bikram class 6: a scorpion in the room!!!!!!!

i skipped my 6th day and moved my 6th class to the seventh day i've been in austin. i needed a break for 1 day to re-group and also to take care of a couple other things that were going on.

my 6th class was yesterday (saturday) and it was a little wild as far as yoga classes go.

first, right before i arrived a saw a man in a thong riding his bike around the city streets of austin.

second, there were two new students in class and a brand new bikram yoga teacher who didn't know how to give them corrections. they were doing all the postures wrong and could have potentially hurt themselves. plus they were really distracting and standing directly in front of me. maybe this repeating circumstance is just a reminder to me to pay attention only to my practice and not to everyone else. i did a lot better this time than with the previous distracting situation.

third, halfway through class a woman sat up and pointed to the ground and said "it's a scorpion." yes, that's right; A SCORPION loose in the room with a bunch of half naked, sweaty, focused-on-other things people. the yoga teacher smashed it and someone said "are you going to kill it?" as if it was some horrible anti-yoga thing to do. he said "yeah. it's a scorpion!" i agree!

anyway, it was a good class for me. i felt stronger after my 1 day break. i worked hard.

today, i go to a new studio here in austin to take advantage of their 2 weeks for $20 unlimited yoga special. it's further away and i have to get on the highway to go there.

one thing that has been really interesting in doing yoga so regularly is that it has helped the swelling that hasn't left my forearms since i had carpal tunnel, tendonitis stuff happen in february. each day in yoga, the heat and intensified circulation of blood through my body makes my forearms swell to epic proportions. then after i leave class and cool down, the swelling goes down and they look more and more normal after each class. it's really great. all the blood rushing there during yoga creates a draining away of more and more of the stagnant blood or fluids that have been stuck there for almost half a year now.

i feel good. so happy to be here giving this gift to myself.

bikram yoga, class 5

my fifth class, and i still feel tired. not much like a superhero. the one thing that is getting better is my "bikram-style sit up" -- a straight legged sit up that explodes up from a prone position on the floor with two loud exhales. usually i have to bend my legs to do the sit up. i've been able to use my core strength and belly to come up quickly and cleanly and with strength. that is the one part of my practice that seems to be continually improving. oddly enough because i've never gotten better at it throughout the whole time i've been doing this yoga -- over a year.

i came home agitated again from this class. and not sure why. there was no floppy, annoying person in front of me this time and the teacher did a good job. i just felt agitated.

i was able to focus on my breath a lot more today and used my breath to go a little deeper into some of the postures.

i'm still having a really hard time with balance.

the teachers often say at the end of class. "thank yourselves for coming to class. sometimes the hardest thing is just getting here". this is true. i find myself wanting to run the other way for a moment every day when i arrive. especially as i look in the big floor to ceiling windows of the yoga room and see the class in progress sweating and contorting themselves into ridiculous positions.

but each day at the end of class, if nothing else, i am keeping a promise to myself, working on self-discipline and working towards a goal that is fixed and much bigger than me. these things are as important, if not more important, than anything else i get out of this 2 and half week foray into yoga every day.

bikram yoga in austin texas, day 3

so, i've come to austin, texas to visit a friend, to research possibilities for moving here and most of all to do bikram yoga every day. this is a kind of yoga where the room is heated to 105* with 40% humidity and you do a 90 minute series of hatha yoga postures. you do two sets of the same 26 postures to the same dialogue in each and every bikram yoga class from now until the end of time. this yoga has actually been copyrighted by bikram choudhury himself and is fairly controversial for that point alone. it is intense, powerful and life-changing. when i do this yoga regularly so many things i've struggled with in my life disappear -- i feel centered, balanced, clear in my mind and heart, more in tune with myself, strong like a super-hero, and able to do anything. all the loneliness and self-doubt and low self-esteem disappear with my regular practice. it's amazing.

the only studio near where i live in ohio is 45-60 minutes away and i have just found it too difficult to make a regular practice from that distance. when i have time off of work, i can find time to go, but it's not enough. i really want to get the full benefit of a regular practice and i can;'t do that going one or two times a week if i'm lucky.

so, i've come to austin for many reasons but my big goal in being here is to see what two weeks of straight yoga practice will do for me. will it inspire me to do more? will i just be exhausted? will my body feel or look any different? will it inspire me to move?

i'm on day 3 of my daily yoga practice here in austin. outside it is over 100* on the heat index. my first class on sunday kicked my ass. i had to sit or lay down through at least 10 of the 26 postures. i hadn't been to class in over 2 months and hadn't been going regularly since ab out 6-8 months ago. i felt beaten after class, not anything like a super-hero. plus i got a headache. i know this is from dehydration and loss of electrolytes. my body protesting the heat outside and the heat inside the yoga room.

the second day, i already felt stronger, though i still struggled to do both sets of all 26 postures. i felt less dizzy, and more able to make it all the way through class. afterwards though i still feel exhausted. and my head still hurts. i drank a coconut water before class and my headache went away in the short term. but came back after the 2nd class. it's a dull sort of rope of a headache wrapping around the base of my skull on the right hand side of my head -- from the neck to just above my ear.

today, my muscles are so sore, especially my legs (which i've always thought of as strong) and also my shoulders. i'm going to my 3rd class in half an hour and hope to soon get back to the place where my post-class feeling is more on the super-hero side than the super-out of shape side.

i haven't really had much energy to do anything besides prepare for and recover from class. but i know that in the end this is sort of like a run through the fire for me. it will hurt and not be very comfortable and i will probably hate parts of it. but i know -- because i have experienced first hand -- that the end result will change my life for the better. and i need that desperately right now. i need to know that there is more to life than what i've been doing. that the empty and lonely feelings and self-doubt and paralyzing fear can be overcome. it is exactly the reason i am here and exactly the reason why i've considered doing the bikram teacher training even though it's $10,000 and even though i am nowhere close to even being able to attend the training.

there are so many cool things to do in austin and i'm here for 3 weeks. i'm trying to just be kind and gentle with myself and remember the reason i came was to do yoga. i already know i could live here happily.

Living on the Dole

I applied for food stamps this winer. I wasn't sure I would ever do this, having a proud working-class background that instilled in me the feeling that I should always, no matter what, be able to provide for myself. But after being unemployed for almost 6 months and being really sick this winter, something had to give. I applied and realized that my income -- even working full time for the past 2-3 years - made me eligible for other government subsidies. And definitely eligible for food stamps.

In order to receive my monthly food stamp allowance, the State of Ohio requires that you "work" at a pre-approved site, usually a non-profit or some other community service facility. This is a requirement only for food stamp recipients who are also unemployed. I have to work 23 hours per month in order to maintain my eligibility. Being a lover of all things food related, I chose to work at a local food pantry and soup kitchen. It has been an enlightening, eye-opening experience.

I grew up in poverty in southeast Ohio, but my family always valued gardening, fresh healthy food, homesteading to some extent -- milking a cow, raising a calf for slaughter, collecting fruit from the fruit trees, etc. We always ate really well, even though we qualified for free lunch at school and didn't always have enough money for the coolest clothes or the best shoes.

My experience at the food pantry has shown me an entirely different face of rural poverty. People are unhealthy, desperate, proud. There is a hot meal served every week and in the few weeks I have been there over 50 people have showed up in this little backwater town in rural southeast Ohio, most of them hungry. Many of them come every week, they chat with their neighbors, hug their friends, laugh and sing, say the Our Father together before eating and always come back for dessert and sometimes for seconds.

The food served is terrible. It is canned, processed and passed off as food, but it's really just sugar, trans-fats and salt disguised as food. I've eaten there both weeks and have felt my digestion go to shit after eating only these two meals of processed, packaged food-like substances. It is a wonder to me that people can eat this way and not die of malnutrition or simultaneously of an overdose of chemicals, sugars and salts. When they go through the pantry, they get much of the same -- sugary cereals, canned vegetables, canned fruits, processed cheeze spread, beef stew in a can, frozen pizzas pasta, sugar coated snacks. There are cases and cases of candy and chocolate.

I began to ponder last night a large grant funded project in which I could pay 50 people in rural Appalachian Ohio in varying states of health or disease, to eat a diet made up entirely of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains and meals made from scratch with organic locally grown produce. I would want to handle the food prep and serving and partner with a doctor who could monitor health conditions of the participants. My guess is that many of the participants' health problems would decrease (after an initial detoxing period that would undoubtedly be somewhat uncomfortable), they would have more energy, maybe even begin to feel clearer in their minds, more empowered. In general, they would just feel healthier and better able to deal with stress, relationships, etc.

I believe it would create a radical change in most of the participants' lives. It is amazing to me that people eat the crap that they do and still function. I truly believe that food is the first medicine we put into our bodies. It can buffer us from illness, stress, emotional instability and can also poison us slowly, rotting our insides and clogging all the systems that are supposed to keep our complex bodies functioning properly. I think it is no wonder that people in this country are so disempowered and disenchanted. We are poisoning ourselves from the inside out with food that creates ever more powerful cravings but never fully satisfies.

Herbs for Bronchitis

It's been snowing, sleeting, raining, blowing and otherwise messy here all day. I love this weather for the time being. I have felt like doing nothing more than hibernating this winter. I've been reading a lot (A Sorrow in Our Heart, Eat Pray Love, A Language Older Than Words, Gods Bits of Wood, Rumi, The Path of Transformation, Dark Alliance, various magazines, etc.), writing a lot (here, an overview of Ohio for an upcoming event, journaling, poetry, etc.), making myself delicious and nurturing food, working as little as possible and generally relaxing into a slower state of affairs that feels really appropriate for the most winter-y winter we've had in Ohio for a long time.

I've almost kicked my bronchitis which knocked me flat on my ass before I could ignore all the warning signs that I needed a very bear-like winter -- one where I would come out of my den every once in a while to stretch, fart, look around blearily and assess the situation and head right back inside my cave. I'm even living in a basement -- my bearish winter couldn't have been more appropriately manifested. The intense cough of the bronchitis is daily getting better on a heavy dose of the following herbs:

1/4 cup marshmallow root
1/4 cup mullein
1/4 cup horsetail/shavegrass

Add a few Tbsp of mint or a few bags of ginger to this tea to make it taste better.

I brew these into a quart of hot tea at bedtime and then in the morning use the same herbs from the night before to brew one more quart which I drink throughout the day. The cough is greatly improving though sometimes I still sound like a hiccuping, wheezing high pitched engine as my bronchial tubes pull tightly shut during some of my coughing fits. Though this is really much much better -- each day it happens a little less. (1 quart of this tea a day is probably sufficient for most people -- mine just got so bad, I was drinking two).

I should warn you that if you really need a quick fix for your bronchial problems, herbs are probably not the way to go, as they take time, patience, attention, consistency and commitment. (Nor is waiting until you are drooling with the effort every time you cough before going to the doctor, which is precisely what I did). I do recommend continuing to be active -- even in my bear like, bronchial weakened state, I have managed to go walking with the dog every day this winter -- always with a heavy scarf protecting my mouth and neck from the cold air.

If you had told me 5 months ago that I would spend 2 months of this winter sick, coughing and weak I probably would have laughed at you and gone about my insanely busy schedule, glad I hadn't let your naysaying ruin my perfectly constructed house of cards. I was actually thinking I would start my own business this winter and sat down several times to write out a business plan and compose key emails. But, instead of starting a business, I just got really, really sick. It's funny -- and really fortunate -- how our bodies take over sometimes when our minds stubbornly refuse to accept our limits. I am sure I got sick so that I would not embark on a premature business venture that I am in now way ready to begin.

I am grateful and feel, tentatively, that maybe I just might have learned my lesson this time, maybe, finally. I am cautiously hopeful that this is true. And more confidently hopeful that this winter of hibernation will end gracefully and gratefully with the coming of spring.

A Spring Cleaning Salad

This week I've been eating the most amazing food. Here is what it mostly consists of -- a rough recipe.

A Spring Cleaning Salad

garlic (chop it up -- as much as you like to eat in one sitting)
ginger (same as above)
1 whole beet chopped into small cubes
1 whole parsnip (peeled and chopped into small cubes)

heat some olive oil in a small skillet (cast iron works best)
break up some dried whole red chiles and drop them in the oil (again as much as you can
stand to eat in one sitting -- I usually use 2 whole chiles, seeds and all but I like really hot
spicy food.)
stir chiles in oil, then add the chopped veggies to the oil
stir and mix all together
pour in some raw apple cider vinegar
and some Bragg's liquid amino acids or maybe some soy sauce (whatever you have
available)

continue heating this til the roots are just getting tender and the vinegar/bragg;s has reduced to about half its original volume -- maybe 4-5 minutes.

meanwhile, put some salad greens (organic are best for cleansing purposes but whatever
lettuce like things you have will probably work) into a bowl
sprinkle some cheese on the greens
put some homemade sauerkraut (see earlier posting on this blog -- storebought sauerkraut
is not recommended since it tends to be soggy and somewhat flavorless and either way is
not nearly as alive or vibrant as homemade) on top of the salad greens
pour the beet, garlic, ginger mixture on top if this pile of stuff in your bowl.
top with a handful (really a handful) of chopped parsley and cilantro
I put some flax oil on top of all of this just cause I have it in the house and I hear it's supposed
to be good for me.

Eat this with some fresh baked bread or just as it is and your body will love you. It makes me feel really clear, alive, energized and zing-y (you'll see what I mean).