My Body Hurts

Week 2 of my new yoga regimen and all the muscles under my flab are either screaming or moaning like incoherant hospital patients. I keep telling myself those "duty now for the future" things just to get through the class, when all I really want to do is just collapse into a sweaty heap on my mat, which is more like a slip-n-slide than anything else, and gasp for air like beached whale...sheesh! And I do not "assume" the corpse pose at the end, I AM the corpse pose. That is one asana I have absolutely no problem with. Elective surgery is starting to sound like a lot less work, I tell ya. But who am I kidding? I've never been one to take the easy way out; nope, if something is going to be done, I have to do the hardest way imaginable. So this particular yoga studio certainly fits the bill.

Number One, it's hot as fuck in there. Yes, it's that "hot" yoga you've heard about, the kind where you grunt and sweat in a room that's well over 95 degrees. So I produce buckets, torrents, no - rivers of sweat. I'm literally blinded by it. I drink it. I accidentally breathe it 'cause it's running into my nose. It's all over the mat and becomes something of a hazard when leaping back into plank to do that 40th push up. Those petty little hand towels they give you are mere kleenex in the rain; practically useless except to anchor feet and hands on either end of the mat during the deluge.

Number Two, the "ass-kicking" level of the class entirely depends on who is instructing the it and the kind of day they've had. One day they're nurturing earth mothers, gently coaxing you ju-u-ust a bit deeper into a pose. The next day they're vicious Zen drill sergeants, saying "if you were bad over the weekend" (and yes, I was bad) "then this is your punishment...Happy Monday!"

Number Three, until the fall there will be no more 6:45 classes on Thursdays, which just happened to be the "Getting Back to Basics" class. This sucks on a number of levels: now I'll have to cut out of work early on Thursdays as well as Fridays. And it's not that the "Basics" class was so much easier, because it wasn't, it's just that it was the one class where you wouldn't be expected to go from plank to crow (to CROW for fuckssake, balancing on your hands, with your knees propped up on your elbows). Jeezus, that's just a little advanced for my less-than-primed body.

But I'll get there... I have absolutely no distractions for the entire summer. No Japanese classes, not even tea, really. All I have to worry about is work and yoga. By the end of the summer I may just reduce the percentage of unwearable clothes in my closet from 95 to maybe 50. By Xmas I should be lookin' fine.