Day 66: An anniversary, some filming and major yoga carnage

Today is April 1st 2009.  Two years ago today, I walked into a Bikram studio (not the one I ended up at, I did a week there, then a week at my studio and have been loyal to my studio ever since) clad in sweats, a tank top and tipping the scales at 198 pounds.  I remember the teacher.  Her name was Patrice.  She really liked herself and had NO patience for anybody.  The room was hot.  I was confused.  I was inflexible, tired, fat and well, again, confused.  I had been doing vinyasa yoga for two months at another studio, but wasn't really getting anything out of it.  But Bikram, wow, it spoke to me.  Patrice was terrible.  She scolded me when i couldn't figure out the arms for eagle.  Tree pose, forget it, I was falling all over the place.  Again, she called me out and scolded me.  "Don't use the ballet bar!"  You would think that I would never have come back.  But I did.  I went to her studio three more times, then found my studio.  Did a one week pass at my studio and signed up for a year.  I was thinking "what are you doing michelle, you never work out, you lose interest and this money will be wasted".  But I didn't.  Lose interest.  Instead I became this Bikram fanatic.  So today, on my two year Bikram anniversary I went to 530 class with "english accent I'm going to kick your ass and smoke you out of the room" Mark.  He informed me when I got there that I should go to the "right" side of the room because channel 15 would be filming.  So when Reggi got there, I informed her of the status, that we had to go front row right.  She said ok.  We tried our best to do good, because of the guy filming for the spanish news channel.  But it was HOT.  People were dropping to their knees left and right.  By triangle, I counted SIX downed yogis.  All panting, all a mess.  Me, I tried.  I tried my hardest.  I made it through the standing series, red faced, panting, breathing through my mouth.  Then fell apart during the floor series.  I found out later that Mark was trying to kill us.  The humidity was up to fifty eight percent.  By the time I got to final savasana I was dying.  I lay in fetal position when Mark left the room.  Then I crawled out and sat on a bench and had the front desk person bring me over a zico, because I couldn't walk.  I finally stood up ten minutes later and was going to the locker room.  Mark said "why are you walking like a thunderbird Michelle?"  I just glared at him.  Then, as I'm limping into the locker room I see Reggi also in bad shape in the lobby and I just started laughing.  So here I am, laughing uncontrollably, limping, red faced, sweaty.....happy!