Day 24: Don't forget your Yoga-Fighters

Have you read the group blog post today? It's a guest post by a yogi named John who practices in Kansas City. The title of the post is: Yoga is Vegan Rodeo. Click on the post title and go read it. Come back when you are done. I'll wait for you don't worry......

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Hi! Welcome back. Awesome story, huh? I love this older guy, an ex bullrider having a conversation with a tiny young vegan yogini. They are discussing how yoga is not like bull riding. Well, from his point of view it's not. He says: “If yoga was like bull riding, when you fell out of a pose yoga would try to kill you. In fact, if yoga was like bull riding, we’d have yoga-fighters hanging around the studio so that they could distract yoga and keep yoga from killing you when you fell out of a pose. If yoga was like bull riding, occasionally you’d get stuck in a posture and yoga would drag you around the room and bash you on the walls until you got loose. Then yoga would try to kill you some more. There’s no killing in yoga!”

She begs to differ by saying: “Actually, there is killing in yoga, but it’s of a different kind. One of the goals of yoga is to bring about the death of the ego – and allow us to better see how connected we are to all things, rather than how different from one another we are.”

I don't know about you but the visual I got reading about if yoga was like bull riding occasionally you'd get stuck in a posture and yoga would drag you around the room and bash you on the walls until you got loose.....put me in hysterics. I guess I'm still a bit loopy from the absolute beating I got yesterday. Yoga did try to kill me! I needed some yoga-fighters to distract it! It was totally dragging my half dead corpse around that room yesterday!

So of course I was thinking about yoga-fighters as I was preparing for yoga today. We have our breath while we are in the room as our yoga-fighter. We have other yogis around us, and also some in spirit. Outside of the room, our tools are to watch what we put in our body before attempting to go ride that yoga bull. With this in mind, I ate an egg white omelet with fresh mushrooms, bell peppers and onion with one slice of wheat toast for breakfast this morning. I had two cups of coffee (my Sunday morning pleasure) and then started right in on my liter of water with emergen-C in it. I did laundry, cleaned and then drank more water. Hydrated and ready to go it was only 2pm. I was planning on going up to Summerlin to take Franks class at 5. I was hoping since it was Frank, it might go well again like it did Friday. In fact, if it did go well, I was contemplating throwing Frank in my trunk after class and having him teach me in my home with a space heater all week. Throw Frank in the trunk? Uh oh. I realized how fearful I am becoming due to the extreme classes I've been experiencing. I went online and saw that Roberta was teaching 330 at my old studio. I lifted my chin up defiantly, started throwing yoga stuff into my bag and eyes blazing, drove straight to a tough class. On purpose. Screw you yoga truck! You've done your worst to me, I really don't give a crap at this point and I will not let you make me afraid of my one true love. The thing that gives me peace. The thing that makes me feel authentic. Yoga truck, I will not let you steal my peace, because if you do, I lose! Run over me, park on top of me, do what you have to do. I'm going to keep riding that yoga bull!

I spoke with Roberta before class to let her know what happened to me yesterday. Class started and I felt good the first three postures. Good sign! I had a solid standing series and received many encouraging corrections from Roberta, especially in standing bow. I was in it, solid, kicking and stretching and breathing and she was tweaking my alignment. Once we hit the floor my face and chest turned a reddish purple hue and I got overheated. I kept going...until my left hand went numb. Roberta, watching me like a hawk saw something was wrong and came over with her little baggie of crushed pink Himalayan sea salt. I put a pinch on my tongue, drank some water and was back in the saddle! That goes to show you. Make sure to talk to your teachers. Let them know what is going on with you. Especially if they are familiar with your practice. They will be able to spot anything out of the ordinary if they know to watch.

Throw me off yoga bull. Let the yoga truck run me over. It's all good. I've got my yoga-fighters lined up. Water, salt, breath........and blogging yogis that are there with me in spirit. They will all surely distract you and you will never steal my yoga joy!