Classes are starting to move along faster now. What I mean is that time is actually going quickly! At the beginning, you are sweating, burning, hurting and wondering how time has suddenly slowed to a crawl. To me it was it was like torture, I won’t lie. And in true human form, you just adapt to your surroundings. Well, time, it just started to speed up a couple of days ago. All the sudden we are finished with the standing poses. Yes, my heart rate is up and I’m sweating buckets by now but hey, we’re going to the floor soon! That first hour used to go by soooo slow. Now it seems the last half hour is slower. The problem with this is that I’m forgetting what thoughts go through my mind when I’m in practice. Wait, that doesn’t make sense, if the point is to let go of all the things that bog you down and to focus on what you are doing in that moment. Looks like I’m on my way to finding my zen.
I find that I have a better practice when I go in feeling confident. I tell myself I’m going to make it through all the poses, that I have the strength to push myself beyond my maximum. Today this guy laid his mat right in front of me, and would not move an inch so I could see myself in the mirror. Mirror hog. To top it off, he was shaky and distracting. I was able to focus elsewhere but sometimes he’d creep into my vision and throw me off a bit. Again, the back of the room is distracting like that. I keep telling myself to 
move up front, but it’s so darn hot up there! I look forward to the small periodic gush of air by the windows. Someday. In short, I struggled with the usual poses – and had some dizziness today, especially in Dandayamana-Bibhaktapada-Janushirasana, or Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee Pose. That’s a mouthful. It’s the second last to the standing postures and I think I may start losing patience and breath around this point. It’s also the pose after Trikanasana, or Triangle Pose, which always gives me a good challenge. In fact, the last few days I’ve been shaking in this one.
I got to thinking about why I started this 30 day business in the first place. Sure, the incentive is there – go 30 days in a row and get 30 for free. In my experience, nothing comes for free. I had a much bigger reason to do this. I just returned from California after making a huge decision not to relocate there. I had already told all my friends and family, my landord and prospective employers – there wasn’t anyone who didn’t know. Even the pigeons knew. I was emotionally already on the west coast. I even packed some of my things and shipped them off. So after being back for a couple of weeks, I started panicking at the drop of a hat. I knew I’d be dealing with the consequences of my decision but I didn’t realize it was going to perpetrate into my eating patterns and sleep. Soon I was feeling very unmotivated and down. I would try to counter it by running but the results were not like they were before. What was going on? I needed to do something different and then I remembered a conversation I had a while back about Bikram. It was something I never considered before – the sheer idea of it sounded crazy to me. But here I am now. I still have my moments, but the path is clearer now. It has really taught me patience (this is a big one!) and having faith in taking things one step at a time. I’m one-third of the way there!
