Wednesday, March 2, 2011

And We're Off (Day 1)

The Brand New Day 1: Accomplished!
After yesterday's misfire, I wasn't about to mess up again. The first class of the day was scheduled for 7am, and I was going to be there. Since I needed to fill out the new student forms and figure out where the changing rooms were, this meant getting there at least 20 minutes early.

Now, I have a job that doesn't begin until 10am. I have become very accustomed to my 8am wake up time, and blissfully unaware that many people do not share in this luxury. When the alarm went off at 5:30am, I was not happy. I immediately began scrambling in brain for a way around this, like taking an evening class even though this is the one night this week where my husband Will and my schedule's actually match up enough to have dinner together. Then I remembered that I was alone in bed because Will had already gotten up an hour earlier and left for work. The guilt of my laziness and the determination that I was NOT going to begin compromising on Day 1 (even if this being a revised Day 1 was already kind of a compromise) were the only things that dragged my butt out of bed.

I was headed for a hot yoga class, which meant the tiny yoga shorts and a tank top underneath my clothes. I shoved a change of tee shirt into my yoga bag and headed for the subway. Standing on the platform at 6:20am, I was struck by how many other people were there. What were they doing out of bed?

I made it in plenty of time, and found the studio after only walking past it once. The Astoria location of the Yoga Room is beautiful, lovely stained hardwood floors, practice rooms, and thank heavens, a changing room with showers. The teacher gave me my little swipe card, let me know I was welcome at both the Astoria an LIC locations, and sent me off to get ready. I stripped to my skimpy yoga clothes and headed in to get myself used to the heat.

It has been a while since I have done a sequence influenced by what is known as Bikram Yoga. Bikram is a copyrighted sequence of poses (controversy in and of itself) that must be done in an hour and a half in a room of an exact temperature and  humidity. I have never practiced in a licensed Bikram studio, but many studios do their own variation on "Traditional Hot Yoga". This class was 75 minutes, and many of the poses seemed similar to the official list. While I truly do like practicing in the intense heat, I have more experience with Vinyasa विन्यास classes, both in hot and normal studios. To be honest, I'm not a fan of the more "traditional" hot yoga sequence. Vinyasa flows, there is a poetry to it, a focus. Hot Yoga is more of an "okay, now we do this, and its challenging, now hooooold it" kinda feeling. More stops and starts, it is hard to connect with the breath and you end up reaching for the athletic exercise rather then that moment of peace. I was assisted, however, but the back of the sports bra on the girl in front of me. "Breathe" it read. I was entirely amused. There I would stand, struggling to hold an Eagle pose, and there it would be, directly in front of me. "Breathe." Oh. Okay.

I made it through the class, and even managed to find a few moments of peaceful concentration. I rinsed off, dashed back to my apartment to change and do my hair, and was off to work, with this huge thing already out of the way! One down, 29 to go...

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