Check it out guys, it’s called ‘Yogini’! I think you’ll see why…
Looks familiar, yes?
To be honest though, I think Floor Bow should really remain on the floor… And if you saw the bruise on my right side right now, I’m pretty sure you’d agree.
OUCH. I mean, NAMASTE.
I’m in the locker room this morning, after 6am Bikram. I’m rushing around to gather my things, get dressed, slap some makeup on my face, flatiron my hair (I’ve been recently awakened to the MAGIC of straight hair, you guys!), and get my arse to the office for 8am. A significantly older (I’m guessing 70ish?) woman walks in…
Woman: Hello Alison! How’s your pole dancing?
(Oh yes. EVERYONE knows about my pole dancing. Which I do for FUN and FITNESS, as an ARTISTIC DISCIPLINE, to be clear!)
Me: Oh, good thanks!
Woman: Your stomach looks amazing. Actually your whole body looks amazing! You know, you should get a JOB. Doing THAT.
Me: Ummm, well I—
Woman: It would change your LIFE!!!
Me: Yeah, I’m—
Woman: “Those who can, should!”
Me: (Sigh) Ok.
So there you go, guys! Seems I’ve been going at it all wrong! This whole time I’ve been trying to change my life by doing loads of YOGA, when apparently all I’ve gotta do is start taking my clothes off for money! HA!
ALTHOUGH… I suppose there ARE many paths to Enlightenment… Maybe…
…NAHHHHHHHH!!!
Class has just started. The teacher is on the podium, and with her instruction, the students begin the first breathing exercise.
Teacher: And inhale… Alison, will you teach us some tricks after class? Exhale…
Me: (head tipped back, through my exhale) Uh-huh!
Teacher: …And inhale… Alison is a PROFESSIONAL POLE DANCER!
Class: (silence, as heads turn in my direction)
Teacher: It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life! Exhale.
Me: (again, awkwardly through my exhale) Uh, thank you!
Teacher: Inhale…
Class: (awkward silence, as I presume they wonder about both my integrity and lack of cleavage)
Teacher: Oh, she’s NOT a stripper though! And exhale.
Well, thanks for clarifying! Technically guys, I’m NOT a PROFESSIONAL pole dancer. At least not yet. I will be though! One day…
But the teacher was correct on one thing: I am not now, nor do I plan to be, a stripper!
Well, long story short, yoga has been tough lately. I’ve been dancing a lot—really working the pole (NOT for money, CALM DOWN), and taking some INSANE flexibility/contortion classes, and doing a little Vinyasa just to balance things out and restore range of motion—and it’s made things… different.
Not different bad, necessarily. Just… DIFFERENT.
My body is changing. I’m developing a crazy amount of upper body strength, and muscle mass like I’ve never had before (HELLO, BICEPS!), which is great, and SO interesting… but it all presents a fairly unique (at least to me) challenge in the yoga room.
FOR INSTANCE. Have you ever seen those super muscle-y guys in class? Or maybe at the gym? Or maybe just walking down the street? And yeah they have HUGE muscles and look like they could bench press not just you but you and your car and probably your entire house, but they’re so tight they can’t stretch at all and can barely even move their shoulders when they walk? Ummm… I never understood that til now. And NO I am not a muscle man or anything…
NO. But even with my teeny tiny girly muscular developments, I feel my arms, shoulders, and upper back getting tighter.
WHOA. I have NEVER experience this kind of tightness before! Things that used to be easy, like the grip for Standing Bow, are now UNCOMFORTABLE. A CHALLENGE, even! I have to work so much harder to try to keep myself loose and my arms and shoulders open! It’s meant a little backtracking in the yoga world. While my body looks—and is—stronger than it was a couple of months ago, some of my poses have actually gotten worse.
It’s been a little blow to the ego, to say the least. I’ll admit it, I’ve actually cried out of frustration. Right in the middle of class. Just started sobbing silently on my mat because WHAT THE FUCK I was nearly locking out my Standing Bow just a couple of months ago and now I can barely wrap my hand around my foot and kick without the sensation that I’m going to rip my shoulder from its socket. MY GOD LIFE IS UNFAIR!!!!
But—yes, there is always a BUT—in a way, I suppose this is a natural progression. One step forward (yay new muscles, yay getting stronger!), two steps back (boooo loss of flexibility and having to deal with new physical challenges!) right? And it’s given me a new perspective on my practice. Even if sometimes I don’t LIKE that perspective.
I think one of the hugest (HUGEST? Really, Alison?) challenges of this practice is to be ok with exactly where we are in any given moment. A teacher of mine recently said during that critical point in class where you think you want to either kill someone else, kill yourself, or just slip quietly into oblivion, that “Whatever you’re feeling right now, you have to love it.” The truth of that statement hit me like a ton of bricks.
Yoga isn’t about how perfectly you do the poses, it’s about being able to accept and embrace how you ARE doing the poses, and everything about how you’re feeling while you’re doing so. It’s this radical form of self-acceptance that still intimidates me and that I still resist. But I suppose this is my time to work on it. The universe always knows what we need, right guys? Time to stop resisting and LEAN INTO THE DISCOMFORT. Resistance is futile. Radical acceptance is when things start to get interesting… So, we’ll see what develops. I’m choosing (yes, it is a CHOICE!) to be excited about it.
In the meantime, if you’re JUST DYING to see what in hell’s bells I’ve been doing that’s changed my body so much, it’s THIS:
Just a little freestyle (improv) from the end of class last night. You don’t have to watch if you don’t want to, I get it. But feel free, I mean, if you DO want to.
Thanks for reading guys. As always, feel free to share your own stories and experiences. I love hearing from you. And as Fall approaches, I should be back to posting more regularly.
Til then, enjoy your practice, remember: WHATEVER YOU’RE FEELING, YOU HAVE TO LOVE IT! And Namaste :)
Hey Girl Hey!
Thanks for the question. Let me try to explain…
Pole dancing is only the most AMAZEBALLS thing in the world! I mean, uhhhh… next to BIKRAM, of course…. YES. I got involved in this art-sport-stripper activity when I went to a friend’s birthday party, which she had at a pole dancing studio. The teacher taught us a few basic little spins and twirls on the pole, and being a former dancer, I was hooked (no pun intended) immediately!
So let’s see… how can I explain what pole dancing is like… Well, I would say it’s like what would happen if dance, yoga, and gymnastics had a three-way. Too graphic? Let this handy Venn diagram explain:
I fucking LOVE Venn diagrams, you guys.
Anyway, despite its connotations as being a “stripper thing”, pole dancing is actually an excellent strength building activity! Seriously, you don’t realize how strong you’re NOT until you try to pull yourself up a pole! This business will make you strong, FAST. It will also make you more sore than you’ve ever been in your life, but eh, comes with the territory.
Pole dancing can be incredibly artistic and beautiful, even verging on the edge of contemporary dance, like so:
Or it can be super sexy, dirty, crazy, hair thrashing, booty-popping, tossing swedish fish off your bra (that’s right!) goodtimes, like so:
And the great thing is, you don’t have to choose just one! You can do BOTH! That was the same dancer in both videos! I know, WOW, right guys?!
I’ve been involved in this medium for less than four months, and in that time I’ve seen myself grow stronger, fitter, more confident, and less fearful. Some people say that womens lib was set back 20 years the first time a woman got on a pole, but I couldn’t disagree more. If anything, this form of dance liberates us further, by showing us how strong and powerful we really are.
In closing, I would like to say that whether you’re looking for a new form of exercise or just an awesome new superfun activity, GET ON A POLE, PEOPLE! It might be the most fun you’ve ever had in your life. I mean, uhhhh… next to BIKRAM, of course… ;)
xo,
a
I don’t really know what this phrase means, exactly, but it’s a line from “Noises Off”, a delightful sex farce of a play I was in in High School.
I played the Carol Burnett role. OBVIOUSLY.
Anyway, I think of this line every time I’m sick or injured but have to go on doing my normal life, job, activities, etc., anyway. Which means, with my recent back injury and constant stubbornness, I’ve been thinking it a LOT lately.
The good news? Things are looking up! I had a productive weekend of classes, and actually experienced the first few moments of Movement Without Pain that I’ve felt in a loooong time. HURRAH! Here’s the highlights of The Weekend With My Injury…
I figured out how to stretch it! And it was a total accident! I was doing headstands in my bedroom on Thursday night—you know, as you do—and I was coming out of the headstand, through Crow Pose —because, you know, why not?—and I rounded my back and brought my knees toward my armpits, and suddenly, HOLY SHITBALLS! I was floored by searing pain in my upper back, right in the injured/tight area! It felt crazy… almost like… well, almost like I had actually STRETCHED it for the first time in weeks. Which is exactly what I had done. So then I did it again. And again. And it totally hurt, as you might expect muscles to do when they’re woken from a very deep sleep of several weeks. But guess what? This little bit of stretching helped so much it was almost stupid! See guys? Happy accidents happen when you practice headstands at home!
I did a non-crappy Standing Bow! Now let’s be clear, it wasn’t an “amazing” Standing Bow. But it was almost back to my normal version of the posture, rather than the sad “I’m just going to stand here with my foot in my hand and wait for this thing to be over, HO HUM,” version that I had been doing! Even the teacher had to say, “Now THAT’S progress!” BOOOOOM!
I got back on the pole! I know this isn’t Bikram-related, but it’s still a super exciting step in my recovery process! I took an easy class on Friday, and a challenging class on Saturday. I took it easy, didn’t push myself too hard, and rested when I could. Afterward I came home and foam rolled and alternated hot/cold water in the shower and took a Glutamine supplement and did all the other tricks. And I’m pleased to announce I did NOT re-injure myself! This is good news, to be clear.
I inverted without pain! Another non-Bikram thing! But you guys, this was HUGE! Inverting was how I got this freaking pain in the back in the first place. To be able to flip myself upside down on the pole WITHOUT it hurting like a mother seemed like a miracle of Jeebus! Unfortunately, I was NOT able to do the big trick we learned that day, which looks like this:
Of course I was super annoyed with myself over it. Then I realized I should probably just be glad to be able to dance without collapsing to the floor with back spasms. You know, PERSPECTIVE and all. But to be honest, I’m still a bit annoyed. What can I say, I’m impatient! NOTE: this is why I get injured in the first place.
I did a double! Whaaat?! But Alison, aren’t you supposed to be taking it EASY?! You’re INJURED!!! Yeah yeah yeah. Let me ‘splain… The reason I had to do the double was two-fold: Fold #1: Two of my fave teachers were subbing classes on Saturday. I am a poor decision maker. Rather than decide which one to take, I decided to take both! Easy-peasy. Fold #2: I knew I was going to take a pole class that day, and to be responsible, I should warm up my body thoroughly first (with class #1) and then stretch and re-align it afterward (with class #2). See? Totally makes sense. So yeah ok, if you’re counting, I took two Bikram classes and a pole class all in one day. But hey, I lived! And I not only lived, but I felt better than I have in weeks! YEAH!
I did not just one, but ALL of the sit-ups on Saturday AND Sunday! And let me tell you, I’ve never been so excited to do a sit-up before in my LIFE. Oh. Hell. YES. Stretcher cases be damned, I am BACK, baby!
Hey guys! Soooooo if you’ve been following this thing for a while, you’ll notice I haven’t written anything lately.
If you haven’t been following for a while and just stumbled onto this site after googling “Bikram yoga” or “pole dancing” or “wildly sarcastic pasty pale Irish redheads”, WELCOME!
In either case, hey, I’m back. There are boatloads of reasons for my absence, but I won’t bore you with those. Except for this one: I’VE BEEN INJURED! YAAAAAAY!!!
Ok, it’s not YAAAAAY at all. It’s BOOOO. Big, fat, ugly BOOOOOOOOOOO!!! You guys, injuries suck. Now before you get all New York Times on me, I did NOT injure myself doing Bikram yoga. Nope. I injured myself… pole dancing!
No, you guys, I am not a stripper! While I happen to enjoy artistic discipline of contemporary pole dance, and the thrill of grinding on, spinning around, climbing up, sitting on, and prancing around a pole, I keep my clothes on while I do it, thanks muchly. I mean, except that one time my boob popped out during my freestyle, but that was an isolated incident and completely an accident which I blame on the stickyness of the pole combined with the faulty design of my super cute teeny tiny Lululemon bra! I DID NOT STRIP ON PURPOSE, IT WAS A WARDROBE MALFUNCTION.
HEYYYYYY, WELCOME NEW PEOPLE!!!
Anyway.
It all happened when learned a new trick called a “chopper”. Now the chopper is pretty important in a young pole dancer’s artistic development, as it’s the gateway trick to more advanced inversions. Because when you’ve been grinding right side up on a pole for a while, there comes a point when you want nothing more than to be able to grind upside down. OBVIOUSLY. So here’s how it works: you stand at the side of the pole, holding on with both hands. You pull yourself up with your arms, crunch your legs to your armpits and flip yourself upside down while shooting your legs out into the spread eagle position. So you look like a helicopter, GET IT?!?
CHOPPER!
As you may expect, this chopper thing isn’t easy. And when you finally get it for the first time, it’s a cause for celebration. Kind of like that first moment when you FINALLY get your forehead to your knee in Standing Head To Knee and balance there for a second before falling out. It’s a BIG DEAL!
So I had been working on my chopper for a few weeks with no success, and one day—lo and behold!—I finally did it. Well I was probably the most shocked person in the room. I couldn’t believe it. I was SURE it was a mistake, that I had faked it somehow! There was NO WAY I had actually done that trick! So I did it again. And again. Just to prove that I could, you know? To make sure it wasn’t a fluke? Well, I proceeded to chopper about 1203895986 times over the course of that weekend. BECAUSE I HAD TO MAKE SURE I COULD REALLY DO IT, YOU GUYS! And in the process, I strained/pulled/ripped/tore basically every muscle in my back.
Specifically, the rhomboids and latissimus dorsi for you anatomy nerds out there.
WHOOOOOAAAA you guys, THIS was pain! You don’t even realize how many things you use your back muscles for until they’re injured! This includes: reaching for things, picking things up, pushing things, pulling things, sneezing, coughing, pooping, and breathing.
Yes that’s right, it HURT TO BREATHE.
Which, as you may imagine, made Bikram EXTREMELY UNPLEASANT.
Now.
I hate being injured. I mean, no one LIKES being injured, right? But I REALLY hate it. I hate telling people about it, I hate appearing weak because of it, I hate all the extra attention it draws to me, I hate not being able to do things, and I hate asking for help. HATE.
So in my past, with the minor injuries I’ve incurred, I’ve never really told my yoga teachers. I just sort of struggled through on my own. I mean, it’s not THEIR job to know my body, right? That’s MY job! I should be able to take responsibility for my own practice! They have enough to deal with! They don’t need to be burdened by the information that one of my hamstrings might be SLIGHTLY sore and that I slept funny so my shoulder feels weird or that I stubbed a toe when I accidentally kicked the wall while playing hacky sack with an empty paper cup around the water cooler at the office!
Or whatever.
I mean really, WHO IS GOING TO CARE about any of that! I’d rather hide it than have to explain! Besides, I hate admitting weakness. And injury, in my mind, is a kind of weakness. At least when it happens to me.
With this injury though, there was no hiding it. I mean, this sucker HURT. There were poses that I had to REALLY hold back on (Standing Bow, Floor Bow, anything involving a forward bend or a back bend, aka EVERYTHING), and some I couldn’t do at all (the sit-ups). Also, I—who normally does NOT fidget or move around between poses—was forced to stop and stretch my ouchy back out between poses. And I didn’t want the teacher to be all What the hell is Alison DOING back there?!
So YEAH. It’s been a humbling few weeks, on many levels. Having to admit my injury and modify my practice. Having to see myself weak where I’m usually strong. Feeling strange and foreign in my body. It’s a bit of an identity crisis, really. When you identify yourself as a strong person and pride yourself on your strength and independence, what do you do when those things are suddenly taken away from you?
UGH.
And while the yoga is helping, and my back is improving, it’s been rough. Watching myself grow weaker every day I’m unable to fully practice. Watching through bleary eyes while my tummy gets softer and my hard-earned arm muscles start to fade away. I’ve been pretty down and in a pretty dark place about it, and it seems like I’ve still got a pretty long road ahead of me in the recovery department.
I know nothing is permanent and the body has a remarkable capacity to heal itself, and that one day my body will be back to normal and I’ll be getting strong again, but I’m impatient. And I don’t like feeling uncomfortable, physically or (especially) mentally.
I know that suffering is only in the mind. I actually spoke those words to a friend yesterday, feeling their pertinence like acupuncture pins in my spine. I know that by feeding these dark thoughts with my maelstrom of negative energy, I allow myself to suffer. I know that while I often think I, as a human being, DESERVE to feel successful, independent, and strong all the time, what I ACTUALLY deserve is to feel ok even when I’m none of these things.
I know every injury is here to teach us something, and I’m learning the hard lessons. It sucks, but I suppose it has to. Pema Chodron says:
“Let difficulty transform you. And it will. In my experience, we just need help in learning not to run away.”
And so THIS is my yoga these days, in the hot room and out. It’s much more tedious than any asana class, and harder than 10,000 Standing Bows. I’m not good at it. But that probably makes it more important. And I know I’ll be stronger—mentally and physically—in the end.
For now though, I’ll be the one in the back of the class, rolling to her side instead of doing the sit ups, barely hanging on to her foot in Standing Bow, gritting her teeth, buckling down, and just trying not to run away, every day.
Hey guys! It’s been a minute, I know. But now that mercury is out of retrograde and I’m able to string together a sentence again without busting a blood vessel (hey, I’m a Gemini! Mercury retrograde affects us a lot! Google it!), I’m back, and I have SO MUCH TO SAY! So get ready for a whirlwind, whiplash-inducing tour of The Highlights from the past few weeks, everything from mundane to momentous, both cute and brutal! Enjoy.
THE HIGHLIGHTS!
Let’s start with a simple one…
I got the weirdest correction ever! It happened in a class last week. We were doing Eagle. It went like this…
Teacher: Alison, you’ve got a little forward bend… Just so you know…
Huh? My face wrinkled up and I had to stifle a giggle. “Just so I know?” How… umm… polite? I guess? And weird! Usually when teachers correct me it’s in a tone more reminiscent of “Git ‘r dun and do it now, bi-atch!” rather than “Just so you know…”. I mean, the “just so you know” tone doesn’t usually indicate a command, or even a suggestion! It’s the way you would talk about the weather!
“Oh hey, I heard it’s going to rain today, JUST SO YOU KNOW…”
Regardless, I am working on eliminating my little forward bend in Eagle. Just so YOU know.
Maddie hair! Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last two seasons, you are probably at least vaguely familiar with the amazeballs reality television phenomenon known as “Dance Moms”. If you read this blog often, you are DEFINITELY familiar with it. If you are NOT familiar with it, I suggest you visit Hulu right now and get to watchin’! I MEAN, IT IS ONLY LIFE-CHANGING PEOPLE.
So assuming you watch the show all the time like I do, you know who Maddie is: the adorable little nine year old super talented dancer kid who wins everything all the time and is the rockstar of her studio? Yes? Well. Maddie wears her hair in a fancy little up and over french braid that she—or rather, her Dance Mom (like the name of the show, GET IT?!) weaves into her ponytail.
Like so.
Now since I am super cool and watch reality programs on Lifetime for fun, I thought it would be SUPER fun to copy Maddie’s hair—yes, I am taking hairstyling tips from a nine year old and her mom, SUE ME—and wear it to Bikram. And I have been! And I love it! It gives me something fun to look at in the mirror besides the sweat dripping off my earlobes and the asymmetry of my eyebrows. Now I have a fancy FRENCH BRAID EMBELLISHED ponytail! Oooh la la!
It’s gone over quite well. And apparently there is NOTHING more impressive to people than a girl who can braid her own hair. Everyone seems astonished that I do it myself. (Hey, I have to! I don’t have a Dance Mom to do it for me!) I’ve been asked to make a how-to video and post it on YouTube, but there is no way in god’s green earth I’m going to do that. Sorry guys, I just hate how I look on cam-e-ra (pronounced in three syllables with a Jenna Maroney from “30 Rock” accent).
And while I’m pretty good at doing my own brain when no one’s watching, I’m certain that if a camera were pointed at me I would get nervous and freeze up and not be able to do it and slowly lose my mind and you would find my dead lifeless body weeks later with a flip video mounted firmly in one hand and a can of Aqua Net in the death grip of the other. And really guys, I’m too young to die.
I kind of agreed to compete next year but it was totally an accident! So one day a couple of weeks ago I was in class, like normal, struggling to continue breathing, like normal. The teacher was being a little tougher with me than usual, but whatever, I kind of like that so it was all good.
We get to Wind Removing Pose, and I’m at the crisis point where I have to start reciting all the lyrics to “Cooling” in my head just to keep from having a panic attack, and the teacher comes over and stands right over my face and whispers something so loudly yet so unclearly that I can only respond with “WHAT”.
She repeats herself. I hear the following: “Yusshhucupppuppnxxxxtyrrrrr.” I respond with a VERY convincing: “Ok…” You guys, I didn’t know what she was saying! And I was just a LITTLE busy at the time trying to pull my knee into my shoulder whilst still remaining conscious!
She walks away, apparently pleased with that answer. I assume maybe she’s said “You should think about training next year.” Like, you know, going to teacher training. I kind of shrug it off. But then I realize that’s not what she said at all. She actually said, “YOU SHOULD COMPETE NEXT YEAR.” And… OhSHIIIITTTT, what was my response? The very flat, very convincing “OKAY”.
OH. NO.
Well. I didn’t bring this up again. And neither did she. Until last weekend…
So I’m on my mat, getting ready for class, adjusting my towels and admiring my Maddie hair, and the teacher comes walking over with a friend of hers. She introduces me to the friend in the following way: “This is my student Alison, she has an amazing practice AND SHE’S GOING TO COMPETE NEXT YEAR!”
I didn’t correct her, unless you count stammering “Uhhhhhhh ummmmm errrrr,” as a correction, but I’m pretty sure the horrified look on my face said it all.
Anyway guys, I’m not REALLY planning to compete, I mean I can barely hit my Standing Head To Knee in class nevermind on a stage in front of people while WEARING A LEOTARD, good god NO! But I haven’t broken the news to my teacher yet. Eh, I’ve got a year to fix this situation… I can put it off for a while. And who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind. Or maybe hell will freeze over. You never know.
My cover got blown in class! I was in class one Saturday, just doing my thing—ahhh, which would be sweating, grunting, and muscling my way through the Standing Series—when the teacher suddenly turns to me and says in a SLIGHTLY amused way, “Alison, relax your forehead!”
I try to, not really thinking about it.
The teacher goes on, “I have a better internal dialogue with you now; I’VE READ YOUR BLOG!”
Ohhhhh snap! BUSTED!
My left hamstring is a jerk! Ugggggh you guys, being injured is the biggest crapfest EVER. And a hamstring injury is one of the worst! You don’t even realize how many things you use your hamstring for (HINT: EVERYTHING) until you can’t use it anymore!
See, I have this kind of perma-injury at the very top (the “semitendinosus”, far right in the very fancy graphic below) of my left hammy.
I got it in college when I was dancing all the time and running marathons. I initially pulled it in a dance class, no big deal. But being SUPER SMART, I never stopped to rest it and let it heal. Nope! I just kept on taking dance classes, and competing, and running 100 miles a week.
I MAKE SUCH MATURE DECISIONS! I AM AWESOME AT LIFE!
Well, needless to say, after about a week of that I had made it soooo much worse that one day while I was running it kind of popped and well, that was the end of that. I couldn’t run for FOUR MONTHS. Bummer. And still to this day, over 10 years later, my left hamstring is still so sensitive that it pulls if you look at it funny. UGH.
So last week someone must have looked at it funny, because WHOA it was giving me a HELL of a time. I mean, it was bad. BAD bad. Like, I was almost in tears in class BAD. Not as much from pain, although it hurt plenty, but more because it is SO FREAKING FRUSTRATING to be MODIFYING your practice when you really want to be IMPROVING your practice! And it was really at the point where my brain was starting to panic and I was getting all OMMIGOD IT HURTS SO MUCH AND IT’S BEEN INJURED SO LONG AND IT’S NEVER GOING TO HEAL AND I’M NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO A SIT UP WITHOUT BENDING MY KNEES AND I’M GOING TO HAVE TO MODIFY FOREVER AND JESUS CHRIST I WOULD RATHER JUST BE DEAD THAN HAVE TO LIVE WITH THIS STUPID HURTING INJURED DUMB HAMSTRING ANYMORE!
And then the world’s smallest violin started playing an angsty bit of Beethoven—you know, one of those pieces he wrote after he realized he was going deaf—and I wept bitter, bitter, salty tears.
But wait! This story actually has a silver lining—nay, a Happy Ending! My hamstring has finally started to heal and is feeling so much stronger! At least in part because…
I took this AMAZING ‘Flexibility And Contortion’ class at a pole dancing studio in Chelsea! Wait—WHAT?! Pole dancing?!
Yes, pole dancing. I am obsessed. But we’ll get to that another time. For now, the least you need to know is that the studio I go to—which happens to be run by a bunch of US and world champion pole dancers (NOT kidding)—doesn’t just have pole classes, they have tons of other aerial/acrobatic class offerings too. One of which was this “Flexibility & Contortion” one that I took last weekend.
I was a little nervous, given the severity of my hamstring situation and also the use of the word “contortion” in the title, but HOLY HELL you guys, it was freaking AWESOME! It was like all the good, fun parts of a yoga class, all smooshed together. It was NOT easy. Not at all. It was definitely WORK. But the awesome thing is that the teacher really focused on HOW to work, and how to work SAFELY. My hamstring actually felt STRONGER when I left than when I went in! WOW!
And the backbending segment of class? AWESOME. I had NO idea I could backbend like that, and it felt soooo good!
And then we worked on piking into handstands… which was… somewhat less successful for me. But you know, there were girls in there that were totally doing it! Granted, they were full on acrobats, but it made it seem attainable! Like it could actually be a realistic goal! And that was exciting.
Equally exciting? I’ve been applying the ideas in Bikram all week and my hamstring feels AWESOME. If you live in or near NYC you should totally try this class, at least once! Contact me, I’ll give you the info! And prepare to be AMAZED. Also, sore. You will be SO sore. But in a GOOD way.
I’m still not locking out my Standing Bow! I know this is hardly news. But I swear to jesus, I’m at least a millimeter closer than I was a month ago! And while that achievement may be almost imperceptibly small, I think it’s still something to celebrate.
NAMASTE, Y’ALL!
A YOGA BLOG.
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