Your Forehead Should Touch Your Toes

On Day 24, a hornet found its way into the hot room. I noticed it about fifteen minutes into class, crawling along the glass of a far window and looking devious. But it was far enough away that I managed to convince myself we were living in different dimensions. I figured that the chances of a lethal sting to one of my major arteries was low. (I’m not even sure if that’s medically possible, but it’s always been one of my most bizarre nightmares.)

Just a few minutes later as I lay in the first shavasana of the class, I heard a buzz to my left, and I slowly turned my eyes towards the source of the noise. The hornet itself, enormous, red hanging stinger and all, was making a violent beeline (pun definitely intended) towards my face. I gave a little yelp and barrel rolled James Bond-style off my mat and onto the carpet, nearly flattening the kind woman to my right in the process. I rolled back onto my mat quickly and (I hoped) subtly, but when you yell and tumble in a quiet yoga studio, people tend to take notice. I assured our instructor, Victoria, and the class at large that I was indeed okay. But if that hornet thought I was relaxing long enough to give him another chance to strike, he was dead wrong.

While my bee-avoiding theatrics had done a lot to draw attention towards the damned creature, there was still an impressive number of people in the room who remained calm and absorbed in their practice. A few other students expressed their fears of bees (I assumed my fear didn’t really need to be expressed vocally at this point) and soon Victoria was simultaneously cueing our postures and chasing the hornet around, which I have to imagine was like an extreme version of trying to pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time. But somehow she managed to not only stay on track with the yoga dialogue, but to also catch the hornet with her sweatshirt and release him back out into the wild. Or at least, the parking lot behind the studio.

The whole thing could’ve been a scene out of “The Three Stooges: Bikram Yoga Edition.” We laughed when anyone yelped or rolled, and we cheered when the enemy was finally captured and removed from our midst. As I sat in an anxious hornet-fearing ball, not even pretending to try and keep up with the postures, I looked around and realized that I had found something of a home in my little Bikram studio. That hot room and the people in it had gotten me through 24 wonderful, sweaty days. Despite the hornet, I  suddenly felt deliriously happy.

But after class I received some bad news. My beloved home studio would be closed on the 29th and 30th days of my challenge for carpet renovations. I was told I could either finish out my final two classes at a different studio a few towns over, or extend the challenge by 2 days and finish when the carpeting in my home studio was successfully installed.

I was heartbroken. There was no way I could extend my challenge, not after all the hard work I’d put in already. But the people in the other studio didn’t even know me! They hadn’t seen me dodge a hornet or fall out of triangle pose and hit the side wall. They wouldn’t know that my knees are inflexible from years of mogul skiing or that sometimes my neck hurts when I come up in back bends. The instructors in my home studio- my instructors, as I’ve started to referring to them in my head- have seen my journey. Sometimes they’ve even quoted my blog during class (which jumped right over “hot shower on a cold day” to take the #1 spot on my list of best feelings ever). Having to finish my challenge at a different studio felt like a terrible, lonely fate. Not to mention it completely threw off my plans for Day 30 celebrations.

(At the end of my 30th class, the instructor- it would probably be Laura, she usually teaches on Tuesdays- would announce my astounding success to the class. The proclamation would be met with impressed looks and guffaws from everyone in the room, perhaps a spontaneous round of applause. After shavasana we’d pose in the front lobby for a picture- instructors, friends I’ve made in class, maybe the city mayor, all crowded around me in a jubilant tableau that would have undoubtedly earned a record number of likes on Facebook. Laura would declare me an official yogini. The mayor would invite me out to lunch.)

It seemed like all my sweaty yoga dreams had been shattered.

I whined. I worried. I seriously contemplated crying, but decided against it when I realized that crying in yoga had to be about a million times worse than crying in baseball. (And there’s just no crying in baseball.) As I mindlessly skimmed through yoga blogs looking for any kind of inspiration, I came upon this quote:

“When you catch yourself slipping into a pool of negativity, notice how it derives from nothing other than resistance to the current situation.” -Donna Quesada

Holy crap.

I was resisting the situation. I was resisting the situation like a belligerent frat boy might resist campus police. I wasn’t just slipping into my own pool of negativity, I was bathing in it. But it wasn’t until I found the quote that I realized I had a choice.

Yes, it’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to finish my challenge in my home studio, but all my negativity had made me lose sight of what this challenge is actually about. I didn’t commit myself to 30 days of Bikram for Facebook pictures or a round of applause. I did this for the sweat, the spirit, the strength. The adventure.

So, as the heroine of my very own yoga adventure, I’ve chosen to accept the current situation. Rejoice in it. Love it. Stop resisting that which I cannot control. One of my best friends is coming with me to my 30th practice at the foreign studio tomorrow, and even if the practice is miserable, we’re going to eat a lot of chocolate when it’s over. Life is grand.

I’ve also decided that a picture with the mayor is a rather small-minded aspiration for an accomplishment of this caliber, so I’ve invited the Pope for a photo op instead. My completion of this challenge will be a miracle I’m sure he’d want to celebrate. Expect to see those party pictures around this time next week.

Namaste,
Hannah

A student went to his meditation teacher and said, “My meditation is horrible! I feel so distracted, or my legs ache, or I’m constantly falling asleep. It’s just horrible!”



”It will pass,” the teacher said matter-of-factly.



A week later, the student came back to his teacher. “My meditation is wonderful! I feel so aware, so peaceful, so alive! It’s just wonderful!”



”It will pass,” the teacher replied matter-of-factly.

-Unknown

Things had been going so well. I had been practicing with the elites in the front row. I had started embracing the sweat. I had even been wearing my super tiny Bikram jungle get-up outside of the house, and nobody had arrested me for public indecency.

But then came Day 10.

For starters, I had procrastinated doing my laundry (which, with the pile of sweaty clothes I accumulate on a daily basis, requires doing every three days or so) and was forced to delve into my sister’s closet to find a pair of spandex shorts. The shorts that I grabbed were just a smidgen too small and created a most unbecoming layer of belly fat overhang that I was forced to stare at for the entirety of the 90 minute practice. So confidence wasn’t at an all-time high.

I hadn’t slept very well the night before. A lethal combination of M&Ms and Gossip Girl had kept me up far later than I had anticipated (I’m too addicted to be ashamed), and my alarm that morning had been greeted with a mumbled string of expletives. So energy levels weren’t exactly optimal either.

I guess it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that practice felt longer than usual, but it was more than just longer than usual. The class was endless. It’s possible that the room doubled as a wormhole and held us sweaty hostages for 3-4 years while normal time-goers only noticed the passing of an hour and a half. It’s also possible that the studio was actually an Inception-esque dream layer where five minutes in the outside world translated to an hour in the heated yoga room. There is just no way in hell that practice only lasted 90 minutes.

Every posture felt like a scene out of a sweaty nightmare. My thoughts were miserable and panicked, racing between get me the hell out of here and ohmygodI’mgonnathrowup. I tried to breathe and remember something a Bikram instructor had told my friend Meg during her first practice: “Good news, new students, no one has ever died doing Bikram yoga, so rest when you have to, but you’re going to live through this.”

After consistently reminding myself that puking in the studio was frowned upon, letting out several embarrassing groans, and successfully blinking sweat into my right eye, I collapsed into the practice’s final resting pose. I had survived the 90 minutes (or several years, depending on which of my theories you choose to believe) and did somehow manage to leave class feeling better than I had at the beginning. I could see more clearly, breathe more deeply. The lead in my limbs had turned to a relaxed tingle. Nausea had given way to serenity.

That Bikram is an evil genius.

So I guess it’s all part of the process. Some days will be glorious, some days will be miserable, all days will be unbelievably sweaty, but it’s all in the interest of making peace with yourself. My mom has always described yoga as the few precious hours a week she can truly focus, clear her mind of to-do lists and anxieties, and I’m finally starting to see what she means. There’s something spiritual to be found underneath all this sweat.

My mom, the experienced yogini herself, actually came to class with me quite a few times this week. We shared some sentimental moments. A few highlights:

• She called me a “wuss” to peer pressure me into setting my mat up on the side of the studio closest to the heater. (It worked. We sweated like UFC fighters.)
• I fell out of triangle pose and smacked into the side wall. The thwack of my flailing elbow making contact with plaster was graciously ignored by everyone but my mom, who laughed so hard I’m pretty sure she farted.
• We practiced next to an impressively slim and gorgeous pregnant woman; she was far better at pregnant yoga than we are at normal yoga. My mom, who describes both of her pregnancies as the most swollen and miserable times of her life, compensated for her jealousy on the car ride home with a long list of things she could beat the beautiful pregnant woman at. (Bike race, heavy lifting competition, fight to the death, etc.)
• We finished out the week with a glamorous post-practice photoshoot, the results of which you are welcome to admire below.

Camel Pose, voted “Most Likely to Make You Wanna Vomit” in its high school yearbook.

Floor Bow Pose: “Your butt should be a pillow for your head.” Gettin’ close.

Shavasana, or Corpse Pose. Impeccable form.

Setting up for Triangle Pose (I’m excited though I swear)

Full expression of Triangle Pose, more commonly known by its street name:
yup, this is where I’m gonna die

My forehead will, eventually, touch my toes. Or elephants will fly, either one.

My goal for week 3 is to start adding running workouts to my challenge schedule; as much as I love my heart for keeping me alive 90 sweaty minutes a day, I think it needs a little more exercise. And if there’s one thing I’m more impressively bad at than touching my toes, it’s running. So this should be interesting.

Until next Monday, my darling yogis and yoginis.

Namaste,
Hannah

“That is perfection in Yoga, the best you can honestly do on any given day.” -Bikram Choudhury

I did something adventurous in the studio this week. Something daring. Something even the wingsuit base jumpers of the world would’ve been proud of.

I set up my yoga mat in the front row.

I’ve climbed Mt. Washington, flown a small airplane, and danced to Ke$ha in front of my entire high school, but this might have been the boldest thing I’ve ever done. The front row is reserved for the experienced and the flexible. Instructors will tell new students, “just look to the people in the front row if you’re having trouble, they’ll show you what to do.” It’s the inner sanctum. The créme de la créme. So naturally I got into the habit of setting up my mat as far away from the front row as possible. I imagined someday receiving a prestigious invitation in the mail from the deities of yoga themselves, their words handsomely engraved in a bar of gleaming gold: WELCOME TO THE FRONT ROW, HANNAH, YOU’VE MADE IT! But as it turns out, the admission process isn’t quite that elaborate.

I walked into the studio, looked around like a bank robber about to commit a poorly-planned heist, and laid my mat down in the front row next to my mom’s.

That was it. No alarms sounded; no yoga deities appeared to curse me. I half expected someone to spot me and shout, “HEY! She can’t even sit on her knees! Haul her away from there!” But miraculously, that didn’t happen either. I just did what I always do before class: sat with my legs crossed, discreetly admired myself in the mirror, and waited for practice to begin.

Being so close to my own sweaty reflection for 90 minutes was both exhilarating and horrifying. I noticed that the redness in my face made my eyes look greener than usual. I could count the beads of sweat on my own shoulders. I came to terms with the fact that no matter what exercise regimen I employ, a friendly layer of stomach flub will always fold in on itself when I sit down. But superficiality aside, I also found that the physical closeness to myself actually brought me closer to my practice. It’s difficult to avoid your flaws when they’re staring you straight in the face, and the front row made me focus longer and push harder to try and correct them. (I still struggled to touch my toes in that last stretching posture, but hey, they tell me it’s a process.)

My thoughts still wandered to a world where yoga includes nap time. I still made lists in my head of possible sweat-related deaths. When the instructor announced that it was time for wind-removing pose, I still thought to myself, “oh, she means fart pose.” But overall, I felt stronger and calmer in the front than I ever had cowering in the back corners of the studio. From now on, I’ll have a front row seat to the sweat show, no golden ticket necessary.

A few other tidbits I learned in my first week of the 30-day challenge:

•  The word “yoga” actually means yoking, or “connecting.”

• “Namaste,” the sentiment used to close every yoga practice, means “the light in me honors the light in you.”

• A male yoga enthusiast is called a yogi, while a female yoga enthusiast is called a yogini. (Ladies, we’re only two letters away from Voldemort’s killer pet snake. If that’s not badass, I don’t know what is.)

• The Sanskrit names for yoga poses are formed by adding a deity’s name to the word “asana,” which means a kind of prayer. (Of course I immediately began brainstorming ideas for the “Hannahsana” pose, which I’ve decided would look something like the way your body recoils after you accidentally walk into a door.)

The Bikram outfit my mom got me for my birthday scares me a little bit, but I told myself I’d be allowed to wear it in public after at least one week of the challenge. It’s been 7 days, so maybe I’ll unveil this baby tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Namaste,
Hannah

Before I first experienced Bikram yoga, I thought I knew sweat pretty well. Sure, I don’t run marathons or throw boulders in my spare time, but when I’m not devouring M&Ms or living in my Netflix queue, I like to consider myself an athlete. I can ski moguls until my knees beg for mercy. I’m pretty feisty with a tennis racket. I once biked 84 miles in a day. So with athletic prowess as stunning as mine, you’d think I’d be something of a sweat connoisseur. That’s what my pre-Bikram self thought anyway. But less than five minutes into my first Bikram yoga experience, I realized that my pre-Bikram self could not have been more wrong.

I didn’t know sweat. I didn’t know sweat at all.

My shins, my elbows, my knees, the tops of my feet… no nook or cranny was safe from the sweat tsunami. My mom had warned me that the class would be hot, 105 degrees to be exact, and that it would be long, 90 minutes on the dot. But no warning could have prepared me for this kind of perspiration. It poured out in buckets, rained upon my towel as I contorted myself into repetitive, painful positions. And that was just the first breathing exercise.

Half-moon pose. Eagle pose. Tree pose. Camel pose. I gasped for air, completely ignoring the instructor’s cues to breathe in and out through our noses. My muscles powerfully protested the unfamiliar pain of each new posture, but I tried to keep my sweaty self composed. This proved incredibly difficult when, on top of holding each new excruciating position, I had to start dodging the rogue sweat bullets being launched from the hairy chest of the man to my right. Once or twice I desperately contemplated the consequences of a fart in the studio. (Which would be worse, the humiliation or the smell?)

I somehow managed to maintain an illusion of graceful composure until one of the very last poses of the class. We sat on our mats with our legs extended as the instructor told us to grab our big toes with our thumb and index fingers. While most of the sweaty people around me latched onto their sweaty toes with ease, I could only reach my sweaty fingers towards my sweaty toes with an air of sweaty desperation. I clenched my teeth, trembled from head to toe, felt another wave of sweat slide down my back. My hands just barely began to graze my feet. Pull, pull, pull, the instructor chanted, lock the knees, lock the knees, lock the knees. And before she finally told us to release, the instructor uttered this beauty:

“Your forehead should, eventually, touch your toes.”

I couldn’t help myself. I snorted. I actually snorted, completely abandoning any appearance of composure that I had managed to feign for 85 sweaty minutes. My neighbors didn’t seem to mind, but I figured they were just too sweaty to acknowledge me.

After such an endless and painful ordeal, you might have expected me to leave the studio with some sort of bodily injury, or a defeated limp at the very least. But as I walked out of that first class, sweaty and miserable as I may have been just minutes before, my entire being felt inexplicably awesome. My mind had cleared. My body had relaxed. And despite all life-preserving instincts advising me to the contrary, a part of me wanted to march right back into the studio and try it again.

So, ladies and gentleman, this month I am participating in a 30-day Bikram yoga challenge. It starts this week and continues until I complete 30 classes in 30 days, or melt wicked-witch style into a puddle of my own sweat, whichever comes first. If I survive the first week, you’ll hear from me again next Monday. I’m sure my forehead will be touching my toes by then.

Namaste,
Hannah