rainbows, and rain

Well! Lots of stuff to talk about today. So much for working hard at my job.

Taoist Biker did an internet radio show last night and it was fun! I even called in and yakked a little bit. Naturally, because I’m me, my first thought after it was over and I went in to go to bed was “OMG I sounded like an idiot I bet they didn’t like me I kept interrupting by accident Beej’s stories were much better stupid stupid STUPID.” BF said he was half-listening from in the bedroom and I sounded like my normal charming self. (I am not fishing for reassurance with this paragraph, I swear. I’m just doing navel-gazing like I always do.) And TB, your voice is not high-pitched or funny, it is thoroughly normal. With an accent that would make my mom melt into a little puddle.

Anybody else who was there, did you guys think that chatting in real-time was just as much fun as actually hearing the voices? I did. I also thought it was funny that when I switched windows to my Gmail, I saw Laura, TB and MTAE green on Gchat.

Before the show started, BF and I watched the rest of The Island. The one from 2005, to clarify. I will not deign to say much more about it, because BF stated it perfectly: “Not even two Ewan McGregors could save this movie.”  Also, he cracked up during the sex scene, which is pretty much never his reaction to any kind of sex scene, which should tell you just how cliched and stupid it was.

Before we did THAT, he told me that reading yesterday’s post made him realize that we never did actually talk about his feelings on the matter, and he meant to.  For once, I feel the need to withhold what was said (is the world ending?), but I feel about 50 pounds lighter, and soooo happy and reassured. And in love. Yaaaaay.

I did actually buckle down at work yesterday, and made about 80 phone calls to clients/medical records facilities/etc. I loathe making phone calls, so the fact that I got them all out of the way was terrif. But I only reached about half of the people I called, and am hence waiting for a number of calls back, which is annoying because I for some reason only get calls when I walk away from my desk and the person has to get my VM.

The remainder of my stuff today is about yoga. First, Jeannine called me at about 3:00 and cancelled yesterday afternoon’s session. This is the third time she’s rescheduled on me, so when she offered next Thursday I said no, let’s just try to schedule something in January. She was very obviously ill, from the sound of her voice, so it’s not like she just cancelled again because she felt like it. Yet when I said no to next Thursday she sounded a little concerned, and I couldn’t help thinking that she was seeing $30 fly out the window. That’s not very kind, but private sessions are how she makes her living, after all. (Linda has written about this to great effect in the past. I also remember reading a post at one point about being sad to see a student as just another $10 walking in the door, but I don’t remember where it was.)

My plan had been to schedule something with Paul if Jeannine cancelled for a third time, but Paul is one of Jeannine’s teachers and friends so I doubt that I could do this without her finding out. This would make me feel bad. On the other hand, she’s cancelled three Thursdays in a row; if a guy did this to me in terms of dates I’d be sure that he was just stringing me along, and I wouldn’t be terribly interested in his opinion. Part of the issue is that I wanted to consult with her about the 30-day challenge I’m considering, and some of the issues that I talked about a few days ago with Bikram or not, home practice or not. Since I have to start the challenge on Sunday if I don’t want to put it off until May, this was sort of my last chance to talk to her about it. Frankly this is what bothers me most of all – because my assumption is that as a teacher she should be there to answer my questions before my questions become irrelevant.

I talked to BF about it (because I can’t live even the most mundane details of my life without his input) and he recommended that I email her and ask her the immediate question, and wait until January for the private session. This totally hadn’t occurred to me, but I think the reason is that she’s been fairly unresponsive to my emails in the past. In any case, I took his advice and emailed her yesterday about the issue, and I’m hoping that she gets back to me before Sunday.

I am rather indignant about this whole thing. I assume that Jeannine has a great many private clients, in order to survive (because she only teaches two group classes a week), and I have to wonder how she keeps them if she treats them all the way she’s treated me. I have an ugly suspicion that a lot of her clients (if not all of them) are quite a lot older than me and can afford to pay her a lot better, and hence she’s continued to schedule me around them instead of keeping our appointments firm, but I could easily be wrong about that. No matter what, it just pisses me off that we made three dates and she cancelled them all.

I will feel bad if any part of this post gets back to her (I’ve been using her real name all along, and it’s been in this blog too often to switch it out now), because I think she’s a wonderful, wonderful teacher and I am really enthused about our future session. But…like…is that session ever going to happen?

Speaking of disappointments in yoga, it’s looking like I won’t be able to do the 30-day challenge at all anyhow. My regular studio is going to be closed from 12/24 to 1/2, which is over a week right in the middle of the challenge. I could probably pick up most of those days at another studio (or another few studios), but it will up the expense of the challenge significantly. Also, next Friday we are required to do a family event in the evening, which means I won’t be able to go to a class. Neither of these things, even together, is insurmountable in terms of the challenge, but hearing them both so close to each other discourages me and makes me think this was a bad idea from the get-go. 30 days of straight yoga over the holidays? I must have been nuts. But it’s my only time off until May, and I wanted to do this LONG before I did teacher training, and my goal for teacher training is to go to California in September for a two-week intensive. If I wait until May to do the challenge, I will probably have already paid for and gotten locked in to teacher training and hence will not have had the chance to test my endurance BEFORE being committed. (I hope this all makes sense to you non-yogis.)

I think I might be losing perspective here, because it’s really more important to live my life than it is to trap myself into a plan that won’t work for the time and place – especially around the holidays, when there are more demands on my time than usual – but it’s like any other personal project. I want to commit to it, and finding roadblocks to the commitment, when I’m not even in the challenge itself yet, is frustrating.

Since I still haven’t written enough about yoga today, I will tell you about yesterday’s practice, which was fabulous. I had brought all my gear with me in preparation for the session with Jeannine, so I decided to pick up the Thursday class with Jennifer at Prana. She is such a wonderful teacher, and her body is such an amazing example. Not as intimidating as some of the other teacher bodies I have watched, but strong and long and flexible. It’s crept up to become my favorite class of the week when I get the chance to take it.

We did a pose that Jennifer called crocodile, but I searched on the web and crocodile seems to be something entirely different. It was a variation on pigeon pose where the front leg is folded directly beneath the thigh, and as much as I like pigeon pose, I think I might have liked this pose even better. The balance was a lot easier and my hips didn’t feel so misaligned.

Towards the end of the class we were practicing forward bends in preparation for this forward bend:

Theived from yogajournal.com. Having seen a picture of Iyengar doing this forward bend, I have pretty much stopped practicing it at home. I couldn’t find a picture of it, but imagine if the lady above had her torso twisted so far that she was pretty much lying on her leg, and lying completely flat.

Yeah.

In any case, forward bends are talked about in all the books as being restorative, calming, peaceful, really niiice poses to relaaaax and if you’ve had a stressful day do a nice forward bend practice and all will be well. Until about two weeks ago, I thought this was a crock o’ shit, because my hamstrings are not stretchy and I always felt pain and suffering and unhappiness in my forward bends. Even when they stretched out quite a lot and I was able to do forward bends without much pain, I still didn’t really see the restorative aspect of them.

I don’t know what changed, but recently when I do forward bends at the end of my practice, it’s clicked, and I feel peaceful and happy and caaaalm when I do them. So the end of yesterday’s practice was marvelous for me. Even the crazy difficult forward bend at the end of class felt good. It was one of those classes that makes me never want to leave the mat.

PHEW. That’s enough for today. XO.