New York, New York

I'm getting used to not practicing for 3 days straight. I haven't been since Friday. My husband and I ventured to New York for the weekend and arrived back home late Sunday night. We went on a Thursday and somehow, I managed to make it to a class on Friday.

It was intense. I went to the Bikram studio on the Lower East Side; the pink one. The vibe I get from new Bikram studios and new Bikram teachers, no matter where in the world, is so intense it's almost not healthy. It doesn't feel like "yoga". There's nothing peaceful about it. They just spew out the same, by-the-book dialogue that they're taught at Teacher Training. It's also what I would imagine boot camp to feel like. There's no room for the mental pain factor because frankly, in my opinion, that's the only real pain that exists. It hurts physically but once the heat starts to permeate your brain, it's all over. This studio was packed to the rafters and I, being from out of town and not sure of where to go and how long it will take, arrived just in time which meant I had the worst spot in the room. I was RIGHT next to heaters, both to my side and behind me. The room was stacked 3 rows deep so that I, being in the 3rd row, could barely see myself in the mirror. Then, to make it wonderfully worse, after a rainy, rainy afternoon, the sun came blasting through the windows during the floor series. Where was I, aside from being next to 2 heaters? You got it, right next to the windows. The sun shown just when I was mentally about to crack. It was such a HOT room even without the sun. Luckily I had a hair band that I put to good use. I covered my eyes like I was some Zen yogi practicing with a blindfold. I KNOW I looked like a kook but I was so cranky with this teacher that I wanted to piss him off by doing something "different". The reason I was so cranky was because he had drawn the curtain for one half of the room when the sun started shining but not for my half. I was so fragile and pissed at that point, that I swore to myself that he was doing it on purpose. And the reason I thought he was doing it on purpose? He kept insisting that we all stay together and I know I was occasionally and accidentally going ahead of his robot dialogue. This was probably so far from the truth but like I said, I was fragile and took everything personally. There were at least 50 people in the room so obviously there was no friggin' way he was "getting revenge" on me :)

Anyways, I am eager to get to my regular studio today. It's peaceful there and I can focus and concentrate. My teacher is the most senior Bikram teacher in Canada so he's achieved a Zen that new Bikram teachers aren't even close to finding. I think most young/new Bikram teachers treat this yoga as a "workout" and not as a means to meditation and inner peace. I will forgive them. They are yoga babies and hopefully by the time they reach the age of 90, they will be Zen masters and gentle yogis rather than automatons who worship this man, Bikram.