Aka – the day I thought I would die a slow painful VERY HOT death.
For today’s December Daily – there are no pictures. Because they would just NOT be pretty trust me.
somehow I was talked into going to a Bikram Yoga class with my dear friend Emily. Emily is “edgy”, (she’s going to slap me for writing that – but if you knew her, you’d totally agree!), she’s persuasive in this really backwards way, and if I was ever going to be dragged along to my death, it would probably only be by Em. Because she has a way of making it seem like “well at least if we’re going to die it will be together.” So off we trekked with our water bottles and our towels and our “breathable” clothing.
Now I have practiced yoga in a few different forms and formats for almost 10 years. (clearly – I need a LOT more practice. And no it hasn’t been a consecutive ten years.) But I’m not too shabby with the tree poses, warrior stands, and I have even been known to do a mean camel a time or two without breaking my back. (ok now THAT one I might let someone take a picture of.) But this….this was insanity.
If you have never heard of Bikram Yoga – it translates roughly into “torture chamber” from the original Sanskrit dialect. (and yes I made that up. Laugh. it was funny.) But really, it is traditionally practiced in a room that is heated to anywhere between 90-105 degrees fahrenheit – and when you add in the amount of body heat produced by a bunch of sweaty people who are exhaling their toxicity – it gets DARN hot in that room. Bikram is a practice of 26 asanas (postures/moves). You do each move through 2 times, with two “breathing breaks” (savasanas). It is not the touchy feely, meditate your mind on the present, incense burning in a dim room type of yoga. It is down and dirty hardcore insanity.
Por ejemplo – the teacher told us all yesterday that someday 
we WOULD be able to touch our toes to our foreheads. I kept my thoughts to myself somehow – but they included something like “the only way my toes are touching my forehead is if they break me in half shoving me into a body bag”. That is not normal people. If God wanted our toes to touch our foreheads he would have made us all out of rubber. (and for the record, that is a straight leg, body bent in half at the waist, locked knees touching of the forehead to the toes.)
Emily and I were given spots near the back/only entrance so that we could run out quickly if we felt dizzy or lightheaded. I felt both dizzy AND lightheaded upon walking into the room, but I willed myself to stay. Em and I had both decided that our main goal was to STAY IN THE ROOM the entire 90 minutes. I am not quite sure what we would have done if one of us HAD been about to pass out cause we’re both as stubborn as mules and would not have left before the other one did…but luckily we both survived.
There was a definitely interesting mix of participants in there – from older gentlemen in their 70’s (wearing nothing but boxer briefs. don’t get me started) to young hip college students. And pretty much EVERYTHING in between that you could even imagine. You really don’t have the time or desire to look around too much because a.) everyone is wearing as little clothing as possible because have i mentioned how hella hot it is in there and b.) because you become so dang focused on just NOT FALLING OVER/passing out/looking like an idiot that nothing else matters than getting your heel up on your thigh and bending down while balancing on your tiptoes. Homey does not balance this much jelly on her tiptoes i can tell you that much. It really is not as “gross” as you think. Everyone is sweating, everyone is detoxifying, everyone is trying to not die their own slow painful death. No one is staring at you (except the teacher who asks why you dont have your knee bent behind your head and you have to answer “because there’s too much fat in the way”). At the end of class the teacher turns off the lights, you lay in savasana trying to get your heartrate to come back down out of the 200’s and trying NOT to guzzle down the gallon of water you brought in with you (cause it will make you seriously hurl if you chug it), and you think to yourself “I SURVIVED!!!!!”
Seriously – it was one of the most mentally challenging things I have done in a long time simply because the whole time you are fighting against your brain that is telling you – it is far too hot for you to be doing exercise in here – get out get out get out!!! And you have to remain SO focused on exactly what the teacher is telling you to do and trying to make your body cooperate with that that there is NO room for any other thoughts. It is purely about survival. I have not worked out to the point of shakey muscles in a LONG time. It felt REALLY good. Well, up until we left the studio and I started getting a nasty migraine probably from dehydrating/detoxing. I tried to kill it with some mcdonalds (I know, right?) but that only took the edge off long enough for me to make it to Kendall’s pulmonology appointment and have a coherent conversation with Dr. A. Which it happened to be a very good coherent conversation – except he is on the warpath of “being super aggressive with any wheezing or colds she gets this winter” – translation – lots of steroids to hopefully keep her home and NOT at Hotel LG. Got home just in time to swap kids with our awesome nurse so she could take a tired out Kendall home and I could get the big girls to dance. Oy. finally got home in time to all crash at 9:30.
Got up this morning all super pumped to go workout again – did the usual 3 ring circus involving getting everyone where they need to go (Kendall’s bus comes at 7:15 AM, so we have to start the whole morning detangling dance unhooking her from tubes, changing clothes, rehooking up tubes, lugging the 100 lb wheelchair out of the back of the car, buckling her in, bundling her up routine FAR too early for my liking – and then its time to feed the other three, check homework, make lunches, get them on the bus and today Kaylen had a playdate with a friend to add to the chaos!) – and I was THREE MINUTES LATE to class. All of that hustle and bustle and actually getting little people to the right spots – and i was late (locked out of class) because of fricking road work! I’m going to try going to this afternoon to the torture session. We’ll see.
Anyways. Onward and Upward.
T-crest out.