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.

A little bit of housecleaning to close out day 4:

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the Franciscan Food Center. You're helping the Friars do good work and the 300-400 people they serve every week. You're also giving me extra motivation to keep going.

If you haven't contributed and would like to, you can find out how to do so here. 

And tomorrow: Eagle Pose and Bill Shatner.