My Experience

I can't believe how different this challenge feels from the last one. It's incredible how much things have changed, from my perspective, inside the heated room. Mind you, I'd only been practicing for about a month and a half when I began the last challenge (which seems unreal) and it has been almost 8 months now, so one would expect a difference. So, what do I mean? Well, for one thing, it's been much easier to get through. Last challenge I would count the days until I was done after every class, unable to believe how far I'd come yet how distant still the end day was. This time around it's honestly not even on my mind. I don't feel like I'm on a "challenge" right now. I feel like I just go to yoga every day because that's what I want to do. I don't even know what day I am on! I could figure it out easily enough, but it's just not important to me anymore.

However, it's important to note that I don't work the 9 to 5 anymore so I've been able to mix up my classes quite a bit. I have to take that into consideration because it was a lot more difficult to have no choice but 6:15 or 8:15 every weekday evening. We actually have a new room open at our studio, which means lots of selection for class times, but it isn't hot enough in there yet. Apparently the heating system is still a bit off and needs further adjustment. I don't mean to be picky, but I almost find it too cold to practice in there! The other day I had one hell of a time in there: first of all I almost killed myself driving like a maniac to make 5:15 class after getting off work at 5, and I got there late. I only missed first set of Pranayama breathing, but it still ticked me off after all of that effort. I practically catapulted myself up the hill after parking (running as fast as your legs will take you up a steep hill is a new and rather unpleasant experience I've gained throughout the past few months rushing for class from the SkyTrain or a parking spot down the hill! It's similar to "dream running" as you still can't go very fast despite maximal effort.) and then I flung my clothes all over the floor of the changeroom. Anyway, I was in such a rush that I didn't even have a sip of water before heading into class, so I was totally parched, and also I had to go pee really badly! All of this after whirling into class late! I thought that the need to pee would go away with all the sweating, but because it was only lukewarm in the new classroom it only increased. I actually had to leave the room, which I never do. What a class. Floor series was okay. Anyhow, I do feel bad about the new room but I know that they're working on it, and it does offer a beautiful view as two of the walls are windows and, as I mentioned, our studio is located on top of a big hill.

My back has been giving me some problems. I have actually had two massages in two weeks, but I don't know if they helped much. (Not that it didn't feel good, I just don't know how therapeutic it actually was.) The problem seems to be in my lower back, right at the tip of my tailbone: that's what hurts the most. I'm going to try to fix it with this ancient workout VHS called "Callanetics", an old favourite. The exersises are specifically aimed at people with back and knee problems and I remember really liking the video, so maybe I'll give it a shot tomorrow morning or something.

I'm not really as interested in talking about improvements in particular postures these days. It used to be a subject of endless fascination for my sister and me. The series has become much more the sum of its parts rather than individual poses. I have had the most special classes of my life during these past few weeks, and I just can't believe that there was a time this summer when I had begun to lose interest. I simply couldn't imagine giving this up. I'd sooner give up just about anything. My job. My social life. Going on mini-vacations. I'd even give up sleeping in a bed! (I think that big comfy beds and lots of pillows are totally overrated, anyway. All you need is a nice mat and some shelter. Now that's yogini talk!) Everything else that I used to value seems downright frivolous in comparison to practicing yoga. What else could possibly be more important? It's becoming more and more difficult to relate to people that have no interest in yoga, though, which is weird, because hardly anyone I know practices very regularly. Thank God I have my sister. She is much more reserved compared to me, but I know that she feels strongly about this as well.

I've actually had a major change in my thinking throughout the past little while, right down to my perception of the universe and my place in it. Anyone that has ever talked about "the deep stuff" with me (lots of people, as I studied philosophy) would no doubt be surprised at this shift, as I had a tendency to swing pretty far in the opposite direction at times. I've maintained a sort of "hippie buddhist" mentality throughout my 20s (I'm now 28), and even during my childhood and teens, though I was kind of weird back then and still considerably influenced by Catholicism, having attended Catholic school all the way until high school graduation. However, at the same time I can be devastatingly detached and clinical. It isn't that I was a "Jesus teen" or anything like that, but I did let go of my religion at 18 - it isn't that I began to reject it outright, but rather, I set it free. I left it for everyone else and decided to open my own mind up to whatever came to me. I am still this way, I suppose.

When it comes right down to it, I don't believe in sugar coating life. It's probably been a gradual thing, especially with the yoga, and I have read a lot of strange books lately, but there IS a single event that I believe to this day has had the most remarkable effect on my perception. I don't know how it's going to come out in print, but here it is:

I had a somewhat bizarre yet truly wonderful experience during class (and beyond!) during late summer that spawned a whole new way of thinking. It was right before I began to drop off, actually, which seems strange, as I consider the experience life-altering. (It wasn't really my fault that I dropped off, though, as I went away for two weeks right after that, leaving that very day.) It was a really warm day, and I'd spent the previous night at a friend's house, but left at around 7:30 AM. I wanted to go to the library that morning to grab some books for my trip, but it didn't open until 10, so I'd meandred around downtown for a few hours, which I suppose really loosened me up. I was going away that afternoon, so I didn't think that I had time to go to class. I still had a lot to do that day. Anyway, as I was walking up that hill I mentioned, my cell phone rang, and after hanging up, I happened to notice the time. Class was starting in 5 minutes, and suddenly I was right outside the studio. I went through that jerky movement where you're not quite sure what to do next, when I realized that I just had to have one more class before I left. I didn't have anything on me, but I was wearing shorts and a tank top that I figured would work in the classroom, and I could always rent a towel and a mat.

Anyway, I was having a fairly good warm-up, unremarkable but good, when suddenly I felt my flexibility just expand. It was in Standing Head-to-Knee pose, first set. This is going to be so anti-climactic but I don't know how else to describe what happened to me, so here goes. I decided I'd be okay to kick my leg out, which is still hard for me to hold. I felt stable from the get-go, but suddenly I was more than stable. I was so light. Weightless. I was made out of something other than my body. I felt as though I was gaining strength from some inexhaustible source outside of me at the same time as I was giving that strength back. I felt this incredible well of energy, or strength, flow through me, and it was as though I was getting it and giving it at the exact same time. I suppose that this sort of feeling has arisen during class on other occasions, in terms of shared energy perhaps, but this was somehow different. Maybe just more intense, but at the same time very subtle. The most subtle. When I think back, the only word that comes to mind is "strength". I felt I'd tapped into the tip of the iceberg of a reservoir of strength so mind-bogglingly enormous I could scarcely fathom it. However, the part that is really strange is that I felt like that strength was also coming from inside of me. It was like I discovered something that I'd been perfectly blind to, but that was readily and wholly available to me. I don't know for sure, but I would probably call this a religious experience, or at least the closest to a real religious experience that I've ever had. I think about it all the time, and I truly hope that I haven't built it up into something more than what it was, but I don't even know if that's possible. Whatever I found that day was real, but it's nothing that you would ever be able to really tell anyone about. It's not that this is coming out wrong exactly, but this just isn't doing it justice. You'd have to find it for yourself. I don't know for certain, but I feel that this could only be grasped properly through yoga. Disappointingly, I haven't been able to connect with it so directly again, but I'm very aware of it at times, inside and outside of class.

Well, that's my story! My yoga practice has definitely changed since this happened. I'll try to write again soon, but I think that's enough for now. Good night!