The little whip and me.

Melting snow and an end to the winter chill leads inevitably, in our household, to the great bike tune-up. I think we get to a point where we just can't bear to look at them sitting motionless any longer, so we polish and tweak and raise and lower and tighten and pump, maybe even trot out the trainer for a test-run. The office turns into a bit of a disaster zone as Clay plays mechanic and I offer very sweet and polite little suggestions (which are often deemed to be wrong, but I assure you, my heart is in the right place). Tubes and wrenches and grease all over, and then the sun peeks out and we're out the door on two wheels.

I have two bikes, lucky lady. Both Treks, both white. I like my stuff to look clean (and Italian) and I like it matchy-matchy, so white bikes it is. Neither are super fancy but both turn my pupils into tiny heart-shaped laser beams anytime I look their way. The first is my road bike, purchased in Chicago in 2009 with a backyard full of lakefront bike path and a heart nearly bursting with triathlon dreams (quick trivia: I have yet to participate in a triathlon). The second is my little whip, a scrappy single-speed purchased in 2010 during my first few weeks in NYC. Completely utilitarian - I honestly purchased this bike with the intention of riding it brunch in Greenpoint and the Ice House in Red Hook, something I wouldn't feel bad locking up.

The road bike is sleek and fast with decent components and a nice new saddle that I spent some money on; the little whip has an off-sounding click somewhere in the crank, dirty Oury grips and an awkward stem and handbar that I've flipped upside-down in an effort to look cool.

I love them both. BUT, I've always, always always preferred my road bike - it was my first baby, my favorite child. I trust it entirely; it makes me feel safe and supported and strong and capable and FAST. I clip in and am absorbed into the machine - it anticipates my every move and I know there's always something that can be adjusted when the road gets tough. I am a cyclist; I have kits and gloves and shoes and hats. I am CYCLING and I feel amazing. 

The little whip is a bit of a wild-card - standard pedals, no gears, nothing to add and nowhere to hide. I am powering the machine, but from the outside, wobbly. I am no cyclist; just myself, with the added element of instability and balanced atop skinny wheels. I don't like to stand, I don't care to push it super fast. I don't trust the machine and I don't trust myself. I am not cycling, just riding my bike - the same way I did when I was ten. And I feel whatever.

The road bike makes me a better rider; the little whip amplifies my misgivings. But there's a time and a place for both - whip when I need to get around and roadie when I want to fly.

The weather is still kind of on and off, so I haven't been riding much - pretty much just to teacher training and back. I ride back and forth to Prana twice a day on training days - Myrtle to Jay, Jay becomes Smith, left on Schermerhorn, right on Hoyt, right on Butler, back to Smith, right at Myrtle. And again and again and again, unless it's raining. It's maybe like a two-mile loop, nothing substantial. Just long enough to feel a bit of pavement pushing past, the wind in my face, maybe dodge a few doors. 

Since my road bike was missing some spacers and a front wheel (my 'mechanic' had 'borrowed' some items at some point over the winter on a foray into bike-building), I set out for the season on my little whip, who was surprised and exuberant to have been selected. He was so perfectly suited to the task! He was ready to help in any way he could. So we set out, me clumsy with loosey-goosey feet and my whip clicking away on the left crank, and we ride like that, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. 

We melt away March and move into April together, me and the whip and the whip and me. My legs grow stronger, my grip more assured. We started to weave in traffic, confident, leaving the wobbles miles behind. I bring myself to stand tentatively, cautiously at first, then with conviction, tail high and letting my back arch as we sail down Myrtle promenade, balanced and somehow grounded through both feet. I am pushing steadily into the pedals, giving the clicky crank a run for its money, and it holds strong. I can feel, I am earning every inch of pavement beneath me.

I don't miss you, gears.

I don't miss you, clippy pedals (well, maybe a little).

I don't need a fancy machine to help me to fly.

Now, I am definitely not about to bring the little whip along with me if and when I get around to that triathlon, or even a road race. He's never going to work miracles for me in Prospect Park, he's not going to help me ride with a pack on the West Side highway. But I will never forget that one time, during a period of rapid personal growth, my jenky little single-speed bike couldn't help me but instead gave me the tools to help myself, to bring myself to stand on my own two feet. 

And at that time, in that moment, that was exactly what I needed.

More Yoga Homework: Affirmations

Yes! More yoga homework! Just when you thought the book report was over, it’s time for assignment #2, affirmation cards. Lucky for you, this is a one-post sort of deal, so we can keep the eye-rolling and suffering through my lessons learned to a minimum.

This assignment is to choose an affirmation from a deck of affirmation cards published by Taylor Wells, founder of Prana Power (my training studio). The idea is that you keep your card with you and read it often throughout the day, allowing it to influence your thoughts and impact your life. Maybe in a big way, maybe in a tiny way – I think it all depends on you.

This, of course, is exactly the kind of cheese-ball yoga nonsense (OR IS IT) that makes my inner skeptic start to itch. I don't mean to offend, just being honest.

Anyhow, the assignment remains, so I close my eyes, fan out the deck and pick a card. Makes sense to leave this one to divine providence, right? Pick a random card, let it do its thing?

Here it is:

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

Right. So.

Okay.

Despite much carrying-on from my inner skeptic, I begin to put my affirmation into action. As prescribed, I glance at the card throughout the day. After a few days, I really start to remember to look at it. Sometimes, I find myself looking FOR it. I want to see it. I need to understand it.

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

It bothers me.

I write it on a little post-it and put on the bottom of my computer monitor. I post it as the lock screen on my cell phone. I pen it on the tender underside of my right wrist, where middle-school Jen used to ink the initials of boys she was crushing on. Remember that? Glitter gel pen scrawlings, sealed up in a heart as a badge of allegiance – the earliest indicators of a fledgling tattoonicorn.

This sort of thing is actually really quite well-suited to my obsessive personality.

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

When the train is late, when my clients are irritating, when the math isn’t working out, when I am struggling in my personal life, when the cats are destroying the furniture.

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

When I start to panic, when I can’t breathe, when I just don’t know what to do.

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

Slowly but surely (and let’s be honest, I think we all knew where this was going), it begins to creep in, seep in: under my hairline, in between my eyelashes, into the creases in my elbows, that icy cold spot between my shoulder blades and into the soft flesh between each finger and toe until it’s running through my veins alongside my vital juices, powering my engine from within.

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

Along this process of opening my heart to yoga (which has, at times, felt an awful lot like a physical spreading of my ribcage), I have come up against an undeniable friction – all the illusions I’ve built up throughout my life, about my life and about myself, struggling to keep me within their reigns. It’s physically and emotionally painful, releasing and believing and allowing this great love to worry away at that which is not really me, burning up until there’s nothing left but Self and ash.

And I don’t ever want it to stop. I’m really only seeing the momentum increasing from this point forward – that’s the universe, right? Assisting me?

I feel the power of the universe assisting me.

As previously mentioned, I've found that things tend to play on repeat for a reason. Eventually, it has to click.

When Taylor visited our teacher training, she asked each of us what our word for the training would be – you know, like a defining thought. At the moment I thought my word was BALANCE, but I’m beginning to find that it may be more along the lines of SKEPTICISM.

A clouded, all-encompassing and once quite-tenacious skepticism that continues to crumble, breaking away in small but significant pieces, allowing the piercing light of BELIEF to shine through.

Of course I can feel the power of the universe assisting me. I AM the universe. As an active participant in the whole thing, I have no choice but to assist myself, and be assisted. I cannot help but draw myself in this direction, like a magnet, bringing myself here, right to where I was meant to be.

I was always going to find myself here. And I can feel, have felt, will continue to feel the power of the universe assisting me along the way.

Yes.

Fine.

Dear yoga: you win again.


***


And you fools thought I was learning to teach fitness classes.

Spotlight Speakeasy.

Friday evening, I took two of my loveliest and oldest work friends to meet some of my loveliest and newest yoga friends for a poetry-reading/concert at a beautiful space called ABC Sanctuary.

<< this is so not the sort of thing i am into >>

I first found the Sanctuary a little over a month ago now, slipping out of work early on a Friday evening to take ever more classes with a teacher I truly adore (the unbelievable Be. Shakti, ladies and gentlemen). I went alone, with only the slightest whisper of confidence in my back pocket.

<< i mean i really hate trying new things by myself, makes more sense to stick with what i know >>

The space was incredible, the community warm and enveloping. Physical asana gave way to dharma and I found myself coming back week after week. Still by myself, but no longer alone.

<< i really shouldn't be leaving work early; why am i sharing myself like this >>

And so I decided I was going to this event, this concert. The concert was part of a series of community events they call Spotlight Speakeasy, featuring local poet Nicole Callihan and local musicians Bird Courage. And I was dragging poor Emma and Allison along with me.

<< how good could this be, really, i've never heard of any of these people >>

I couldn't believe how many people came.

I couldn't believe how much I loved the poetry. I mean, I really, really loved it.

I couldn't believe how insanely exquisite and soul-wrenchingly beautiful the music was. These guys should be so, so famous.

I couldn't believe how exactly perfect that night was; that space, my friends, those people, the music, the overwhelming love. How I had found myself exactly where I needed to be.

I want so badly to believe.

<< who am i? what have i become? >>

There is a school of thought that puts all emotion on a linear spectrum, with fear on one end and love on the other. Fear, they say, is the absence of love, and love, the absence of fear.

<< this is not who i used to be >>

This yoga life, this everyday life is love, pure love. And I am not afraid.


<< i am so much more >>

Yoga poem.

Anyone tired of hearing about yoga yet?

Yesterday at teacher training, Sam said something lovely about part of growth being tied to allowing yourself release. I was probably white-knuckling a pen or my water bottle or something at that exact moment, so I'm sure I have no idea what she was talking about and certainly it has nothing to do with me, I'm totally fine THANKYOUVERYMUCH.

I mean, but clearly not.

I've always kept a very tight grip on my writing, this blog, my image. When I am not writing much, it's usually because I don't think I have anything worthy of putting out to the world (there are a serious amount of partially-edited drafts in the backlogs here). Or I was afraid to write what I really thought because I didn't want to let anyone in. Something along those lines.

Fuck that. I release thee! Here's a hastily-written poem. Welcome to my head.



YOGA POEM

I permit myself release!

I release control;

I release all emotion;

I release myself

I release these expectations;

I am more/muchier/most

I am strong palms and victorious headstands, splayed toes

five lines of energy, riotous breath

Exhaustion set aside in favor of the non-stop tremble

I am the center of a spinning top

Perpetual motion wrapping tightly 

around precarious balance

please don't let me fall

I don't recognize this person

these explosive thoughts

this strong and capable body

(I am not these thoughts, this body)

I am melting

molting

melting.

I don't want it to

I can't 

stop.

Jumping back, sort of.

Tonight I did a jump back from side-crow, sort of.

I could feel that it was not pretty and somewhat half-baked, I didn't land in the right spot and my bandhas (as per usual) were nowhere to be found, but nonetheless - it happened, sort of.

'Sort of' gets chalked right up in the failure column in my book, but I guess sort of doing something is about a million times better than doing nothing at all. Maybe tomorrow sort of will turn into kind of, and then the day after that you'll be at about an almost, and at some point you're bound to hit a YES, none of which will ever happen when you've chosen not to try.

Last week Sunday, I learned a jump-back from chaturanga. Last week Tuesday, I finally lifted tentatively into a side crow, first time! On Monday, I did the side crow jump-back and fell flat on my face (straight-up fail, and I hurt my beak a little). Rapid period of growth slams to an ugly/embarrassing halt.

Better keep trying, because by Wednesday I had it, sort of.

Sort of was the span of two days' time and a bit of mental adjustment, nothing more. All fires have to start somewhere, and if sort of is the spark, then I think that can be good enough for me. I think, in that way, sort of is more than good enough.

I am grateful for my sort of tonight, as well as for this body that grounds me (and apparently is still down to learn new tricks) and my amazing teachers, who are bringing me ever closer to flying.



Also, sort of - what is that? The more times I type it, the more ridiculous it looks. Are these even words?

Sort of.
Sort of.
Sorta.

What.

Stage 2: Shaking, Trembling

Bob Ballard - 2nd from the right

About a year ago, I had the distinct pleasure of happening upon a man who would become a personal idol of mine, my very own real-life hero. Dr. Robert Ballard (Bob), best known for his discovery of the Titanic and other (much more enormous but potentially less famous) contributions to the field of oceanography ('contributions' could not be a tinier word for this, really). He's essentially the man, the pioneer, the Godfather when it comes to ocean exploration - more or less everything that's currently possible in the field, he either discovered, invented or had, at the very least, a fairly strong hand in.

Anyhow, so there I was, at the 125th anniversary celebration for National Geographic (swoon-festival, don't even get me started), which centered around a guided discussion with various notable explorers in honor of the pursuit of exploration. Good ol' Bob was on the panel and I fell in love with him nearly immediately. Bob can pinpoint the start of his study of oceanography to his reading of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when he was seven years old (or some similarly ridiculous young age). He essentially became obsessed with the idea of the infinite possibilities held beneath the surface of the oceans and has pursued ocean exploration SINCE THAT DAY. Long story short, he is now 70 years old (quick math: 63 YEARS) and has contributed obscene amounts to the field and invented so many things to help make exploration possible and founded an institute for oceanography and teaches and travels and lectures and writes and has a submarine - a submarine! The sub is named 'the Nautilus', after Captain Nemo's ship in 20,000 Leagues. And I will never forget how his eyes, his smile, his whole face lit up when he was talking about the ocean, about being an explorer, about his JOB, for pete's sake. About this incredibly noble thing he has dedicated his entire life to, and (from the looks of it) will never, ever tire of until his last breath leaves his body. This guy is, I repeat, 70 years old and just looked so hungry for more. He looked just as young and enthralled as I imagine he did that day when he was seven years old and decided that ocean exploration was going to be his life's journey, his own personal legend.

I remember coming out of my slack-jawed, glassy-eyed state of awe into a feeling of complete emptiness as I realized that there was nothing in my entire life that I had ever loved as much as Bob loves the ocean. And I honestly didn't see that there ever would be. This guy dedicated his life to being an explorer of the infinite abyss, and I work in advertising. The whole thing both inspired and completely crushed me, because that's the ultimate, right? Being able to have your life's work be the thing that scratches all your itches and fires up your very soul - this is the dream, amiright?

Well. To me it is. And to not only not have that in your life, but to not even be able to fathom what it might possibly be, was something just short of devastating.

I mean, good for him though.

***

Fast forward a year later, and here I am in my yoga teacher training - something, as I said, I couldn't explain why I wanted but flat-out knew, I just KNEW that I needed. We're about a month into the training now, and I've found myself entirely unable to write anything about the experience thus far. So much has gone down in the past few weeks and I just haven't been able think of anything adequate to organize it all around. It's physical, yes, but it's so much more a mental game, a complete reorganization of my brain and my synapses have not been firing correctly as a result. Plus, some of it is just too personal and some of it is a bit frustrating/negative, and that's not really an image that I like to project here (although I have well learned that image is not something meant to be concerned with).

The moral of the story is, the training has thrown me for an absolute and total loop. To the unaided eye, I've been acting like a total lunatic. I'm a complete mess, I'm emotional for no reason, I can't get my head together. I am talking in incomplete sentences and thinking in unfinished thoughts. But in a fantastic, unbelievable sort of way - I just don't know how to process it. Friends, coworkers, if you've felt like I'm on a totally different planet lately, it's because I am. Wait for me, I beg you. I've never felt so alive - I had no idea, but apparently I was starving for this expansion and the process of getting me there feels like it's killing me, burning away at me, at all the buildup surrounding who and what I thought I was.

It sounds so negative, but I mean it in such a good way.

Either way, now I'm writing you a tiny glimpse of the thing because I found it, I found my organizing principle! I found it when my incredible and gracious friend/yoga mentor (friendtor?) Be said for the fourth, fifth, sixth time? in class today - from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, we move through experiences in three stages:

First, perspiration, as heat builds in the body, 

then quivering (as a muscle will quiver/shake/tremble when you hold any strenuous position for a while), 

and then finally moving into steadiness, into stillness - that's the reward, if you can make it through the trembling without throwing in the towel. 

I MEAN I CAN'T EVEN IT'S SO OBVIOUS

PS - mini lesson - if life, or your teachers in their various forms, keep repeating to you something that sounds super basic or potentially irrelevant or maybe even a bit like a weight-lifting strategy, keep listening. It'll click eventually.

This teacher training is my experience. I built up heat, perspiration, anxiety as I worked through the book report and got myself all nervous to begin. Now I am thrashing against all the internal walls I've built over the course of my life and the intensity of it all is causing me to shake, to tremble. And if I can find a way to allow this apparently necessary expansion, if I can push on and breathe through this test, I will find steadiness.

And, I know I can do it. The hard part - admitting I needed it - is already over. Now it's time to ride the tremble - maybe until June, maybe for the rest of my life - until I reach stillness, and can relax in my own reward.

I mean, COME ON. Right?! I could not have dreamed this up any better.

***

So back to Bob - you guessed it, yoga is my thing. I have a thing now!

I mean, I guess I don't know that. I guess it could be a phase, and I am definitely not seven years old. But one thing I know with absolutely certainty is that I saw myself in the mirror today and saw in my eyes the hunger, the joy and the complete adoration that I had once seen pour forth from a man who inspired me, and it occurred to me that I've happened upon a path that I am able to pursue for the rest of my life. I have happened upon something that I have the capacity to love with everything I have for the rest of my life. I have found a path that can BE my life, that will make me better while simultaneously improving the world around me.

I AM an explorer, and my mind is my ocean.

I'm so excited. I'm so everything. And I can't stop shaking.

My Yoga Book Report: Coming Full-Circle

So, the end of the book. Not a whole lot left, right?

Wrong.

I don't know what to say about the fact that the last 20-something pages of the book took me the longest to read, if you look at it on a minutes-per-page basis. For some reason, Erich dove from the poses right back into meditation, and for some reason, I was just having none of it. Seriously, it pained me to read. I can only imagine the show I must have put on for my fellow subway-commuters (my poker face leaves much to be desired).

I think maybe I was just antsy to ditch the book and get started with training? Maybe I was a teensy bit annoyed to revisit that which I seemed to just not be able to grasp, and re-emphasize my inability to grasp it? Maybe the whole thing was just making me ever more nervous about my inadequacy as a yogi, given that training was about to begin? Because, here's all this stuff about meditation being a fundamental of yoga, and I'm really not very good at it, and aside from meditation boy am I ever not really capable of doing most of the poses correctly. And then that was it and the book was over, and good luck with your teacher training. You have read these words now but in real life you are still completely inflexible with a monkey-brain. Seriously, good luck to you.

And the 'you' I'm talking to is, of course, me.

I'm pretty sure that's it. I'm pretty sure it's that every time he describes diving further and further into meditative bliss - all this, "now that you've mastered X, move on to Y and Z while sitting perfectly in your lotus!' when I'm still fumbling with step one and my lotus looks uncannily reminiscent of kindergarten cross-legged circle-sitting - I'm picturing him sitting underneath a giant neon sign that reads I AM A YOGA TEACHER. THIS IS WHAT A YOGA TEACHER LOOKS LIKE AND YOU ARE CLEARLY NOT IT. OBVIOUSLY. WHY ARE YOU EVEN HERE. NO REALLY, WHY ARE YOU HERE.

Erich, of course, means to say nothing of the sort and I'm sure is a very kind and gracious human, but my subconscious has a bit of a flair for the dramatic, so, here we are.

Which brings me back around to the driver of all of this - why am I here?

I am here because:

• I like yoga
• I want to be good at something besides spreadsheets
• I want to be good specifically at yoga
• I would like to learn to be a bit more present in all aspects of life - for example, it would have been nice to be able to sit through the Louis CK show I'd eagerly awaited all week without fretting quite so much about how we were going to get home and whether people will want to go out for dessert afterwards (which they did, obviously)
• Having a large outstanding financial commitment (not to mention something where I will be marked absent if I don't show) seems to be the only way to get myself to show up for something on the regular
• Yoga seems so strikingly opposite to everything I currently believe myself to be, yet at the same time, I feel like it looks exactly like me (a.k.a. I don't know yet, just know that I want it, leave me alone)
• I know that the unspoken 'you' in 'leave me alone' is myself, and I truly believe this business about learning to understand my instincts and my true self so that I will be able to leave myself alone and live an easier, more peaceful and better life

I mean, this is the point of the book. Yoga helps you find yourself, and once you have, that will be easier and more peaceful and better. You will be easier and more peaceful and better and everything will be better because of it. The movement facilitates the meditation and the meditation facilitates YOU. You will trust your instincts and you will feel more like yourself than you ever had the capacity to before. You will be larger than you were before (in a good way). You will like it.

That is what I want. That is why I'm here.

I'm giving this whole thing a shot, and here goes. I'm not entirely sure at what point it all starts to take root, but I am entirely sure that I am ready to begin.

NAMASTE!