Hot yoga, good karma

Since I injured my ankle, I've had to cut way back on the dancing, and cut out clogging all together. And with my wrist injury, which led to the elbow injury, I haven't been able to work out. So so walking, hiking, running, lifting, biking, or climbing trees with the other children. I wasn't exactly svelte to begin with and this period of inaction has caused me to balloon in an unattractive way. I decided I should try Bikram yoga again, as that seems to be a good, no-impact workout. And if I can sweat off some of these el bees before Christmas, so much the better.

I finally made myself join my neighborhood Funky Door last Saturday, and the class nearly killed me. I knew what I was getting into as I had taken two or three classes with Deb and Mike at World's Gym. Several poses into the class, I realized that those classes were ten years ago and my body is not 26 anymore. Ow. And for about half of the poses, I'm not even close.

Bikram yoga, named after it's founder Bob "There's no fucking way people will be-cramming themselves into these positions" Epstein, is the hot yoga. They pump it up to almost 120 degrees in there. Even though I was prone on the floor in the relaxing/meditative position, I still thought I was going to fall down. I was depleted, exasperated, clutching to consciousness, and trying not to pay attention to the dead relatives beckoning me towards the light.

But it is a really good workout. And I sweat until I'm spent. Sure I'm light-headed by the end of it, but hey.

Last night I was so light headed I was in a daze for the walk home, and it was much later that I noticed that my iPod Nano had dropped out of my sweatshirt pocket. Either it dropped out in the changing area, I dropped it on the street on the walk home. Not happy. I called Funky Door this morning, and someone had turned it into the front desk's lost and found. In the middle of the Haight, someone turns in a found iPod.

Yoga studios are truly a non-random sample. Good folks these.

Anyone willing to sweat and contort themselves to find wellness, wholeness, peace or their center, is likely to have a good soul to start with. If any group is going to fall on the good side of the karmic scale, it's going to be a yoga class.

Me, I'm just falling. Those postures are impossible.