Exper, A Course in Life: Week... 8.5

So here we are, week just-past-8, comedy student life experiment. Where are the posts on weeks 4 through 8, you might ask? None of your busy little business, that's where, and I'll thank you to get off of my back already.

I started this exercise as an experiment in the lifelong and inarguably noble pursuit of all things funny, smart and (*sigh*) cool. I took improv classes at Magnet for 8 weeks, as promised, and performed in a free show, as promised. I went to a whole bunch of really fantastic comedy shows. I worked on a set of tenuous relationships with a kind and brave group of fellow explorers, whose very young ages, as I've mentioned, startled me to my core. The classes were great. The show was stupendous and maybe even alarmingly funny. You'll never know, so I may as well gush! Regardless, it made my heart race and I felt like we won and that's about as good as you can ask for, I think.

In short, I geeked out on a new thing and had a kick-ass time.

Here's what I learned!

1. I am clearly still 100% incapable of completing a writing project. WHAT, AND ALSO WHY. I love to write more than anything and I swear on all things holy that I want nothing more than to become a writer, and yet. And yet! Here we are again, sniffling over the forgotten crumbs of what could have been a complete and very nice bit of work, 4/9ths of an actual prize. Apparently public commitment to said project completion means nothing to me in terms of making sure to carve out the time. Nobody is more disappointed about this than me. Literally. Probably nobody noticed or cared.

2. Being nearly out of your 20s and also having a job that requires you to constantly be putting all your shit right out on the table both help a lot in terms of calming, dare I say eradicating, the nerves. This comes into sharp relief when in a room full of extremely nervous young-20-somethings who are about to take the stage for a free comedy show to a kind-hearted and mildly intoxicated audience, a show that has almost no bearing on anything at all. It's nice to be moving toward being done with all of that, even if it may come with the promise of wrinkles.

3. Improv is ephemeral. LIKE LIFE.

4. Regardless of the discipline, there's nothing better than finding yourself in the presence of a wonderful teacher.

5. The funny and the smart are both buried deep, waiting to be discovered by a suitable archaeologist. I know what you're thinking! But no. Wrong. Wonderful teachers are put into your life to get you 95% of the way there, but the true scientist is always you, every single time. Your life is your OWN experiment. Om bolo shri sat guru bhagavan ki. Also, cool continues to be a non-issue. Build it, using your carefully harvested smarts and funnies, and then really *believe* in it with all your might and the cool will come. JAI.

6. Just when you're starting to feel pretty good about the thing, it's time to start over.

And start over we shall! Level 2 starts May 31. I have already begun sharpening my pencils in preparation.

Thank you, Rick, for being a really great teacher. I loved your rules and games and your big booming voice, ZAYN! I nearly fell over with happiness when you gave me a gold star for my laying-on-a-trampoline work, which I agree was next-level. You are funny and smart and you really care, which is what makes the whole thing so cool. Your students are lucky to have you.

Thank you to my amazing team for being such a wonderfully funny, smart and cool group of people to work and learn and play with. I loved all your personalities and your brains and learning that you were scared and unsure when you looked so goddamned chill. Thank you for being so incredibly brave as to choose to participate in this particular piece of the big experiment. I am really sad that we're not all going to hang out and play this afternoon. I mean it.

Thank you to the Magnet Theater for fostering such an amazing community of talented, inspiring humans. Thanks for giving us a format for social permission to work toward happy bodies and happy brains.

Thank you to my friends and family for your continued support of my experimentation. It means everything because it is everything.

Improv is love.

<>

Exper: A Course in Life, Weeks 2 & 3

I didn't end up writing anything in week 2. You don't care, and yet I must get defensive and protest that this is not to say that nothing went down! It merely delineates that some very important time was spent binging on House of Cards (season 3: meh), Grey's Anatomy (decent) and Downton Abbey (BEST EVER I DIE). I did also do a bunch of work and teach 10 classes (please hold your applause until the conclusion of the post). And I sallied forth in the noble pursuit of the study of improv!

YAY! Improv! Improv improv improv!

If we've interacted for more than five minutes at any point, you'll know that I love to be obsessed with things, and improv class is proving no exception. I don't find obsession to be creepy; I just see absolutely no point in half-assing anything and improv is currently pretty high on the list of efforts toward which I am delegating my full ass. So I am really trying, to the best of my ability, to do the thing. I am attending class and reading books and attending shows when possible. I am juggling my husband and my handful of jobs and dragging said husband and said jobs across town to the improv theater a few times per week. I am watching shows with medium-good improvisers and I am watching shows with very good improvisers. I am balancing my personal enjoyment of the comedy at hand with ferociously critical study of technique. I am listening and watching Very Carefully. I am Absorbing.

So far, I have noticed the following:

1. When improv is Very Good, it is *unbelievable*. I know I lean on the side of superlative, but I straight-up mean it this time. Pure, unadulterated disbelief, that this stuff is happening off the cuff. I like few things more than to have my mind blown, so needless to say this is thrilling to witness. 

2. When improv is Not Very Good, it is somewhat awkward and disappointing for the audience member and likely for the comedian/enne, and then everyone moves on with their lives and everything is and continues to be fine.

I am pleased with these findings because they give me something to be excited about and they are also a reminder that a the occasional lackluster yoga class is, similarly, nothing to cry over. Life moves on and nobody cares. Or at least certainly nobody cares as much as you do. This is a good thing.

I continue to find yoga and improv to be more or less the exact same discipline, which is to say they are organized permission to feel good and let your brain and body fulfill their potential. I had a conversation to that effect with a classmate, a comedian-turned-yogi who is friends with my cool/smart/funny friend Emily, the yogi-comedienne who introduced me to this whole thing to begin with. If you followed all that, high five. He agreed! And we were both really stoked to have found outlets and communities to help create happy bodies and happy brains. What could be better?

In week three of classes, I finally decided to be a rebel and leave my notebook and three pens at home. Instructor Rick said something really great, goddammit, so I ended up having to quickly type it down in the notes section of my phone. It absolutely killed me that I'm sure it looked like I was texting and not paying attention during this time. RICK I WAS TAKING NOTES AND I AM SORRY.

-- By the way, if you are interested in earning my undying admiration, all you have to do is become a halfway-decent instructor of any kind. Blow my mind with something simple and true (see above in re: obsession and also mind-blowing) and I will follow you around like an overexcited intern, making mental or physical note of your every word for as long as that isn't annoying, and sometimes well past that point. --

Anyhow, the noteworthy thing was this. We played a game where we had to do a brainstorm about a fake product. For each product attribute or sales idea mentioned, the whole team had to give a full-body YES right then and there. Yell it with your mouth and convey bodily excitement as well. So you build this crazy positive energy and that starts to feel really exciting, because we all know that attitude is the thing just as much as anything else. We control perception and perception creates reality. So the point of the game was to practice feeling fully immersed in every thing that happens over the course of a game, because there's no going back once the improv has started. "No matter what happens," he said, "it's your job to find a way to make it work. The behavior that happened or the thing that was said - why is that great? How is that perfect?" Classic Tim Gunn 101. Fair warning, I'm using this as dharma in my yoga classes all week. You always have a choice as to how you react and what story you choose to tell; YOU choose which reality you want to make true. THE WHOLE THING IS IMPROV, all of it. We can only move forward. Make it great, let it be perfect. That was my note, no pens needed.

A final item - I found out in the cutest way that I am one of the oldest people in my class. A cool/funny/smart fellow student who I thought to be roughly my age made a joke about studying for her midterms, and then laughed and said, "gosh, midterms, that makes me sound so young!" I asked if she was a grad student, and she said no, undergraduate. And then she said she was 22 in a voice that sounded like she felt strongly that 22 was not a very young age to be. And then other classmates that I had also thought were my age started chirping in about also being 22, or being 24 or 25 or 27. If I had been a cartoon person, you would have heard the deflation noise as my plastic body puddled to the floor. This is one of my first experiences being and truly feeling older than people in an organized setting and I cannot believe how my mind immediately jumped to thoughts of being some sort of educational cougar, like I should be ashamed of myself for being at improv class instead of having a job that involves real pants. I was so surprised to find that I care about age, and as of yet I don't know how to make it perfect, make it great.

So that's my next task, I suppose. Onward.

Exper: A Course in Life

My entire life, or at least since the beginning of my social awareness, I have been trying desperately, to varying levels of success, to achieve the following adjectives/personal labels:

1. cool
2. funny
3. smart

Luckily, once you hit the mid-late 20s I think you begin to take on the mental capacity to understand that 'cool' is something you are born with. If you were not, attempting to find it is a waste of time and anxiety and money and headspace. I now understand that 'cool' should be replaced on everyone's list with 'confident' or 'secure' or something of the sort, and that switcheroo should happen just about as soon as possible. Cool is exhausting. Just do you. And THAT, my friends, is what makes you cool. This is why the nerds prosper later on in life, once they work up the juice to be psyched about their nerd status. Nerds are usually nerds because they're uncommonly good at something that society eventually values, even if it's video games.

Also luckily, to the same extent that cool is not a thing, I find that being funny is just highlighting the best parts of situations, something anyone can do, and being smart is within the reach of pretty much anybody who's interested. Taking most of the time and energy you used to spend trying to crimp your hair (cool) and diverting all of that into the never-ending quest for funnies and smarts will take you far in life.

This is my postulate.

I found myself in a bit of a rut on the above as of late, as ya do, and as such have signed myself up for an 8-week course in improvisational comedy. Improv classes! At a theater. In Manhattan. FREE SHOW AT THE END OF THE COURSE. What is this life?!?! I have also found myself in a bit of a rut on the writing front and thought I'd marry the two here for you, an upstanding member of the society that values the two-for-one. In my head, there are endless parallels to be drawn between the ability to disregard one's awkwardness and all things that are beautiful in life and I plan to carry on about those parallels at great length in this public forum. And likely also in my yoga classes. Get excited.

This is to be categorized as a Life Experiment. Because what is life, if not one giant improvisational comedy? Nobody knows what's coming next, not even your shaman, you shameless hipster. And comedy can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.* I must take the time here to express the urgency with which I recommend experimentation. Without a bit of experimentation in our lives, we devote our existence toward the paying of bills, and this I can neither live with nor abide. Experimentation is how we learn and have experiences. Seek out any word with the root 'exper,' really, and only good stuff can come of it. I also believe that it is possible to experiment within the guidelines of the rules and laws of your given society. This is how genius money machines like molecular gastronomy and yoga teacher training and trapeze classes end up making the big bucks (do they? I have no idea). Plenty of drug-free fun to be had out there, people! Only you can prevent forest fires.

I will begin my improv education at the Magnet Theater. I know two things about the Magnet Theater:

A. My cool, funny and smart friend Emily works/performs there
B. My cool, funny and smart friend Kelly took improv classes there, and when I mentioned Emily (A.) she said, "I've heard of her. She's cool and funny. And smart."

Magnet Theater, please take my money.

Class starts tomorrow. I signed up for it yesterday. I'll see you on the other side.



*Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, quote modified, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (screenplay)

New York anniversary, year 3.

Over the long weekend, we caught up with a friend of ours who is wrestling with a decision to take a dream job in another city. Seriously, this is a Dream Job/Career Maker, and the potential city is, from what I've heard, a very nice place to live (details withheld to protect a lovely person who didn't ask for his/her life to be publicized here). Seems like a no-brainer, but said person is not entirely sure he/she is ready to leave New York.

Of course, I was all, pfft, dream job! You can come back! Live while you're young! and so forth, but I think that the idea of an unbreakable tie to the city is something that, despite all my talk of Colorado dreams, I'm finally starting to get.

***

Today marks three years since I first set foot in Manhattan without a return ticket. Three years! And as I start to round the corner towards my twenty-eighth birthday (no-longer-a-spring-chicken-hood looming ever closer), it grows increasingly obvious that the most significant relationship of my twenties is this one, the one between myself and the city. My partnership with this pulsating, roiling, vibrantly enthusiastic, stubborn, sullen and always richly incredible place. 'Place' doesn't seem like a quite substantial enough word, but I suppose she can be found on a map, and 'state of mind' seemed to err on the side of perhaps a bit poetic, which didn't seem right here. I'm officially putting a fork in it, calling her my most main of squeezes (sorry darling) mostly because of the unparalleled part she's played in helping me to foster and cultivate my relationship with myself.

Actually, I should probably be my real main squeeze. So she's like, number 2 (again, sorry honey).

A quick side note that seems worth mentioning: I'm going to continue to bless her with that holiest of pronouns ("she"), in agreement with the hordes of songwriters, authors, screenwriters, poets and otherwise artists who have labeled her as such over the years. The energy of the city, while sometimes dark and violent, does feel uniquely (and sometimes divinely) feminine to me. I see in her Shakti, Diana, Gaia, Aphrodite. Creator and destroyer, pursuer and seductress, muse to many and unmistakably motherly - she is She, a modern-day and ever-morphing goddess; she is all that is love.

Looking back on my first anniversary post, it is painfully obvious that I was too young to understand, that I was so scared to commit. That I was frustrated with her for not eagerly reaching out to me as I arrived on her shores. Even my eventual understanding was shallow (although throw a couple more years at it and I'm sure this will look puny as well, but here we are). It wasn't about whether she had the time; I needed her validation to be able to grow and she was unwilling to give it to me. I hated her for keeping it from me, something Chicago had so easily given.

But she needed to know that I was serious about her, that I was serious about me. She needed to know that I would, at some point, be able to let go of my attachment and be that validation for myself.

And I have.

So now I've relaxed, she's opened up, and we've settled into something comfortable, something familiar. I see her, through the dirt and chaos and frustration and hate and hurt and all that's been dumped on her over the years. I see the pure electric love throbbing at her core, pumping through the streets and tunnels and rivers as she cradles these millions of people in her arms. She's more mature than I gave her credit for, quietly and non-judgmentally allowing her masses to walk all over her and blame her and use her as a stepping stone to becoming what they want to be. Day after day after day she takes beating after beating after beating, and she thrives and blooms and flourishes around her scars, shining so through all the ashes.

And somewhere in the midst of all of that, she sees me and returns the favor.

For every crowded subway ride through Manhattan, she trades me a moment of cobble-laden silence on a Brooklyn evening. And for each gray and dreary morning, a lunchtime seat warmed by sunlight in Meatpacking plaza. One terrifying hurricane in exchange for crisp afternoons spent with old and new friends at the tiniest and best dive bar garden in Red Hook, which I'm so thankful can continue to thrive. We go on like that, me being patient with her as she fusses and fumes, her rewarding me for my time with shy and stolen moments that she's taught me to seek, that I've learned to find. The more time I give, the more she helps me to see.

And it's me, along with the city, that comes into ever-clearer focus.

So tonight I raise a glass to you, sweet city, in honor of our three years together. I've said it before, but it still rings true - in exchange for my residency, I will continue to try, to take it in, to expand, to arrive. And I will know for certain that I am always enough.

And I will never again be alone, not here.

Almost time for brunch.

So now we're up to May, I've turned into an unrecognizable yoga monster and there are only three weekends left in my training schedule. Three! Because this weekend we have off for Memorial Day and then it's just three more weekends until June 16. That's like, ten minutes, not even, in the overall scheme of things. I seriously cannot believe it, not for one minute. I remember feeling so apprehensive about the thing, knowing for SURE I was going to get bored with it (14 weekends? March - June? are you kidding me?) long before our graduation weekend.

And now
it's
almost
here

and I am so scared for it to be over.

Because... well, because I don't want to go back to my life before and I'm afraid that without the training, I won't know how to hold on to this. Like maybe it's all been just a really lovely dream and if so, I'm afraid to wake up. I don't even entirely understand what THIS is, and how one might be able to hold onto it. And of course it's all beside the point, since the whole purpose is to live in the moment and I'm not doing that at all. I'm so worried about being able to find this again that I'm not even able to see that I AM here right now, at this very second.

But, I'm still worrying, because I feel like a different person now; I feel so, so different. I look and sound different and I don't know what to do with it. I'm practicing my sanskrit and telling jokes about chaturanga and doodling the ashtanga primary series on the side of my notebook and getting up early to practice and staying out late to practice and reading all kinds of books with funny names full of funny pictures and trying to think what, exactly, would be the best way to explain someone up into a chin-stand and wondering when I can try to get back to Friday meditations at Integral and humming that chant from that one seriously amazing kirtan under my breath. And nobody on the train is trying to pick me up by asking what I'm reading anymore (I'm talking to you, guy-who-so-brazenly-asked-me-about 50 Shades of Grey). And I am carrying my mat with me everywhere, secretly imagining it to be protecting me and my special soul, a neon floral-print quiver for my karmic arrows. I'm thinking about buying a second mat. And maybe some blocks. And a strap? And every morning and every night I do a headstand and say a fervent prayer of gratitude to my teachers, to the Self and to my own self in an attempt to open up my ribcage and let the light in, to reach and pull and beg and plead and gasp and choke and shake and weep and finally fill my gaping, dusty, frozen chest cavity with pure raw unfiltered love.

And my closest friends are kind of looking at me a bit wide-eyed and hesitant because I am acting like a maniac, and I can't stop smiling.

I can't stop shaking.

I'm so unbelievably happy, so comfortable in this skin. Now that I've finally wriggled it on, it's so overwhelmingly familiar. Despite the fact that my body feels different. My mind feels different, easier. My whole heart feels different, bigger.

Not always easier, in that territory. But definitely bigger, definitely better.

There's a yogic philosophy that states that a person will practice yoga because they did so in a previous birth, and as such will always feel inexplicably drawn towards the practice until he or she gets him or herself to the mat. I am still sorting out how I feel about philosophy and births and all that malarkey, but damned if I did not feel so inexplicably drawn to this practice. I felt it years ago when I first picked up Eat Pray Love and started a three-year relationship with a story, reading it over and over and over again, not yet understanding why I felt so connected, why I was reading and re-reading as though my knowledge of the text might someday cure my own cancer. Why I felt as though I had written it myself, about me, from the future. I said it to Christy when I realized that I had signed up for a yoga retreat without a buddy - not really something I do on the regular (or would ever do in a million years). I said it aloud, when introducing myself to the group on the first day of training. I said, "I honestly don't know why I'm here."

But there I was, and despite whatever it is I may think about being the master of my own destiny, I truly believe that I was always going to get there.

For real. That's the sort of thing I am into these days. Not even joking.

When I first wrote about teacher training, my awesome web-friend Anna Edwards commented that she thought it was cool that I was doing the training - that she didn't know normal people did that. And I was all like, lolsies I know right? Because I am totally normal and I'm going to go learn to be a fitness instructor now, let's get brunch in June, at which point I will be exactly the same + a six pack and some sweet arm muscles.

Dear Anna Edwards, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I will never again be able to put my hands on the ground without thinking about planting, plugging, spreading through the fingerbeds and drawing up through long arm-bones the energy bursting forth from the earth. Even in New York, where everything is filthy and nobody should be touching the ground ever, this is what I'm thinking.

Not even the slightest bit normal. Also, not sanitary. But that's life, fucking incredible beautiful breath-taking breath-giving life.

It's MY life, and I'm so relieved that it's finally here.

(I still really want us to go to brunch, though. Please call me.)

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!

My Yoga Book Report: Skimming through the Poses

Okay, so clearly I fell off the wagon a bit with the book report posts (or any posts at all, for that matter). Clearly my training has already started and I am now way the hell behind, insomuch as a blog post is intended to be somewhat current and speaking to the now and so on. Clearly.

But, good news - I finished my book! And not only did I finish the book, but I've since read one and a half other books. Fiction, of course. The first book I read in a total of four hours over the span of a day and a half, in somewhat of choking-food-down-because-you're-half-starved fashion. Don't get me wrong, I loved the yoga book. But I miss, you know. My stories.

Anyway, I want to go back a little bit and talk about what happened in the remainder of the book, starting with the poses, which is going to be weird. Regardless of timing, it's weird in general to do a book report when using an e-book as the subject. My future offspring will not even understand what I'm trying to say here, but I'm just not used to doing book research without that tactile experience of dog-earing a physical page, scribbling on it, highlighting, flipping back and forth between passages with over-stretched fingers marking my various places, and just appreciating the weight of the book in my hands, oh-so-representative of the heft of the work that went into the writing of the thing.

Yes, I am aware that there are tools for highlighting and bookmarking within my e-book, thankyouverymuch. Yes, I used them and they worked out fine. I'm just saying, it's not the same.

Anyway.

Pages 170 - 520 consisted of 45 poses and sequences - lots of pictures and lots of repetition. I mean, this guy is THOROUGH and based on the photos, has some friends who potentially have no bones. No hip bones, anyway. I admit that I did a bit of skimming in this section, once I got the general gist of it. It's not that it was boring, just Very Detailed and Very Repetitive, seeing as most poses are set up in somewhat of the same way. Erich's yoga is not the flowing vinyasa yoga I'm used to - very little in the way of transitions. He has a patient and plodding method of feeling his way through each pose, adjusting it in a million different ways until everything is entirely perfect (I can't tell you how many times he says "do this perfectly" in the poses section, it's hilarious). When you do the pose perfectly, he says, everything will be effortless and fantastic and feel so great, so just do it perfectly! Why waste time doing things incorrectly when you can just do them perfectly? I am not even doing the poses as I'm reading and already I'm way too impatient to adjust my way through each mental asana until it's perfect before moving on to the next.

His brand of yoga would take hours. Ain't nobody got time for that. Love him though - good for him. He's probably, like, so enlightened.

Is enlightenment even attainable in this city?
Will I someday feel like I have time for that?

Either way, I have been trying to keep all of his instruction in mind throughout my practice, which is not entirely realistic, seeing as one purpose of the practice is to clear the mind. So me and my pockets-full of Erich-learnings are a bit fumbly and behind and out of place.

Always out of place, always. But we're getting there.

My Yoga Book Report: Edges, Lines and Intro Poses

I kind of hate to admit it, but I was Very Excited when I saw we were past the meditation portion and moving on to poses. All that meditation business was starting to make me feel grossly under-qualified to be teaching anyone anything having to do with yoga, whereas the practical yoga, or hatha yoga - that, I can actually DO, kind of. Added bonus - a good portion of the poses section so far has been pictures, which makes me feel a little better about how many pages I still have left to read and dissect (three hundred and twenty-three).

There are a few chapters about edges and lines prior to jumping into the poses. These are very long, prose-y sections that I will sum up in a few quick bullet points:

WHAT ARE THEY

• Edges are personal boundaries; they change on a minute-to-minute basis and determine the depth of the pose (for you).
• Lines are established coordinates for your energies and determine the shape of the pose.
• Edges and lines are what define where you are and where you're going within a pose.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Always listen to your own body.

I think the stuff about edges and lines may be the most crucial part of the hatha yoga section of the book, so my apologies if I've minimized their importance. They're complex concepts but they boil down very simply. If you want to get the meaty version, or Erich's take on it anyhow, I suggest reading the book.

And now, the poses, hooray! Erich is starting to get the hang of how I operate, because he opens the section with something about how you probably don't have time to do the poses as he describes them, so just picture it in your head and feel it in your body as you read the instructions. Done and done, says me, as the subway train lurches around yet another corner.

He starts with the most basic of poses - mountain pose - and begins to build off that one to some of the other classics. He patiently walks through each detail of each pose, most of which start out pretty much the same (I'm guessing he was doing a lot of copy and paste during this portion) and peppers in black-and-white photographs of the bendiest people I've ever seen, absolutely dominating their rotated triangles and whatnot. Their lines are tremendous, to say the least. His brand of yoga is different from what I've practiced - deliberate and slow, with lots of talk of cat-tilts and dog-tilts. Definitely no music, definitely no vinyasa flow. His warrior II looks different and his transitions are nothing I've ever seen before. When he finally puts together a sequence, there's no down-dog (he has yet to mention down-dog at all, actually) and he jumps from mountain to warrior II to half-moon - what?! - but it's all good, because he's teaching and I'm learning and the whole thing is starting to make a lot of sense.

Despite the fact that I will absolutely be going straight back to fiction after finishing things up with Erich, I continue to admit to myself how much fun I'm having with the instructional-style writing. He's got that amazing tripping teaching cadence and flow - even as a writer, I can just tell. He's also full of all kinds of great nonsense, the kind of stuff that starts to speak to you once you're doing this stuff often enough. I love, for example, his constant use of ridiculous descriptions, such as "gaze straight backwards into infinity," "orchestrate this action perfectly" and "'do' and 'not-do' at the same time." He's also always using very silly non-yoga words - for example, he is constantly telling me to 'snuggle' my foot down into the ground (while I'm creating the lines). Never 'plant,' 'ground' or 'root,' but always 'snuggle.' If my palm is also on the ground, like in triangle pose, I'm to snuggle that, too. Snuggle! This is how I know we're best friends.

When I am a yoga teacher, I hope to:

• Speak with a lovely tripping cadence
• Use fantastic word choices to inspire energy and keep things interesting
• Not intimidate my students by bending into a perfect pretzel every time I demonstrate anything (chances of this happening at my current level of flexibility are slim to nil anyhow)
• Be funny and relatable, always

My Yoga Book Report: The Scared is Scared

Now a few weeks into things, I've started to work on reading ahead in the book as much as possible during my morning and evening commutes. If I want to complete the book before teacher training starts in two weeks, I don't have the luxury of stopping after each exercise to wait to have time to give it a try before moving on. I am getting quite chummy with the witty and illustrious Erich, whose instructions include helpful tips such as "do this for the perfect amount of time." He guides me through the exercises as best he can - "please understand," he says, "that what I am attempting to describe is an activity that is essentially non-verbal" - and I visualize myself doing the movements (or lack thereof) as the train hurtles on, carrying me to and from Manhattan each day. He is patient with me as I attempt to pay attention to reading that which is not a story and I am patient with him as he tries to explain the unexplainable.

Of course, I am also trying to do the exercises described whenever I get a free moment. I start each little meditation session with a round of the counting-backwards technique to find stillness before moving into the new exercises. For the past few sessions, I have been working on something Erich calls 'heart breathing.' This involves laying on your back, closing your eyes and breathing deeply, physically feeling the expansion in your ribcage with your fingers while focusing on the metaphysical feeling you get in your heart as fresh oxygen enters and leaves the body.

My first attempt at heart breathing is a total bust. Clay is home and walking around doing his own projects, and I can feel his footsteps in the floor and just can't get myself to focus on what's going on in my body. So, I table it for a later date, when I have the house to myself. Even then, while it goes a bit better, clearly this is not for me - I can only lay on the floor, eyes closed, breathing deeply for a minute or two before I start to fall asleep (something I am already quite good at).

So I move on to expanded heart breathing - the seated version. This exercise has me sitting in stillness for a moment before taking some deep, exaggerated breaths - first in and out smoothly, then after a while, holding in to feel the stretch and expansion before the release. This is intended to help you to better feel your energy vibration not just inside, but specifically within the heart. This I am able to do, although it makes me nervous to make exaggerated movements while trying to stay in a deep meditative state - definitely out of line with what had previously been instructed, about staying as relaxed and still as possible. Which is a bit confusing, but I try not to beat myself up over it and instead move on to the next.

We do some other exercises, me and Erich, with some aaahhhhh breathing sounds, some new mantras, some different postures and focuses. I am not really that great at any of them, and I just really can't seem to find the time of day to commit to what this whole thing seems to require. I tried once to get up early in the morning and do it, just for a few minutes in what has to be the quietest moment of the whole day, but the recency of having been asleep was problematic - this is somewhat sleepy stuff, meant to be practiced while fully awake. So, I need to work on how I'm going to make this work in my noisy, activity-filled life.

My success with the exercises aside, I am definitely following what he's trying to say, which is that you (and you, and you and you) are not YOU - we are all part of a collective, connected experience. We exist in a state of muffled energy, and if we can strip away the years and layers of self-concept and ego that we've built up mainly from what we've been told about ourselves by others, we have the capability to see who we really are and benefit from that amplification of energy, that forgiveness. Meditation gives us the opportunity to find that pure you-ness that's been buried - hence why it's such an important pillar of the yoga practice. It also reminds us that we have the capability to control what goes on inside our heads - just one of the reasons yoga is commonly touted as a remedy for depression. With practice, it helps us to accept the negative thoughts for what they are and let them swirl away with the rest of the bathwater.

Kids know all this better than adults, I think, because they're still tapped into their imaginations and not super concerned with what anyone thinks of them. They do not see the realm of imagination as any less real than anything else, which is really a very pleasant way to go about your business and allows for fantastic access to all that you-ness inside.

Christy sent me the below video, which I found to be so incredible and truly illustrative of all the points above. Keep watching it all the way to the end - the beginning is a little less relevant (although a great example of that rich imagination) but right at about four minutes, shit starts to get real.

"Just think of something else until the nervous has gone out of you - I let that thing disappear out of my head."

This kid manages to articulate everything Erich is trying to say about meditation in a total of approximately three minutes of babble. Pretty interesting stuff.

the Scared is scared from Bianca Giaever on Vimeo.

I am trying to remember to let the stuff out of my head. My scared is scared of pizza, too.

A quick break for wedding dresses.

Taking a break from the book-reporting for a somewhat intense week, culminating in a visit from my lovely friend Cherie. We've been friends since childhood and hadn't seen each other in a few years so we were tickled to be able to spend a few days together. She's a confident midwesterner and a seasoned world traveler, and it was hilarious and delightful to watch her march all over the big city (her first time in NY!) like she owned it, me half-walking, half-running to keep up with her long strides.

We accomplished a lot in three days, but I think the most notable accomplishment was - drum roll, please - I finally bought a wedding dress! Cherie and Christy accompanied me to Lovely Bride for my second time to that particular salon and third overall dress-shopping excursion. I was totally prepared this time, with a list of gowns in-hand (first go-round had been a bit willy-nilly). I'm very pleased to say that I've actually managed to keep the winning dress from Clay entirely so I'm not going to tease anything about it here (he's a very good guesser). I will say that I am thrilled with my choice, regardless of whether or not I may have completely blown my dress budget.

Which, I decided, was entirely besides the point.

Thank you Christy, Emma and Cherie for putting up with me during my dress-hunt! Here's a quick look back at the (beautiful) losers.

JCrew - Bettina

JCrew - Bettina

JCrew - Bettina

JCrew - Carenna

JCrew - Clover

JCrew - Lucinda

JCrew - Tulipe

JCrew - Percy

Sarah Seven - Cascade

Sarah Seven - Enchanted

Sarah Seven - Graceful

Sarah Seven - Golden Lights

Sarah Seven - Fields of Flowers

Sarah Seven - Amour

Sarah Seven - Amour

Amour and Percy were my second and third favorites, I think.

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.

My Yoga Book Report: A Break for Headstands

I've read a few more chapters of my book now, and have attempted several other meditation techniques. I have some stuff to say about all of it (spoiler alert: did not go nearly as well as the first round) and I have more exercises to try per my most recent commute. As it were, I have neither the time nor the mental capacity to do so tonight, so instead I take a break for some headstands. Oh, also - confession, I may have skipped ahead in the book a bit. To the headstand part. I'll go back.

Anyhow, here I am, kneeling in front of the wall on the bedroom rug. I place the crown of my head on the ground, butting tightly into my clasped hands. Forearms on the ground, elbows in as close as they'll allow. Then it's heels on the ground, booty in the air (this is called dolphin pose). I pause here for a second to clean up the pose before slowly starting to walk my dolphin-flipper feet closer to my head, until my torso is more or less vertical. Then I squeezed my perfect abs and core tight and my lithe legs and feet magically floated upwards until I was perpendicular to the ground, where I stayed, effortlessly flying for several hours.

Just kidding. I definitely kicked my way up like a little kid, using the wall behind me for balance until I could get my core in line and my shoulders down. But by the third or fourth try, I am able to do it more or less without the wall, and by focusing on my center as opposed to grinding my forearms into the ground. I can hold it for twenty, maybe thirty seconds, during which time my computer-crunched spine practically weeps in thanksgiving for the brief inversion.

Headstands are fun! Yoga is fun and makes me feel good! Even on my off-days, it makes me stronger and it turns me upside-down, hooray!

That's it for tonight. Hooray!

My Yoga Book Report: Meditation, Part 2

And now, the fun begins. I am home sick from work and around noon, decide to take a break from email and give it a go with the meditation. Please note that despite my immense enjoyment of the book so far, I am still 100% convinced that I am way too practical, rational and high-strung to be able to talk myself into believing any of this malarkey. And from what I can tell, I'm pretty sure you have to believe the malarkey to be able to achieve anything, from a meditation standpoint. So this is all more or less a ridiculous and completely pointless waste of time.

And yet, here I am.

I flip back to a few chapters to page 45, aptly titled 'How to Start.' Erich (we're on a first name basis now) is pretty cool about cutting right to the chase, which I appreciate. He outlines two different techniques for developing stillness, both built around breathing exercises (typical yoga). In the first, you count backwards from fifty on your inhales and exhales, while sitting still, stiller than still. Not holding still, just relaxing and dropping into the floor and being still. In the second technique, you take three deep breaths, hold them each for a moment, and exhale them out slowly, thinly, over the course of a few seconds. After the three breaths, just sit and breathe - with an IN-OUT mantra, if you need it - and regard what it feels like to breathe, what happens to your body and mind as you inhale and exhale. In either scenario, I'm to try to notice my thoughts as they come floating up. Once I've noticed them, I am to dismiss them and return to the mantra and the regarding of the breath and the effect that the breath is having on the body. And the mind. AND THE VIBRATIONS IT CAUSES (come on now). While sitting straight and relaxing and being still. For six to seven minutes, or longer.

No problem.

So, I grab a blanket and close myself into the study, where I perch on the floor, cross-legged on my folded blanket. I spend a few minutes getting situated, straightening my spine, sending my head to the ceiling and my sitz bones comfortably into the blanket. I rest my wrists on my knees, palms facing down (no reason, just felt comfortable). I make a note of the time (11:57 AM - and yes, I do intend to judge my meditation on whether I can last the seven minutes prescribed), remove my glasses and let my eyelids float shut.

Fifty
Forty-nine
Forty-eight
Forty-seven
Forty-six
Forty-five
Forty-four
Forty-three

As I begin to count, I work on stillness, actively relaxing into my bones in an attempt to recreate that sinking, heavy, falling feeling I can sometimes find in savasana after a particularly taxing practice. It pretty much works, if slightly less comfortable from a seated position. After a bit, I can feel that my back has started to slacken in an attempt to get comfortable. Erich said to sit up straight, so I go to work restacking my spine, but slowly, in line with my exhales. It goes against everything I know to do this instead of snapping into posture, but I am trying really hard not to lose the sinking and the stillness, so slowly it is.

Twenty-six
Twenty-five
Twenty-four
Twenty-three
Twenty-two
Twenty-one
Twenty
Nineteen

Now I'm sitting straight again, but I am still for only a second or two before the thoughts start to pop up. Once I realize that I'm lost in conversation with myself, I clear my mind and go back to focusing on the breath. My eyelids are awash in color, reds when my mind is flitting about but, for those brief seconds that I can focus on breath, a nice, cool green-blue. Blue is good. I work on keeping the blue in sight for as long as possible. Sometimes for two, three breaths at a time.

Four
Three
Two
One

More of the thinking, noticing, clearing as I run out of numbers and sit in stillness. A good portion of the time, I'm thinking about how surely it's only been a minute or so, because I am definitely way too anxious to be able to sit still for any noticeable portion of time and I probably was counting too fast. I can't be counting fast if I expect this to go on for seven minutes! I sense this judgement and notice it, clear it away, back to the breath.

In
Out
In
Out

I am so relaxed. I am so heavy. My mouth is open a little bit. I don't close it, can't close it. Too still. I wonder how long I've been sitting slack-jawed. Surely not more than two minutes, because surely I could never sit still for more than a minute or two. Because surely I - no. Notice. Clear. Breathe.

In
Out

I begin to develop an itch on my left hand. As soon as I start to think about the itch, a million other itches pop up, the same way they do when I'm sitting at the dryers in the nail salon, freshly manicured and no way to scratch. Well hell if I am going to scratch now - I am MEDITATING, damn it. So I work on noticing the itch and sending my breath towards it (something I read about in Eat Pray Love, so it must be true). I breathe in so deeply, focusing all my energy on my hand. Nothing happens, obviously, so I begin to exhale.

As I exhale, a tangible wave of energy flows from my sternum up into my shoulder, down my arm and out my finger - the one that itches. When it does, the itch subsides, but returns again as the energy flows out of my hand. I breathe in again, sending another, stronger, more noticeable wave of energy down into my hand. I shift my focus to the other hand, my stomach, each of my feet, and send waves their way. It takes a bit more focus to send breath to my feet, but after a few exhales I can feel my feet pulsing, just as my hand did. You might say I could feel it VIBRATING.

Erich, if he had a smug bone in his body, would be dying of smugness right now.

That's pretty much it for technique number one - once I realize what I'm doing, my disbelief sends me back to earth and my eyes flutter open. I paw for my glasses on the rug and check the time.

12:08 PM.

Eleven minutes!! I was meditating for eleven whole minutes! ME - the non-believer, was caught up in new-aged hoo-ha for eleven whole minutes. I could die of happiness. I shake it out for a moment, walk around a bit, then get myself settled right back in for technique number two, making sure, once again, to note the time (12:10 PM).

This time, I have less to do - the deep breathing. Last time I needed all that counting to get myself centered - how am I going to do it again with nothing? So I start again with the counting backwards, easier this time, and lose track somewhere around twenty three, or maybe seventeen or so. I am lost in nothingness for a few seconds before I remember what I'm up to: three deep inhales, long slow exhales.

In

Out

Everything is faster. My stillness comes quicker, and I am immediately able to play with those pulses of energy, sending them around my body with the breath. I am regarding and noticing and clearing and breathing. Between frenzied red flashes, I am blue, all blue. I feel different all over. But I begin to tire faster as well, begin to feel pain in my spine from sitting too straight, pain in my ankles from having my legs crossed. The pain sends me out of it this time, and I immediately console myself at having not been able to sit for long. Having tried at all is admirable and I should be happy with that.

I fumble for my glasses and my vision swims into focus. Defeated but curious, I can't help but glance at the clock.

12:23 PM. I blink once, twice.

It's 12:23 PM, I have been meditating for THIRTEEN MINUTES (twenty-four if you add the first round) and already I feel different all over.

I could just burst.

My Yoga Book Report: Meditation, Part 1

Meditation, Part 1 does not amount to much.

More or less, I've read through two chapters of meditation technique without having a chance to try to do any of it. Such is the plight of the subway reader of how-to materials.

It's beautiful writing. I am engrossed. I'm trying so hard to remember all the techniques; I am frantic to remember it. I've highlighted sixteen passages in sixty-two pages. I am learning everything and nothing; I am falling further and further behind.

I do very much hope this stuff works, when I get around to it.

My Yoga Book Report: Introduction

A few weeks ago, I signed up for yoga teacher training.

It's a 200-hour vinyasa certification, starting in March and running through mid-June, every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, from 1PM - 9PM each day at the studio in Brooklyn. This, when compared to my current schedule of commitments and extracurriculars (zero), is no small undertaking, but for whatever reason I really need to do it. I am admittedly not very good at yoga, but I like it very much and have a fairly regular practice and when I heard you could go to teacher training, I knew that it was inexplicably and unequivocally for me. I knew it was for me the same way a child knows when he or she first learns that Disney World is a real-life place you can go.

I knew I wanted to do teacher training for about a year before the suitable program presented itself. When it did, I was ready. I filled out my application and turned it in early. I happily handed over my (not exactly small) deposit. Immediately I jumped way ahead of myself, planning the magnificent side crows I'll fly into as my aura guides helpless souls into moving meditation. I was So Very Excited to start.

About a week goes by before I receive an acceptance letter into the program, kind and welcoming words from the people I have come to admire so. My letter is accompanied by a reading list and details of the pre-training assignment. You know, the book report? The book report that definitely nobody ever told me about, ever?

A BOOK REPORT. Ten pages, double-spaced, to be turned in on the second weekend of my teacher training. A book report. On a book. That I have to read. Off a reading list.

TEN PAGES.

It is not to my credit that my immediate thought upon tripping over this tiniest of non-obstacles was, "this teacher training thing, maybe it's not for me..."

It's a very small seed of doubt, but it causes me to lose focus and tumble out of my arm balance. Ugly thoughts begin to bubble up over the course of the next couple of weeks, spluttering and foaming and stampeding about as they try to choke me with their arguments. It's a monologue and a battle at once, my inner voice trying to rationalize while my fears throw a tantrum. I imagine that it looks a little something like this:

I can't write a book report! A book report??

Yes, you can. You totally can! 

I mean, obviously I CAN do it.

You can!! You can do it! 

But I don't want to!

Yes you do! You love yoga, you love books and writing, you paid all this money... 

Ugh exactly - the money! I paid so much money to learn to teach YOGA and I'm being assigned a BOOK REPORT like a... like a child! Don't they know I have a JOB? Don't they know I have a LIFE?

Oh, I see - you had planned on becoming a yoga teacher by doing no work at all. Just showing up in your LuLu for a pat on the back. That makes perfect sense.

Well I mean, sure! Obviously I hadn't planned on doing nothing! But I cannot read one of these books. They're non-fiction! They don't have stories! They're going to be so gawdawful BORING!

How do you know?

Come on! Are you seeing this list? These titles sound like titles people make up when they're making fun of yoga books. There's like... seven of them with 'chakras' in the titles! CHAKRAS!

So?

So, I don't BELIEVE in chakras! I DON'T BELIEVE IN ANY OF THIS!

Well, then why are you here?

Of course, I know the answer before I even have time to ask the question. I'm here, I signed up for this thing because I WANT - desperately, in fact - to believe. Because my body is starting to crave the practice and my being is so obviously improved by the stillness. Because there's a yawning chasm under my ribs where my Catholicism used to be. Because I feel I'm ready to understand it, in all its soothing simplicity. Because the whole thing looks so beautiful and peaceful and I just want it, I just need it all. Because the potential is there for me to resemble the yoga, and for the yoga to resemble me.

So, I give in and pick a book. Yoga: The Spirit and Practice of Moving into Stillness, by Erich Schiffmann. I start reading it on the morning A train, and immediately feel like a terrible person for having judged it as non-fiction because it starts right away with a lively story about the author and how he came to find yoga. Which happens to be one of my favorite storylines. I then feel vindicated on the evening train, when I get to the part where he explains that this book is not a story, but a how-to - HA! Non-fiction snooze festival, just as I thought. My thoughts move back to shame with how much I like his colorful instructions, and start to churn over to panic when I realize that I can't read this on the train, because how am I going to do the meditations and the poses he describes on the subway? And when am I going to read this godforsaken thing, if not on my commute? At home? During my LIFE?

Yes, at home! In the midst of your wonderful, incredible, unbelievably amazing life!

I'm fairly certain that my italicized inner voice is going to do much better at teacher training than the rest of me. I'm also aware, by the way, that this is the point.

Anyhow, before I get too far into things, this is it - my book report. The story of my preparation for teacher training; the shirt before the shirt, if you will. Really, I just can't imagine reading a 600-page book and then remembering the details of it well enough to churn out a ten-page paper (my thesis-writing friends are finding this hilarious, I'm sure). So, I'm going to instead write down my experiences with the chapters as they unfold. If nothing else, hopefully these notes will help me to cobble together something coherent when the time comes. First up: intro to meditation.

Namaste, bitches.