceremonies (say in Notre Dame) a full choir including a bell choir, with great beauty and zealousness would sing in a way that would give you goosebumps.  Although I am new to Ashtanga, I am not new to yoga or other Eastern practices and that was the first moment I could comprehend the power and mysticism of the meaning of “OM”. I felt absolute peace.  All the inner chatter about “what if I can’t” dissolved.  As we continued into the opening chant I felt simultaneously uplifted and joyous.  I completely let go of any expectations and was totally in the moment.

A few observations about the class itself:  

1. It passed in a heartbeat.  Before I knew it the woman to my right had her foot above my head in the part of Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana where you move your leg to the side (no not kidding she was amazing and I am almost 5’8″)  Yes it was 1.5 hrs but the energy in the room was so upbeat we seemed to fly through the series.  

2. Navasana isn’t the only pose that Sharath likes to hold.  He is also enjoys strong Chaturanga Dandasanas and we stopped for each one and held.  My silly noodle excuse for arms loved that!!!   

3. The room was never warm or humid and I sweat more than I did in most of the five years of Birkram yoga.  I was drenched, sweat all over my mat, the floor, etc..  I didn’t notice it until I put my head down in Baddha Konasana and dumped water from my forehead into my feet.  I must have looked like a train wreck but felt great!! 

4. In class we always lay straight back for shavasana.  I always thought that was odd as showing the bottoms of your feet to someone is considered disrespectful by many cultures.  Now this could be just because I am an American learning Ashtanga in America where we don’t have a culture issue with feet.  About 1/4 of the class turned around for shavasana.  I thought that was a nice touch.  Sharath didn’t ask anyone to do it. It was simply done out of respect. 

5. Sharath is as nice and friendly and approachable as I was told.  He has a combination of demand for hard work and humor at the same time.  I understand why everyone was so excited to see him.

Of course tomorrow is day two.  I had several days of rest before day one but if it is 1/2 as great I will still be crazy thrilled!    

Although I am in construction and am accustomed to a “less compassionate” and certainly less politically correct environment that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel anguish with certain decisions.  There are two circumstances that cause me a great deal of strain right now.  Throughout each of them I toil over and over and over again in my head to find some sort of win – win that I can live with.  And tonight nobody wins.

The current president of my Rotary club is an absolute brilliant leader.  He works both wisely and tirelessly.  He has moved the club in one year further than most could dream of in five.  I am honored to be on his board.  Tonight I watched him go through the mental toil over an issue where frankly, nobody wins.  We can’t stick our heads in the sand and we can’t wait for time to pass any longer.  

Although he is an amazing leader, he didn’t want to deal with a sticky situation because, like several of us, he saw that nobody wins.  I feel guilty that I forced him into confronting it and I expect that my personal relationship with him has suffered as a result of my insistance.  Again, more of “nobody wins”.  

I don’t think anyone sitting around the table didn’t feel a level of anguish tonight.  I ask myself now, how could I have handled it better?  The situation is too fresh for me to know the answer.  If I knew how, I would have dealt with my leader in a fashion that perhaps didn’t damage our relationship. I wish that he wasn’t put into a situation that he would rather face a cononoscopy instead of tackling.  

I wish that I could have found the way of win win.  Today, nobody wins.  The question however is, how many truly lost?  I don’t know when we will have that answer. 

On Valentine’s Day, my honey took me to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens to enjoy the most breathtaking orchid display that I have ever seen.  This week, the garden sold many of of the orchids from that exhibit.  Not only did I get a beautiful morning walk in the garden, but I walked away with two armful’s of beauty.  Now selfishly, I would love to keep them all but, I did get many for my friends to enjoy.  

It was such a crappy week that I am glad it ended on a note of beauty.

It has been several months now and I have to say it, I miss my friends from Bikram yoga.  I bump into them all the time as the studio where I take Ashtanga is the same studio where the Birkam (Hot) yoga studio is offered.  I am friends with one of the owners and she is hysterical.  My favorite FAVORITE yoga moment over the course of now~ six years was when my friend was teaching the class and I was getting into Garudasana (Eagle, shown above by Bikram).  When she saw the quantity of drama instead of efficient movement I was using to get into the pose and said “Candace ~ WHAT THE HELL, this isn’t your interpretive dance class”.  I didn’t fall at that moment but I almost had to excuse myself while I laughed to the point of tears!!  I miss the silliness, the camaraderie and my buddies (although I do enjoy time outside the studio with a few of them).

I can’t do Bikram right now because the heat is too hard on my adrenals.  My adrenals cause terrible joint pain, I mean some days it is my knee and elbow and other days it is everything, including feet, hands, wrists, hips ~ ug.  Ashtanga is so hard on my knees that I have now counted three classes where I just start to cry from the pain.  Bikram on the other hand only has really one pose, toe stand that would be tough on my knee.  

I like Ashtanga and Iyengar better than I like Bikram yoga.  It is change, new, exciting.  I like Ashtanga better than Iyengar however the Iyengar classes help me in Ashtanga as I get a chance to get into the poses with props so I can feel what I am trying to do in Ashtanga.  Unfortunately, because of my demanding schedule right now, I can’t make it to Iyengar and won’t be able to again until May.  That is OK, it is a long yoga journey. 

Still, I miss my buddies.  After you have gone for a long time, you have a sort of “yoga team”.  You watch new people progress and are proud of big moments for them.  You see if your friends need a hand or just sharing of electrolytes or a hello.  You move your mat and make space for people and they for you when someone is running late and after a stressful day, that is a great act of kindness.  It is yoga, you share and the group energy is powerful and you are focused on energy because you know the postures well so you go within.  When you are weak you find more inner strength and you can feel the group strength in the room and that inspires you to do more.  I can see in Ashtanga that group of people that have been practicing together and have that rapport.  It is a significantly smaller and younger group than in Bikram and I am not a part of it.  That doesn’t diminish my experience but what I am pointing out is what can enhance your experience.  

I hate to admit it but I miss the mirrors too.  It was a wierd dimension of Bikram yoga but I get it now.  I could watch the details of my postures, and as I am into visualization, I would learn and improve and see myself do the poses before I could actually do them.  I feel like a big dork in Ashtanga but I wish that I could see myself improve.  Even for the expense of seeing how much my yoga has slipped since I am in so much pain.  I can’t enjoy small victories and I don’t have a team anymore. 

I miss my friends at Bikram yoga, especially since I am suffering and I know I could get strength from them.  I miss my yoga team.