Another Great Moment in Yoga History

I have a friend, Sara, who continued to practice yoga regularly throughout her first, and for most of, her second pregnancy. As she can pride herself on her determination, I can pride myself on my lazer focus on the posture. The two glorious attributes plus pregnancy postures proved an embarrassing combination during full locust.

I am incredibly glad that Sara and I are friends and that she has a very good sense of humor.

In fact, she is such an unflappable yogi that she actually did try to lift me -- by lifting her chest -- before I figured out that my hand was not actually resting on her shoulder. Great class.

(Sara is the author of a new blog you should check out too! The title says it all, "Dude, I Hope You Step on a Lego.")

Great Expectations

We all know that we are supposed to look at our practice without judgement, without expectation. We also all know that his is a little bit bullshit.

Ideally, yes, I would not care what I did yesterday, or that with this many hours logged I should TOTALLY have a locked out knee by now. But my postures are not ideal and neither is my yogic attitude. I'm working on both, but if I admit that this is a process I must also admit that I'm not there yet and that's okay too.

With that said, I have found myself doubting my progress. As a result, when I drag myself into class lately I feel like I have been dragging a lot of baggage too.

I work hard but I find yoga frustrating, rewarding, time consuming, and necessary. For every reason I love it I also want to just walk away. It's painful to feel that way toward something you, at times, love so much and gives you so much in return.

I asked Gianna Purcell, a yogi I have watched in astonishment for the entire four years I have been practicing, how she kept her enthusiasm.

She told me (and this is WAY paraphrased because it happened like a month ago) that she sometimes felt like other people's expectations, although only put upon her by her own head, were a bit weighty. When that happens she'll walk away for a bit, take a few Ashtanga classes then come back to Bikram renewed.

'Other people's expectations?' YES! I've been feeling that but I know I shouldn't, 'cause, you know, "no expectations"? Nobody in my studio is expecting me to be a godess. They will be happy that I show up even if I stay on the floor the whole time breathing. They say this almost every class.

Still, in my own head it is hard not to feel like people want a certain level of practice from me. It comes from the first-timers in the locker room asking how long I've been practicing. From the wounded yogi working their asses off to heal themselves telling me I'm inspirational (I want to shake those people, "Look in the mirror for better inspiration, Yahoo!").

So my reaction to this new knowledge is two parts. Part one: I know I need to knock it off. It's all in my head. If I have to lie down all class just to prove to myself that nobody is going to care, I should do that. If I have to walk away for a bit, I need to do that.

And here is the second part: This is what I do to Gianna's practice. To Allan's. To Aura's. To Jessica's. To Liz's. The list of my yoga idols is extensive. The amount of fawning I do over them a little extreme. I have always intended this to be complimentary. It never occurred to me that these poor yogis are getting pressure from my words. So, to all my idols, please here this:

While I want your poses, what I really want is your cool. I idolize the self-assuredness. The ability to be in a room and own it without so much as a word. My idols have a passion for life and a determination that make it possible to achieve amazing craft. It is that craft, that attention to detail, the knowledge that working towards a goal, slowly, steadily, for years and years and years, is worth it.

If you never do another yoga posture again, I will still feel privileged to know you. I will probably still fawn over you (although I'm going to try to contain myself from here on out, you know, play it cool like some people would infront of rock stars). I will definitely still try to emulate you.

We surround ourselves by people we like. We hope they want to surround themselves with us. It is not a perfect bow that makes us fun at a party, comforting in a hospital room or strong in crisis. It is not a perfect bow I want from you.

I love you all and all of you.

And I'm Not Even Fully Vegetarian

It occurs to me that my norms may be a bit out of whack.

Rooming with several yogis at a friend's house in St. Louis, we came home from the studio ravenous to find our host cooking his dinner. I got super excited looking into the pan and identifying the delicious smelling contents. 

"Texturized dehydrated vegetable protein! YUM!" I exclaimed.

I got an odd 'I would face-palm myself if I weren't holding this spatula' look. Then he informed me that I was looking at hamburger meat.

Whoops.

When I first was introduced to dehydrated vegetable protein I called it, "de-homogenized, re-homogenized, texturized, veggie crap" because who names food like that?!? At this point it's a fairly normal part of my diet.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Vitamix!

My mom is buying me a Vitamix blender. This is an epic event for me.

She came across the idea when she graciously housed a couple of my yogi friends and I who happened to be in St. Louis for a yoga seminar. For the week-long event each yogi had a single backpack.

She was remarking on our ability to consolidate our gear to the bare essentials when we produced a giant Vitamix blender from one of our packs. Im pretty sure it looked like we were pulling a lamp from the Mary Poppins bag.

Just the essentials, folks.

She was a little perplexed that a second t-shirt was considered non-essential but the blender, well, that HAD to go with us.

We are not unusual. Yogis traveling via plane call ahead to see who is bringing a Vitamix. Crash-pads are established by who owns a Vitamix. Vitamixes are the proverbial office water-cooler around which we gather.

So, yes, I am excited. Like, new car excited.

Here are the reasons I am excited:

1. Participation in the ritual of packing a Vitamix + a weeks worth of travel-gear in a single backpack.
2. No more chunky smoothies!
3. There is something you do with grains in these things. Im not sure what, but there is a cookbook included. I look forward to getting my naughty-carb on.
4. Raw Power!
5. Cleaning without taking up the whole dishwasher; a drop of soap, turn the blender on, done!
6. No more poking at kale with a chopstick to get the bits moving.
7. No more, "Ka-CHUNK!" as the chopstick gets caught in the blade.
8. No more eating bits of chopstick. (Im sure that will make them taste better!)
9.  A SEVEN year warranty.

I may paint flames on the side of this bad-boy. Wonder if they make a shaker-hood accessory...

Vegas, Baby!

I just got back from Vegas! Yes, I know, excess, water in the desert, waste of electricity, blah, blah, blah. Look, The Boy hates warmth.* He got sent to Vegas for a conference. It was my one shot at a warm-weather vacation with my sweetie. I took it, environmental concerns be damned.

To alleviate the guilt, I look at it this way, I've lived around the Great Lakes most of my life, from which Vegas gets most of it's water. So, really, the water is mine. I should be able to enjoy it wherever it ends up.

And they did a fabulous job with my water. I gave them a pure, natural, resource and they bedazzled the eff out of it. 

Michigan Water  / Vegas Water

I am used to Great Lakes water. It is wholesome, woodsy, you fish in it, grow strong strapping young boys around it. Vegas took our water and made it FABULOUS. Capital F. Capital ABULOUS. The raw material for Zsa Zsa Gabor is evidently Mumford and Sons. 

I stayed at the Mirage with the intention of never leaving the pool. The Mirage pool is called a lagoon. It is exactly not like a lagoon at all. The "lagoon" is never more than 4 feet deep because it is very hard to doggy paddle with a 22oz margarita. 

There are multiple waterfalls majestically falling over faux rocks that appear to be designed by the same team that did the zebra exhibits in any zoo that concerned itself with authenticity in the 70s (St. Louis, Detroit, San Diego).  Two, maybe three secluded hot tubs are tucked away in coves near the pool. All of this is surrounded by lush greenery and sky-scraping palms. There are actual cabana girls.

After lounging four hours in this giant, sunny, adult play-pen, mojito in hand, I was shocked back into reality by a cloud. The puffy white bugger had moseyed right between our not-lagoon and the sun! 

Instantly, the entire pool, about 300 tipsy adults, started BOOING the cloud. The beach-ball stopped being thrown, girls' twittering stopped, the only noise was the singular "boo!" that arose from the entire crowd. Every human in the pool had taken up the same indignant skyward glare.Thirty seconds later the cloud had passed. The pool instantly resumed its revelry, each person content they had done their part to shame the poor forsaken cloud.

And THAT is exactly what Vegas and it's grand desert castles is like. Booing a cloud; a false sense that we, and our 300 new bff's, control the universe. And it is grand.

* Doubt this statement? He wants to go to Reykjavik. Our prior vacation spots include Bosnia, in fall. Italy, in the fall. Whitefish, MT, in the winter. Traverse City, the most Northern point in Michigan before you reach the upper peninsula, AKA: Canada, USA. All my summer vacations involve winter coats.

CISPA Day of Action

CISPA passed the House. Please raise your voice before it gets through the Senate.

Hi All! I know this last week has been such a rough ride that most of us want to bury our heads in our pillows and not peek out again until the land is covered in gumdrops and rainbows. I am right there with you.

Bombings, rape, racism; mother nature even kicked us when we were down with flooding. You feel pretty powerless, right? Dedicating a class to world peace just doesn't have the same gratifying release as kicking a nazi in the teeth, does it?

Well, I have some good news for you! There is a real baddie out there that we can all help stop together! Like, for real action is needed! CISPA* is back, and it passed the House. A day of action has been called to stop it from passing the Senate.

Please call your Senator or write a quick email, it will take less than 5 minutes of your time and you will feel like you have control in beating back the bad guys for once. Hooray! Good guys triumph!

*CISPA, first introduced in 2011, would allow corporations like Facebook and cell phone companies to share internet traffic information with the US government with few safeguards on when and how the government can monitor a person's information.

Days of HTML

My last three days has been staring at code. I am not a programer.
I have found my own personal hell.