Day 3--Sunday, July 15

Ever have a class where you keep telling yourself that you are not going to do the next posture, but you find yourself just doing it anyway, like a demented Bikram robot, and you are not sure why you keep at it when your mind is screaming at you to just lie down, or better yet--get the hell out of the room?

Well, this morning was that kind of class.  I am not sure why, but I have a sneaking feeling it had something to do with not wearing my lucky swimsuit.  I have been wearing the same black-and-white swimsuit for every class since my third class ever.  It is just a swimsuit, but it looks enough like a fancy-dancy yoga leotard that I feel very yogified in it.  I am too cheap to purchase a special yoga-tard, but I do have my eye on this one.

Too bad it is 48 bucks.  Maybe one day I will break down and get it.  But for now, my good ole swimsuit is serving me well.  But this morning, I went downstairs to find my washing machine had not finished the cycle.  We just had some work done on our electrical panel (in preparation for our FIRST-EVER dishwasher in 15 years of marriage!) and the switch to the washer was tripped.  So, I wore my trusty running shorts and one of those tank tops with the bras inside them.

Maybe I should not blame the washing machine for my hard class.  Maybe it was the humidity.  It was very humid in Portland this morning, and that seems to impact my enjoyment of class since the room feels hotter and moister.  Or maybe it was the beer (yes, the ONE beer) I drank last night.  Or the hot dog I ate after class.  Or the fact that yesterday I practiced at 4:30 PM and then went right back this morning at 9 AM.  Or maybe it was just negative energy I brought in because I was worried about my washing machine and a hard conversation I had with a good, good friend yesterday.  

Whatever it was, class was haaaard.  I kept telling myself, "Just get through this next posture and then you can lie in savasana for the rest of the class,"  and then the posture would come and go and I would do it all over again with the next posture.  That was the mind game I had to play with myself the Whole. 90. Minutes.  I kid you not.  I started it in Pranayama Breathing and kept it up through the final spine twist.  I was so glad when it was over and the first person left the room and I got a tiny puff of delicious, normal-temperature air on me.  

One weird thing I noticed was that I even though I was hot as all get-out, I kept feeling this electrically-charged prickly, almost cold feeling moving all over the surface of my body.  It's probably a good sign that things are getting ironed out in there, and that the nerves are waking up, but it was almost nauseating to feel soooo hot throughout my whole core and also chilled on the skin at the same time. 

Well, it was a hard class, a hot class, and a mind-games class.  But honestly, I felt double good when it was over.  I guess you get out what you put in.  And today I put in a lot of mental stuff.  Overcoming my own desire to lie down, take it really easy, or run screaming out of the room.  I looked at my face in the rear-view mirror on the way home, and I looked so happy that I pulled the car over and took my own picture.

Maybe if I look at this picture next time I don't want to go to class, I can remember that no matter how hard the class is, the feeling afterward is totally worth it.  

Plus, my husband got the washer running, so tomorrow I'll have my lucky swimsuit again!