Day 7: Standing Head to Knee (Dandayamana-Janushirasana)

I'm ready
I'm ready for the laughing gas
I'm ready
I'm ready for what's next

--U2, "Zoo Station"

 

My friend Rod is a Buddhist who runs a web site called The Worst Horse. It deals with the intersection where pop-culture and Buddhism meet. It’s a very cool site, very much worth some of your time each day.

Rod explains the idea of The Worst Horse, which comes from Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind:

[Suzuki Roshi writes,] "The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver's will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run!"

Suzuki Roshi goes on to say that, when it comes to Buddhist practice, it may not be such a bad thing to be "the worst horse." After all, the best horses have the least to gain: they're already the best. The so-called worst horses, on the other hand, will undergo the most transformation, the most improvement, if they stick with it: "In your very imperfections you will find the basis for your firm, way-seeking mind… So I think that sometimes the best horse may be the worst horse, and the worst horse can be the best one."

Rod continues, “Buddhism emphasizes that there's only NOW, that the way to more complete living is to earnestly face our reality.” It’s a point our Bikram teachers make in their own way. Let go of what just happened. Don’t look to what’s ahead. Just perform the task in front of you. Your breath and this moment are all you have.

When I started Bikram Yoga 18 months ago, I was usually the worst horse in class. In Standing Head to Knee, I would reach down, briefly grab my foot, hopscotch a bit, lose my balance and have to start over again. In those early days, the idea of keeping the standing leg locked, much less kicking out my free leg, seemed like a fantasy more than a goal that I could realistically attain.

 This is where I'm at most days. Courtesy Bikram Yoga Portsmouth.

But as I moved into my practice, listened to my teachers and concentrated on the now, I found myself less and less thinking about that. It wasn’t important that I kick my leg out, or that I get my standing leg locked. It was important to simply try and do the thing in front of me, whatever it was—not to do the posture, but the first piece of the posture. Then the second, and so on. To worry about locking my leg before I had a grip on my foot was to remove myself from the moment and place myself in the future.

Beyond allowing me to concentrate on what I needed to do right then, being in the now meant letting go of the frustration of what I wasn’t yet able to do. It meant letting going of the elation of what I just accomplished. That’s over; there’s no time to exult in it. There’s another moment in front of me right now.

 I don't mean to talk smack on Bikram, but this is how it's really done.

I also had to try and let go of expectations. I expected a linear progression in my practice: if I go to class three days in a row, I should be better on the third day than I was on the first day. But learning often doesn’t yield a steady improvement. It can be a series of fits and starts. Lessons may take days, weeks, months, even years to stick. The thing you did well yesterday may be a weakness today, and vice versa. 

There have been days in Standing Head to Knee where I could not only lock the standing knee, but kick out out my other leg for a few brief moments; and there have been days when the only battle I could fight was to stay balanced for a few seconds. Some days I'm the worst horse; some days I'm better than that; some days I'm closer to being a good horse than I ever thought I'd be. But when I leave the room, I hit the reset button. I'm just another horse, not best, not worst, not middling.

I enter the hot room as free of expectation, as empty of thought as possible, ready to hear the next instruction, to do the next thing in front of me. I try to bring that state of mind out of my practice and into the world, where I don’t have a teacher’s voice in my ear. I try to wait. I try to see the thing in front of me, not what it was the moment before, not what I hope it will be after. I try to do whatever is next.

Day 6: Party Time

Awright, it’s Saturday! Time to party! Time to get wasted! Time to—have a quick sip of water? And hope the teacher opens the doors? And stop killing yourself for 30 seconds before… going back to killing yourself?

Welcome to Party Time, Bikram-style. No disco balls, no loud music, no bar staff, no beers, no shots. You’re semi-naked, sweating, in a room full of people who are also semi-naked. You will not chat anyone up, offeri to buy them a drink, or hoping to score a phone number or an e-mail (or better). You will drink your water and return to your standing position (feet on the black line, toes and heels touching nicely, standing up straight with your arms hanging by your side, your shoulders relaxed, your gaze straight ahead into the mirror). You will wait for instructions on the next posture, Standing Head to Knee. You will spend the next hour plus killing yourself some more.

At 30 seconds, maybe a minute, it’s the shortest party you’ll ever go to.

Day 4: Awkward Pose (Utkatasana)

One of the drawbacks of doing a 30 Day Challenge and simultaneously committing to blogging about it every day is that most weeknights I'm getting home around 8:30. It's not likely I'll want to write anything at that point--not because I'm spent, because I usually leave the hot room feeling very good, but because writing and revising takes time. I don't care of two people or two hundred see this--I don't want to put up any old slop just to fill my quota.

So nearly all of these posts are prepared in advance, with perhaps a slight tweak before they go live. That was the case with last night's post, which is the first one so far to feature a picture that wasn't Bikram Choudhury. I pulled the best looking picture of Hands to Feet I could find. It just happened to be from Bikram Yoga Tempe's site.

When I walked into the studio last night, there was Brad, one of the studio's co-owner's and the person I thought would be teaching. Next to him was Reba, who explained would actually be teaching the evening class. I thought, "Well, bit of a bummer, I was looking forward to having Brad teach. But hey, someone new means a new voice, new vibe, something different. Let's do it."

So Reba walks in at the start of class, and gives her opening opening spiel: "Hi, I'm Reba, I'll be taking you through class today. I teach in Phoenix, at Bikram Yoga Tempe."

Wait a minute. I pull a picture from the Bikram Tempe site early Wednesday, and the same night our teacher is someone from that studio? There are 300 Bikram studios in the U.S., and six in Metro Boston alone. In eighteen months only once have I had a teacher at one of the Boston studio who wasn't one of the regular teachers, and he was brought in to substitute for an instructor who was gone for a month. I mean, of all the hot rooms in all the towns in all the country, I end up with a teacher from Tempe?

And it was a great class. Reba not only knows her stuff, but she's funny as hell. So are many of the Boston teachers. I assumed yoga in any form would be taught with all the solemnity of a funeral. At the least, I thought you'd be too hot and irritated and tired to laugh even if Louis C.K. was your teacher. I was wrong.

Here's how Awkward pose went: "Alright, take a deep breath, sit down like your sitting in a chair. Ladies, pretend you're using a public toilet. You're doing the hovercraft, know what I mean? Okay, now, up on your tip-top-toes. You're wearing high heels. You too, buys. You just don't want to admit it. Last one: roll forward on your knows, squeeze your knees together. You've really gotta go bad now."

And the thing is, you'd think all this wisecracking would be distracting. It's exactly the opposite. Why do athletes joke and goof off a little before a game? To release tension. The only way you're going to perform your best is by being relaxed. It's the same in the hot room. A teacher can tell you to relax your face, and you'll do it. A teacher making a funny comment or analogy will get you to relax without asking you.

And remember what I said about hearing a new voice, getting a new vibe? Before last night I was scrambling for something to write about today. One crazy coincidence, an excellent class and one very good and funny teacher later, I had everything I needed.

Day 3: Hands to Feet (Pada-Hasthasana)

Picture courtesy Bikram Yoga Tempe

Well, that’s not Bikram Choudhury.

Yep, it’s Day 3, and I don’t have a picture of Bikram doing this pose. His official web site has a picture next to Hands to Feet. Just one problem: it’s not Hands to Feet. You can see from the above that you have to be standing to do Hands to Feet. But on Bikram’s web site, he’s clearly sitting on his ass.

Lazy bastard.

There's a very simple explanation for this: somebody managing Bikram's web site dropped the ball. The photo next to Hands to Feet pose is of the very similar (but seated) Stretching pose, which is the next to last posture in the class. It could be that there's no good picture of Bikram himself doing the posture, so they subbed in the next best thing. I certainly hope that's the case.

This is a good time to mention one of the idiosyncrasies of the Bikram dialogue--the many, shall we say, interesting and colorful phrases that crop up during the class. In Half Moon you are commanded to open your chest "like flower petal blooming."  In Awkward pose, you're asked to get on your tip-toes, "max-i-mum, like a ballerina." (A teacher at the Harlem said, "like your wearing stilettos--you too, boys!" Yes, there can be humor in the hot room, in case you thought it was all suffering and serious gazes.) In the balancing postures, you will be told, "Knee is like the lampost. Lock the knee. You have no knee." (As you can tell, dropped or oddly placed articles are also a mainstay of the Bikram patter.)

But the most baffling of these commands occurs during Hands to Feet, when you are told to "wrap your forearms behind your calves... press your stomach to the thighs... chest to the knees... face to the shins... [You may be getting the impression of heard this a few times.] No room for light or air, like a Japanese ham sandwich." 

To this day, I am convinced it's a rite of passage for every new Bikram student to get into Hands to Feet, here that phrase, and bob their head towards the teacher ever so slightly, thinking, "What the hell is a Japanse ham sandwich?

The answer? It's something Bikram says. You know how Bikram says, "You have no knee?" Well, Mr. Choudhury, you have no sandwich. The first eight Google results are for blogs and sites related to Bikram yoga; so is the ninth, a message board that posits the idea that a Japanse ham sandwich is all ham, no bread, no cheese. Which sounds suspiciously like Scott Ian's famous baloney-in-hand sandwich--the lunch every young, poor touring band has to eat because all they can afford is the meat.

And speaking of lunch, try not to have yours within two or three hours of class. With your stomach pressed against your legs, and your torso pitched towards the floor, Hands-to-Feet can very easily turn into Lunch-to-Floor. If you think it's odd that you would undertake a regimen that routinely burns a thousand calories per session, but would restrict you from eating within a couple of hours of class, well, that's just one of Bikram Yoga's many quirks.

Day 2: Half Moon (Ardha-Chandrasana)

Bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

-Shakespeare, Hamlet

If I could actually move my mouth during Half Moon pose, I’m pretty sure these words, or something like them, would crawl out of it.

I have a love-hate relationship with Half Moon Pose. I love it when I’m not doing it, and hate it when I am. Every second of it, I’m fighting to keep my arms and legs locked out, my hands together, my hips pushing out to the side, and my chin unglued from my chest (a problem even young Bikram had to deal with, judging from the picture above). Because it’s the first proper pose, designed to start warming you up, and because the form is so demanding, you’re being taxed every second.

This is not to say I’m unaware of its benefits. You get a deep stretch along the outside of your body. You demand a lot of your hear and lungs. You work your core muscles. You ask your legs to deliver a lot of power from a standing position. And you tighten and push you hips forward, which is good for, well, things where you might have to push your hips forward.

And the truth is, it’s only the side-to-side parts of Half Moon I hate. Weirdly enough, I look forward to the backward bend. Who looks forward to the backward bend? Every teacher tells you, “Your back is gonna hurt like hell. Don’t be afraid.” And I’m looking forward to it?

 Yes, this is the part I look forward to. In case you were still wondering if I was crazy.

Probably because the first two parts of Half Moon are Robitussin. It’s the medicine you take at the beginning that lets you start working your way through the nooks and crannies of your body. The backward bend is at least designed to offset all the hunching over you do at your desk each day, and it makes demands on my weakest point, balance, which I very much want to improve.

Or maybe Half Moon is like Kobe Bryant; I don’t like it, but I know how good it is, and I have grudging respect for it. But like Kobe, I’m not sad to see the back of it. (Though, come to think of it, I have to say I like Half Moon pose a lot more than ol’ #24. Posture #2 and I may yet warm to each other.)

Day 1: Pranayama (Standing Deep Breathing)

Let’s begin the proper blogging of the 30 Day Challenge with a little ditty, shall we? This song (by the fictitious Fixed Firm Five) was a going away present for one of our teachers, Shannon, who has moved on to a Bikram studio in (no joke) New Zealand.

 

During one of the last classes Margo and I took with Shannon, we were all resting on our mats between floor poses, recovering in the face down version of Savasana, Dead Body Pose. Shannon said, “I was watching Little Shop of Horrors the other night, and I thought to myself, ‘I really should have been a doo wop girl. Hey, maybe I’ll sing my last class as a doo wop song.’ At which point, I lifted my head off the towel and shot her a “Whatchew talkin’ ‘bout, Shannon?” look, and she started laughing. “Scott just gave me a funny look! Ha ha ha!”

After class, I said, “Watch out. I’m writing that doo wop song. I know who’s going to sing it, too. Johnny Shirasana.”

(For the uninitiated, Janushirasana is the Sanskrit name for Head to Knee pose. But the moment I heard a teacher say it, I thought, “Johnny Shirasana. Sounds like a singer. That’s gotta be a fake band name.” The fake band name—and subsequent matching song title—was a tradition that started between me and my dear friend Erich Groat in 2004, and while it’s abated, we exchange the occasional fake band e-mail, sending each other a dozen or so band names and song titles. The list is nearing 2,500 names. And yes—there are actually some real written and recorded songs as further evidence of how bent we are. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

On the way back to our van I told Margo, “I’ve got an idea,” opened up my iPhone recording app, and sung, “Pranayama… mama… doopeedoopeedoo…” There was no way I was losing a song idea. And I had a deadline, too—Shannon’s last class was two weeks away.

Over the next few days, I hashed over chords, dropped the song into a key I could reasonably sing it in—the original key would have been great for a doo wop tenor, but not much for my “good half octave,” as Richard Thompson once described his own vocal range—and scribbled out a few words. I’d been out late the night before, and any time I find myself in a bar, drinking beer and yakking hard for a few hours, my voice the next day resembles a croaking toad. That was the voice I had to work with while recording this. It took a few hours to get my voice to the point where I could belt out the lyrics, so the result is less of a croon and more of a shout, but it gets the song across.

And just because I’m anal-retentive, the backing vocals are singing the Sanskrit names of all the postures, save the two breathing exercises named in the first and last verses. I present to you that great lost Yoga Doo Wop vocal group of the Fifties, The Fixed Firm Five.

 Pranayama Mama by scottbishop

Feel free to download this MP3 at http://scottbishop.us/PranayamaMama.mp3

A Quick Note Before the 30 Day Challenge

First and most importantly: the Bikram Yoga Boston studios will be making a donation to the Franciscan Food Center in Boston for each person who completes the challenge. At least one of the Friars is a regular member of the studio, which explains the connection. If you'd like to make a donation, please go here. More info on their fine work is here.

The next 30 days of blogging will follow the course of a Bikram class, with some liberties taking to take a 26 posture regimen and ask it to cover 30 days. Each post will start with a picture of the regimen's creator, Bikram Choudhury, performing the posture (with one notable exception, which I'll deal with when we get to it). All pictures are copyright © 2010 bikramyoga.com except as noted.

More information on Bikram Yoga can be found here. Since most of the people I've mentioned the blog to live in or around Boston, it behooves me to include a link to the Bikram Yoga Boston studios. While my goal in writing these posts isn't to proselytize about the yoga or the places I practice it, I'm a fan of the regimen, and a very big fan of the friendly, charismatic and kind (and frequently funny-as-hell) teachers at the Boston and Cambridge studios.

And with that, let the stretching, grunting, groaning and blogging begin.

Cheers,

Scott

Totem

All through the time that Margo and I have gone to the Boston Bikram studios, there’s been a tradition of snapping a Polaroid of each person who signs up for the 30 Day Challenge and attaching it to their check off sheet.

That is, until this 30 Day Challenge.

That’s right—Margo’s been going to the studios for four years, I’ve been going for 18 months, and the first time one of us signs up for the 30 Day Challenge, poof—gone go the Polaroids. Damn, double-damn, and a side order of hell.

In fairness, Polaroid instant film (specifically the Polaroid 600, the format the studio had been using, and which Polaroid stopped making film for) has gotten prohibitively expensive. One of the studios co-owners, Brad, told me that they thought the money would be better off going to some worthy cause—the food drive I mentioned yesterday. And since a pack of ten exposures goes for between $36 and $100, it’s hard to argue with that.

So I decided to make my own Polaroid totem. Finding a template was exceedingly easy, but I went with the one self-described geek Jon Dyers linked to at his blog. I actually just dropped the photo of our cat Mama over the template and cropped and resized it till it fit. Then I scanned the words of wisdom Mama imparts, which riff off a favored phrase of Rich, one of the studio’s many excellent teachers, who frequently intones, “Connect to the breathing.” This advice has its applications outside the hot room, especially on Memorial Drive at rush hour.

Mama was not my first choice for the totem, but once we had to put her to sleep she was really the only option. (At no point was I actually going to put my own goofy face up.) One more reason to go to the studio every day: giving her picture a little head-to-fist bump after I check off the day’s class.

This was originally going to be my totem. No, seriously.

Next: Pranayama Deep Breathing (with special bonus song)

Why Are You Doing This to Yourself?

When you tell someone that you pursue a form of exercise whose ideal conditions involve a room that is ideally set to 105 degrees and 40% humidity, and which entails spending 90 minutes exerting yourself in those conditions, you tend to get a look as if they think you’re mentally ill, and that said illness might be communicable. 

As Wee Willie Shakespeare said, “Though this be madness, yet there be method in it.” But I’ll talk a little about the method another time. For now, just assume I’m crazy, but that there are actually good reasons I’m doing this.

In general:

1. It’s something Margo and I can do together, after years of struggling to find something we could do together. The Cambridge YMCA? Margo hated the facilities. (Me? I loved it. Russell’s Celtics practiced in the big gym upstairs in the late 60s. Good enough for Russ, good enough for me.) Jogging? Not a great thing for a couple where one person is a foot taller than the other.
2. I sleep like a baby after every evening class. Actually, I could sleep like a baby after any class.
3. I’m getting’ old, Jake. This is really the biggest reason—I need to do something other than play basketball to maintain whatever humble athletic attributes I currently possess. My man Norm sets the bar high, playing basketball at age 71 with no signs of stopping. When I told him I hoped to playing at his age, he replied, “I hope I’m playing when you’re my age too.”
4. I need to submit myself to an authority figure. I need someone to tell me what to do, how to do it, and for how long. I know—I’m married. I’m already doing that. But not when it comes to my workout regimen.
5. I used to be a complete stumblebum because I had crappy balance. Now I’m only kind of a stumblebum. That’s saying something when you consider I started going to Bikram Yoga after I turned 40.

But why am I doing a 30 day challenge? A class every single day for a full month? 

1. I want to be more disciplined and tough-minded. And really, if I can develop that, I can take it out of the hot room with me. I think spending the equivalent of two full days in a really hot, humid room over the course of the challenge will probably help build those mental muscles.
2. The guy who put together (and, to the consternation of many in the yoga community, also copyrighted) the sequence of postures claimed you should do his yoga six days a week for two months to see real changes. So I think at least one time I should try to go the immersive route and see what happens. As long as I don’t have to listen to his music while doing it. I mean, there are challenges, and then there are challenges.
3. I’m pretty sure they have a party when the whole thing is over. I love parties.
4. They offer a discount on your next membership if you finish the challenge. I’ll always remember the words of my junior high math teacher, Mr. Smith: “Man is basically lazy and cheap.” In this case, I don't get both option. It’s actually lazy doing battle with cheap. I know—Sloth vs. Stingy is not exactly Lakers-Celtics, but it’s the best I can give you right now.
5. The Boston Bikram studios will donate a set amount to a local food drive for each person who finishes. So there’s a good cause attached to all this. I’ll post details when the studio has everything finalized.

Tomorrow: Totem

30 Days of Hot

On Monday begins the Bikram 30 Day Challenge—or, as I like to call it, the “What Was I On When I Signed Up for This?” Nine Circles of Hell Challenge. You know, at the time it seemed like such a good idea—until I realized that my longest stretch of consecutive days in the hot room was four. And that I spent 40% of my Monday class on the floor, staring at the ceiling. 

 

This may come as a shock to you, but that 40% is not part of the Bikram regimen. So what is the Bikram regimen? To summarize:

• Ideal conditions: 105 degrees, 40% humidity. Trust me when I tell you: when it’s not ideal, it’s usually not ideal in favor of Lucifer.
• Length: 90 minutes.
• Regimen: 26 postures.
• Teaching: following the patented Bikram script, but with each teacher riffing on it in his or her style. In fact, it’s really part script, part template.
• The Challenge: One class a day, each day from 10/25 through 11/24.
• Prediction: Prediction? Pain.

In fairness, I’ve been consistently (okay, inconsistently) doing Bikram Yoga for a year and a half now. My wife Margo has been doing it for roughly four years, so I got the introduction gradually: “Okay, so you’re telling me it’s hotter than the worst Boston summer day? That it’s so humid you feel like you’re inhaling ash? That you come home after every third class and say, ‘That was really rough’?” This was not a hard sell. It wasn’t even a soft sell. It was a no-sell. I was in awe of my little lady putting herself through something that sounded epically challenging, but she wasn’t painting a pretty picture.

The progression went something like this: 1) No way. I am never trying that. 2) I don’t know. It sounds sort of weirdly fascinating. If you’re de Sade, I mean. 3) Wow. Margo’s really into this. Maybe I’ll try it one of these days. 4) Screw it. I’ll try it. 5) Hm. That was interesting. 6) Maybe I’ll buy a ten pack of classes and go once a week. 7) Oh, crap. I haven’t gone in eight months and the last eight classes in the package expire at the end of the month. I have to take these classes, but I’m only doing it because I’m a cheap bastard and I spent too much money not to use them. 8) You know what? I’m starting to get into this. Maybe I’ll get an annual membership. 9) You know, I have to do this 30 day challenge.

It was insidious. That sequence of events took probably three years, but the tipping point was the summer of 2009 (progression stops 7 and 8) when I had just gotten over a serious back strain and realized I needed something more than basketball and my half-hearted cross-trainer and weights at the Cambridge YMCA. Bikram Yoga has turned into that something else.

Tomorrow: Why Are You Doing This to Yourself?

Addendum

Margo thought I was going to link to this when I mentioned my crying fits. In fact, I'd forgotten about it. It's still damn funny, but I'd like to think the tears I shed over Mama were a good deal manlier than that.

Mama

I was planning to re-start the blog this weekend, but I’m doing it today in honor of a wonderful little cat that was a part of my life for ten years, and a part of Margo’s for five. Yes, that would be the one, the only, Mama. 

If you had told me at any point while I had Mama that my combined crying fits over the last few weeks would rival this, I would have said you were crazy. “I love, Mama, but come on. She’s a cat.” I had completely underestimated the many corners of my life she had crept into. The same is true for Margo, who's much tougher than I am, but shed as many tears along the way. Mama wasn’t just a cat, she was a one-of-a-kind character whose quirks didn’t merely endear her to you, but drew you closer.

For instance, I already miss her not greeting me when I walk in the door after work. Invariably, she’d follow that with flopping on the floor, exposing her belly for a quick rub as she stretched out. Last night I kept waiting for her to walk in the bedroom, walk over to the far side of the bed, jump up, take a few moment to pause on top of Margo while kneading her pajama top, before proceeding on to my chest, blocking the book I was reading, and putting her butt in my face until I turned around. It was a ritual going back more than four years, starting not long after Margo and I moved in together in North Cambridge. Even when we moved to Roslindale, she would take the long way round, even though Margo’s side of the bed was furthest from the door.

And she was the Queen of Head Butts. The head butts are at the top of the list of things I’ll miss about Mama.

Below is a little totem I put together. This weekend I'll write a little more about its purpose beyond remembering Mama.