7 Jan 2017

I Did It! (And So Can You!)

by | posted in: Day In The Life, Paean | 7
Fiber artwork depicting adaptive yoga by "FiberArtGirl" in 2012. Image: Wikipedia!
Fiber artwork depicting adaptive yoga by “FiberArtGirl” in 2012. Image: Wikipedia! See footnote.

 

I did it! Yesterday was Day 30 of my 30-Day Bikram yoga challenge. I did 30 classes in 30 days without skipping a single day. How about that. It took serious dedication, I ain’t gon’ lie. But it also wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve ever done because I was genuinely grateful to be there.

When I walked into the studio a month ago, my body was crying out for help. My knees were junky, my shoulder hurt all the time, and bad habits were catching up to me in all kinds of ways. I was hungry to do some work in that hot room, even if it hurt — and it frequently did. But when you have the right mindset about something, the struggle bus doesn’t seem like the worst way to get from Point A to Point B. At least you’re gonna get out of where you are, right? At least you’re going to have Point A in the rearview mirror before too long and if Point A is just that lousy, you can’t wait to see it getting smaller and smaller as you go forward. The struggle bus feels pretty good when you see that, even if where you are is kinda rough.

I don’t usually prescribe things or give advice — a girl needs to figure out her own life before she starts telling others about theirs — but tonight, I can’t help myself:

My dears, try some yoga.

There are PaperGirl readers out there who are practitioners already and I am mentally high-fiving you all. But for those who haven’t ever tried yoga or have fallen off their practice, I urge you with not a whiff of ecstatic-weirdo-convert or tiresome “Let me tell you how much you’re missing by not doing [insert thing here]”: Give yoga a chance.

It’s about breathing and stretching. That’s all. Yoga is not a religion. It’s not a threat. It’s just you.

“Yoga” means “union,” as in the union of your body and your breath, for example. You don’t have to be fit to start; that’s never been true. You can do yoga with injuries because there are modifications for every pose. People in wheelchairs do yoga;* people who have had spinal surgeries (and all kinds of surgeries) do it. You can move your toe one little inch and if that’s your yoga that day, if that’s you doing something good for your body, that’s terrific! You’re doing yoga!

I’m telling you, my knees don’t hurt right now. Really, after just 30 days of stretching and breathing and stuff, they feel great. My shoulder hasn’t felt better in two years. And I’m a very skeptical person! But the proof is in the mirror. My pelt is shiner. My eyes are sparklier. I don’t feel as sad as I did 30 days ago, either.

Hey, don’t take it from me. My mom — the one-and-only Marianne Fons — does regular yoga. She started years ago when a studio opened in Winterset and she credits yoga with helping her be more flexible. She loves how during “relaxation” at the end of every class — yoga classes end with “savasana” pose, which is basically like taking a mini-nap!  — she often gets great ideas, like what her next quilt will be, or how to end a chapter of her novel. Mom also says yoga gives her extra pep. We all want more pep, even Marianne, who was born with a pep surplus.

Yoga is not a contest. You don’t have to go in being “good at yoga”; the big revelation is that no one is ever “good at yoga.” Because that is not the point. Having yoga in your life is about taking a few minutes each day to love your sweet, tired, beautiful, tough, hard, soft, aging, sick, strong, fabulous, confusing, mysterious, gorgeous, true body. Nothing more, nothing less. You are so powerful. Did you forget? Yoga can help you remember. I promise.

Give it a shot this year. Tell them Mary sent you. Do any kind of yoga, whatever feels good. It can be “old lady yoga” or Bikram yoga. Ashtanga is way cool but it’s pretty demanding. Lots of gyms offer it, many cities that do Groupons will offer awesome deals to get started. Shop around. Get a pal to do it with you; that could be fun. Don’t see it as a New Year’s resolution; see it as your birthright to be a friend to yourself, to act on your own behalf.

Okay, advice over.

You know what I did to celebrate the completion 30 day challenge? I went to yoga. So I’m 31/30. Well, I also got a veggie burger from Devil Dawgs around the corner from the studio and mercy that thing was good. It’s the spicy sauce and the grilled onions.

*The image for this post came from Wikipedia as usual, but how neat that when I searched ‘yoga’ I found a quilt about yoga!! This was made by someone called “FiberArtGirl.” Way cool. Thanks, quilter. This is really lovely. 

 

8 Jul 2014

On Being Naked and Sweaty In Public.

by | posted in: Day In The Life, New York City | 2
This photo was filed in WikiCommons under "Sweaty" for the sweaty nose of the cow. I think the picture works in every way for this post.
This photo was filed in WikiCommons under “Sweaty” for the sweaty nose of the cow. Perfect!

 

I’m all up in my Bikram yoga now that I’m mostly settled, practicing with regularity at the small-but-mighty Bikram studio on the Lower East Side. What this means is that numerous times a week — every day if I have my way — I am packed like a sardine in a can of sardines, if sardines were naked and sweaty and practicing yoga on the Lower East Side. You know, sardines could aptly be described as both naked and sweaty; alas, being dead fish, they do not practice yoga, so my little simile must only go some of the distance for us.

When I say I’m naked and sweaty and Sardinian (?), I’m talking about my state post yoga class. During the yoga, we students wear clothes* in the hot room. (For the uninitiated: Bikram yoga is a 90-minute yoga series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises practiced in a room heated to 105-degrees. And yes, you pay for this on purpose.) After class, when the very will to live has been nearly wrung out of us and we drag our taut, glowy, and utterly eviscerated carcasses out of there, that’s when it gets real.

There is no space in Manhattan. None to spare. The women’s locker/shower/changing room in the yoga studio is maybe…500 feet square? It’s small. You’ve got a bank of lockers, two shower stalls, one bathroom, and a lot of sweaty, naked women attempting to change out of sopping wet yoga togs into normal street clothes, which is tough because a) there is nowhere to bend over to get your wet leg into your jeans and b) getting a wet leg into jeans in any room is like trying to give a sick cat ear infection medicine: extremely, extremely difficult and exasperating. You want someone else to do it for you really, really bad. But no one ever will. It’s your cat. It’s your leg.

I have bumped a bare bottom with my own bare bottom. Oh, it’s true! I’ve turned my head just as a gal was exiting the shower stall and whammo! the lass’s entire self, just hey-how-are-ya, right there in my letterbox. I’m pretty cool with bodies, so none of this exactly bothers me unless I think about the fact that we are all animals, because then I think about chicken coops and pig pens and cattle shoots and that’s bad. All those animals are naked, too, so I’ll be trying to pull denim up over a wet booty (mine) and suddenly I’m having the sixth existential crisis of the day — and I usually take the noon class!

The worst, though, is when there’s zydeco music playing.

The studio is great in the way they just hit “play” on some endless music mix in the sky/on the web and you never know what you’ll get. Sometimes, you’re headed into the hot room to the dulcet tones of jock rock; sometimes you get wailing house divas. Sometimes it’s all spa music in the changing room; other times you get hip-hop. I love the variety. But once, when the class that had just been tortured was changing to leave and the next class was arriving to go into the heat, when everyone was hopping around on one foot, boobies out, sweat flinging this way and that, effing zydeco music came through the speakers and I thought I might die of shame. Surely, someone, somewhere (God?) was laughing hysterically at all this. It would be impossible to come up with a soundtrack less becoming to a roomful of naked, hopping women.

That day, I ran.

*”Clothes” is mostly right. You wears small slingshots of fabric to cover the bits and that goes for the men and the women alike. This state of underdress makes for excellent scenery or not-so-excellent scenery, depending on where you’re standing and what you’re into.