Bikram Yoga, class 8

Another class skipped, due to difficulties in life.  Had a glass of wine and chocolate kisses instead, whle reading the entire first book of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series.

3pm Super Bowl Sunday class

Which means it was not really crowded at all.  So much so that I thought the studio was closed when I pulled in.  

It was not a difficult class, but then again I did not try hard.  Couldn't hold it in triangle pose, I don't know what's up with that pose lately.  Standing backward bend continues to rock.  Am I confusing my body with the attempts at keeping the core and base muscles strong?  Wonder if I'm doing them right. 

Changes inside, changes outside.  I mean that changes outside are easy because we can see them.  Sometimes we cling to those outside things that need to be changed, because what would happen if we did everything perfectly - right diet, right exercise - and things still went wrong?  At least if we are bad, we can have something to blame.  

So I give up caffeine, give up alcohol, eat moderately.  What changes are now in store?  The fear is when those changes come out, those things stuck inside.  The fears, the mental and emotional blockages.  The internal structures made of can't- won't - don't - shouldn't - couldn't.  

Bikram and yin yang.  Teacher the other day said how every posture creates a tourniquet, so the savasanas are the release of the tourniquet, the flow of blood and such.  The yin and yang again not just in each pose but in every single moment.  When we rest, our blood flows faster, inside.  In the pose, we try try try hard to be... still.  To hold a difficult pose, our head to knee, chin to chest, the leg kicked up and held against gravity.  In the effort to gain stillness.  Then in stillness, to gain flow.  Yin yang, opposites, balance.