Hot Yoga Doesn’t Tolerate Angst

Posted: April 7th, 2010 | Filed under: Health, Personal | Tags: hot yoga, moksha | 6 Comments »

I’m back from a lovely hot yoga session with my friend JM.

To be honest, it was a long, dreary day. It was raining, and naturally I didn’t have an umbrella with me. After making it through a shift at the hospital, I wandered woefully into the cruel downtown streets.

My life is in disarray, I lamented to myself. Where am I going? What am I doing with myself?

I noticed a Cultures and ordered myself a frozen yogurt. I perked up a bit, and thought, “Aren’t the little things in life lovely? I’m like a ray of sunshine!” I made it about twenty steps before sinking back into my former state. It was hard staying so cheerful when everyone else was still so miserable from the rain as well. No one was moved by the rain sodden girl with an ice cream cone.

Dejectedly, I headed to King and Bathurst to the Moksha Downtown Yoga Studio for a 1 1/2 hour session. Resting in savasana (corpse pose – aka lying down) in the beginning of my practice, I nearly fell asleep. I got carried away thinking about some things that have been on my mind, and the heat on my skin felt good after being soaked to the bone from the rain. Free to relax and be still, I wanted to angst; I wanted to spend my 90 minutes lamenting over life.

Our instructor arrived, and I stared intently at myself in the mirror. My instructor told me to clear my mind, but I was resolute in defying her. I wanted to think about everything that had been eating away at me. We went into the tree pose, which involves lifting a leg. I couldn’t balance.

The thing about hot yoga is that it really forces you to take care of yourself– it’s very physically demanding, especially compared to “regular” yoga. With hot yoga, I have to make sure I eat properly and drink enough water during the day before my session, or else I get dizzy and want to pass out/commit suicide. There’s no half assing it– I’ve tried desperately chugging a bottle of water right before a practice after not having much during the day, and you can really notice the difference. So, physically, I had prepared myself.

But I forgot. If you’re not focused, you’re going to be a disaster.

My balance is generally pretty good, but today, I just couldn’t do it. I kept thinking too much. My mind wasn’t clear. Wobbling, I thought to myself, Ingrid, get your head in the game.  I started preparing myself for a High School Musical inspired pep talk. I’m serious – a Zac Efron/basketball montage was starting to play in my mind. It’s–

And then I nearly fell over. Embarrassed, I realized I couldn’t afford my ridiculous internal monologue either. My action had to be immediate. It was strange. For the first time in a long time, I was forced to just… get to it. No emotional reaction, no resentment, no thought– I didn’t have time to think, I just had to do it. For once, I had no choice.

During the next hour, my head was actually clear for once. It was really, really nice. After what’s felt like two months of continuous turmoil (mostly because of graduation), I was able to calm down for an hour and to really appreciate that thing that everyone has been telling me to appreciate for ages: the present.

I feel like I have a bit more strength now. Cheers to that.

http://www.mokshayogadowntown.com

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