On Friday nights, Hot Central holds a special community class by $5 donation. The room is packed, so I'm sure they make pretty good money on the deal. Pine Nut teaches it and I really enjoy his personality and the way he delivers the dialogue, so it's a sweet deal all around.
But it's *crowded*. And very, very hot. I actually had to sit down one or two times (I chose times when Pine was explaining something so I wouldn't miss any postures). And I drank my entire bottle of water (usually I only get through half). The dude in front of me had a water bottle the size of mine that he was topping it up from a HUGE litre jug of water. At point, I actually thought of asking him for a top-up on mine. :-D
But I had a good class, which I kind of expected, given that it was in the evening. My body was much more open. Holy hang back! I think I was almost horizontal to the floor during the standing backbend! During the pre-class preliminaries, I did three long Urdhva Dhanurasana and they were feeling pretty good! Hot class = easy backbends?
I'm planning to come to this Bikram class regularly and eventually start coming to the Wednesday class too. It balances out my Astanga practice nicely.
On the way to class, one of my neighbours gifted me with a gianormous chocolate bar. She couldn't remember how old the bar was, so there's a chance it might not be good (I have a feeling it's not). But still, it was worth the taking.
One KG of chocolate! This is remarkable on so many levels. Here are a few of them:
-I didn't know that chocolate bars of this size actually EXISTED! Somehow, my world a brighter place, knowing that.
-Someone gave her this GIANT chocolate bar and just she *gave it away* to someone else. Who gives away chocolate? What kind of crazy is that? Oh yeah, right...the kind of crazy I like!
-She had this thing sitting around her apartment for who-knows-how-long and she never once cracked it open. She just let it sit there, unopened and unloved. In my world, a big chocolate bar like that would have lasted a week, tops.
-And the timing: She gave it to me right before the new moon. You can see where this is going, right? My LH is next week. IT'S LIKE MY PMS WON THE LOTTERY!
Here's what's not remarkable: That I would eagerly accept this clearly non-vegan item. I think we've established that I'm a lousy vegan. I cheat regularly when it comes to certain baked goods and if I'm given food, I'll usually eat it (though I draw the line firmly at animal flesh and all the food I prepare at home is vegan).
As I sat down to write this entry, I received an email from one of my young students, a 9-year-old. She's currently working on dropbacks and going though many of the same challenges and pitfalls I experienced when I was learning them, including her latest challenge, the mighty *headwhomp* (I shared Susan's mantra with her: "STRAIGHT ARMS!").
She does yoga every day at home, because I told her that if she practised regularly, she would enjoy yoga more and make steady progress. She occasionally sends me a progress report at the weekend. This is what she wrote:
I am having so much trouble with my back drops you can not believe it, I just am having so much trouble getting my hands down on to the floor I know I have to PRACTICE!
Yup! :-) Practice and all is coming. Especially when you're working on 'back drops'. And 'up stands'. *ahem*
Lately, I've been allowing Princess Fur to come up on the bed with me for cuddles at night. Then she pretends to be asleep so I won't ask her to move. Here she is, peeking at me though a half-closed eyes. She isn't fooling anyone, but seems to get her own way nonetheless.
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4 comments:
Kai! You sound like kind of vegan I am too! (everything cooked at home is vegan but i make concessions when outside the home) ;p 1kg of chocolate... I can't begin to imagine how big that bar is. And... A NINE YEAR OLD is doing dropbacks? Respect!
IT'S LIKE MY PMS WON THE LOTTERY!
Hahahaha.... that's got to be quip of the month in the blogosphere this month :)
So are you really going to eat it?? Give it away, it's Dairy Milk! If it were Green & Black's, now that would be different!
How the hell do you break pieces off it anyway, or do you have to just suck on one corner of it or something??
Be sure to report back on this issue :)
On another note, I think a little supplementary bikram is just the ticket for ashtanga practitioners wishing to work on backbends. Who knows, maybe in the long run you'll have found your perfect mix, and all thanks to seemingly a huge setback, that shoulder injury.
Dear Kai
I agree with the heading of the post. haha. Actually, Girardelli makes a giant bar that is sold for corporate gifting. I don't know the actual size in weight. I'ts about twice as long as the laptop and twice as tall. Each year in Orlando, one of our clients would give our boss one, who would leave it in the office. It would take 3 months for a group of 20 people to consume it. We would daily take out a chunk. It's a byproduct of bakers chocolate, but it was not the bitter kind.
do you think i should go once in a while to the bikrams at the end of my street? like maybe on saturdays, when i don't usually practice? i don't think i would go daily.
i haven't been to my teacher's shala since my serious back problems. i have been comfortable with my home practice and have not had any physical problems other than recently with plantar fascitiis.
hugs
Arturo
"A NINE YEAR OLD is doing dropbacks?"
***
Yes, definitely! In fact in child-dominated gymnastics tic-tocs are done as a form of warm up. Dropping back and standing up is not even a warm up.
People in my shala were amazed that drop backs were so easy for me. Perhaps because everything else is so NOT easy. It is the only *gateway* posture I was able to do on my first try.
If only I had spent my childhood binding myself in pasasana. Sigh. . .
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