Hardcore (literally)!!

Somewhere near the end of the Ashtanga primary series, after we're good and sweaty and our muscles are burning and our joints have melted, comes one of the most dreaded poses: Navasana. This pose is held for five sloooow breaths, then you pull the knees into the chest - feet never touch the floor - place the hands next to the hips, and LIFT everything up. Then the legs extend into Navasana again - feet never touching the floor - for five more breaths. This is repeated five times before we move into backbends and then inversions to finish out the practice.

This evening in my class we were especially struggling with keeping straight legs in the posture. My instructor, encouraging us to relax into the posture (yeah, right) said, "If you can't keep straight legs, maybe you should take an easier class - at a different studio." On one hand, he was providing a bit of comic relief to a room full of burning muscles. On the other hand, he was inserting a thread of Ashtanga philosophy into the pose. Rigor is important.

I love it.

Metro Weirdness

So lately I have noticed a lot of people missing their Metro stops or realizing that they are on the wrong train. Unfortunately, I find this hilarious (in the most harmless possible way, of course). This happened on my train as I was heading home both yesterday and today. Could it be an ominous omen of what's to come this tourist season?

Also, a large, hand-written sign taped to the faregates caught my attention this afternoon. It said:

NOTICE - ABSOLUTELY NO STROLLERS ON THE ESCALATOR!

Heh.

That Time of Year

It's about time for my annual rant.

The weather is getting warmer and sometimes people (read: women) lose their minds a little. So let me just set a few things straight:

1. Tight clothes do not make you look thinner. In fact, tight clothes on even a very thin person can create rolls where there really aren't any, hence making you look chubbier than you are. Buy clothes that fit. Do not squeeze into the size you think you are for some deluded sense of self-worth; buy clothes that fit. Fitted and tight are not the same thing. Learn it.

2. Parasols, if pulled off properly, can be elegant and mysterious. Do not substitute a plain umbrella for a parasol in sunny weather. You look idiotic carrying an umbrella, especially one witha design, in blazing heat. I understand your wish to stay pale - SPF 45 and a cute hat should do the trick.

I am dreading the beginning of summer as people try to bind themselves into their clothes from last season that may not fit after the winter hibernation. I'm sure this rant will be continued...

Decision and Breakthrough

Today after my yoga class two of my instructors encouraged me to attend the Sunday morning Mysore class. First I will tell you what Mysore class is, then I will tell you why this is awesome!

To understand why Mysore practice is the pinnacle of Ashtanga, you should first understand one thing that makes Ashtanga different than other systems of yoga. Ashtanga is a practice involving synchronizing the breath with progressive series' of postures. A student begins with the primary series (which starts with approximately 55 postures and is taught in several chunks) and builds slowly from there. The series never changes; each Ashtanga class is the same. It happens to be one of the most physically demanding systems of yoga and the practice produces a profuse, purifying sweat that detoxifies the body and just feels really good.

The Mysore practice, named for the city in India in which the founder of Ashtanga lives, is self-led, as opposed to a normal class which is guided by the instructor. Students drop in sometime during the prescribed time, unroll their mat, and start flowing with the breath. They move at the pace of their own breath, finish at different times, and hold poses for teacher assistance if need be. This requires that the student have memorized the primary series up to their individual point, which is really important because the practice really begins to deepen only when each breath is synchronized with a movement and no energy is wasted in standing still trying to think of or be explained the next posture.

One thing I noticed in my practice tonight is that I am not very adventurous in my yoga. I have a pretty rigidly defined comfort zone (surprise surprise). So when I explained to my instructors why, for this reason, I thought Mysore to be a bit of a risk simply because of the self-led element, they both took dissenting opinions and told me that it's in Mysore that a student can really get the most focused assistance from a teacher to break through their limits because the teacher is not focused on bringing everyone out of the posture at the same time, or trying to run around adjusting every student who is holding the same pose, as they would be in a class. So the bottom line is that I'm going to Mysore on Sunday morning! The Mysore practices during the week conflict with my start time at work, so it'll be once a week for me and normal classes in the evening the rest of the time.

What I took away from all this encouragement is that they find me a dedicated student with potential to open up my practice to deeper levels given the right environment. Holla!

So that was the breakthrough. And now for the decision.

Drum roll, please....

I have decided to give up running for a while. Like, six months to start, maybe longer, in an effort to see if I can open my hips and hamstrings a little bit more. Runners are notoriously tight in this area, and even though one of my yoga instructors routinely runs 50k and 100-mile trail runs, he's just a mutant - most of the time, running and yoga don't mix if you want to be improving in either.

So we'll see how this goes...

Catpix: Cozy Natasha

Making herself at home in the lid of a shoebox.

"El Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing"

Haha. I spent the morning watching one of the most hilarious movies ever, The Big Lebowski. Cracks me up.

For the first time, yesterday, I sort of missed my car. It was cold and rainy and windy all day, but the walk to yoga class was okay. However, at some point (probably while I was standing on my head or something), the rain turned to sleet and the walk home was very tenuous. All downhill. Makes for a tough time keeping one's traction.

I've got a day of shoe-shopping ahead of me and then will be heading out to a home session tonight to play some tunes and celebrate St. Patrick's Day the right way - not in a pub.

Gross

It was still raining this morning when I left for work and there were worms all over the sidewalk, so many that it was impossible to become preoccupied with not stepping on any. It was like being in a nightmare. Unnnghh.

Quick Update

Brenda is here and we are already having a fabulous time. We cruised around town this morning and did some shopping at the Eastern Market, then checked out a new bookstore up on U St. Tonight we are having an Ethiopian feast and then will spend the rest of the evening planning out our shopping routine for the rest of her visit

The weather is amazing... let's hope it lasts!

I Have Nothing To Say

I know it's been a while since my last post. My mind is empty. It was so nice over the weekend that I actually lost track of time on my run and went for five miles instead of the three I had planned. Now it is in the twenties and forecasting snow overnight. Boo!

My amazing friend Brenda is coming to visit me this weekend! I hope to convince her to stay in DC. I am one for one when it comes to these sort of attempts (my brother), so my hopes are high. Brenda and I both have a high degree of appreciation for social nuance, and we can spend hours just talking about one interaction or encounter. We took the same psychology courses in college and love to rehash those old theories. I cannot wait to have her around - I miss her so much!

Even though the sun is out, do not be fooled: the wind is gusting and the air is freezing cold. I'm going to make another mug of tea and curl up with a book until bedtime.

Did I Mention Being Disturbed

For some reason this memory came back to me a few moments ago:

Several months ago I went shopping at Victoria's Secret in Union Station. I was leaving Bras and wandering through Panties when I became a bit disturbed by two of my fellow shoppers. Picture this: a white male, late 30's, tall, scrawny, with long stringy brown hair matted under a ratty baseball cap, thin lips with a thin mustache wearing a baggy Redskins t-shirt and faded, torn jeans with dirty white sneakers. A garden-variety redneck, holding hands with a girl who couldn't have been more than fifteen-years old. She was pretty but still had some baby fat, wearing a shapeless, solid-color t-shirt and loose jeans, with one-length red hair combed straight, no makeup. I realize that some people simply look young, but the way she carried herself, how she walked, how completely uncomfortable she looked in the store, staring at the floor while being led through the racks of lingerie by her - boyfriend? baby-daddy? person she's been chatting with online and finally agreed to meet? - indicated to me that this was a girl and not a woman.

For me this brings up the Kitty Genovese issue, of which I have thought about probably too much. Kitty Genovese was chased down and stabbed to death by her ex-husband on the street in New York City while dozens of people watched but not one person called 911 or attempted to intervene personally*. Her story has prompted many a social psychologist to study how ordinary citizens react when they encounter similar situations. The outcomes are terribly disturbing. People don't help even if a woman is screaming that she's about to be raped. In one I saw recently, a shocked 234 people walked right by a (fictional) boyfriend and girlfriend who were arguing in public, and even when the guy started threaning to kill her and trying to drag her off, and the girl was screaming that she was terrified and would someone help her, it took over 45-minutes for someone - a woman - to finally attempt to intervene.

Contradicting the actual outcomes of study after study, most people in surveys tend to believe that they would help someone if they saw them in trouble. And for most of us the decision, in our heads at least, is easy if we think that someone is in imminent physical danger. But how do we define the shades of gray? Do we attempt to intervene if a couple is arguing in public? If someone is being threatened? What if it escalates to minor physical contact - a grab of the elbow, a push - or worse? What, if anything, do you do if something just seems wrong but you can't put your finger on why?

*There's another similar story that's well-known if you've studied social psychology or sociology - a woman beaten to death by her husband in their front yard while five uniformed policemen who had responded to the call for service stood by and watched, none of them able to figure out if and when the threshhold had been crossed for them to intervene in a "private family dispute."

Close Encounters

Today on my way home from work I ran into one of my yoga instructors on the Metro! How random is that? Of all the cars comprising all the trains that pass through the stations every five minutes, we ended up sitting directly across from each other.

DC is a big small town. When I first moved here I met someone at a pub playing tunes. A few days later, a friend of a friend, not having anything to do with music but knowing that I was new in town, offered to take me out for dinner. I accepted, and we went to Teaism in Dupont Circle. Finding a table, my dinner companion said, "Hold on, I see someone I know" - and it was the same person I had met at the pub. I was like, I know that person too, and everyone was very startled.

Oh no...

I think I may have found where I'll go once I decide to move on from my current job.

God, please take this away from me.

Oddities Worth Noting

A black girl and a Chinese girl speaking perfect French to each other on the Metro.

The wind blowing so hard that pieces of gravel actually found their way inside my shoes on my walk home from work.

My kitten (okay, okay, she's almost a year old), Elena, making herself comfortable in the (dry) bathtub.

Car-free = Care-free?

I did it. I turned my car back to the dealer, surrendered my tags, and cancelled my insurance. I am officially car-free!

So far I feel okay about this. In the city I have plenty of alternatives, including cars parked only blocks away that I can rent by the hour, the more obvious commercial rental cars, my bike, and (by God!) my own two feet.

This is definitely out of my comfort zone. I have only been without a car at my disposal once before in my life - freshman year of college - and obviously in a laboratory environment such as that I did fine. Here, though, it's been two days and I haven't missed it yet....

There, I Said It

Yoga, Ireland, and Christ: the three main influences in my life.

I Like to Push Myself, But I Should Cut Back

As a teenager I rode horses with one of the most respected trainers in the industry. We would show competitively almost every weekend in the summers. I got pretty good at it and ended up winning a state title at age 13.

I started taking piano lessons from a Polish woman with a several-year waiting list whose parents gave her to a music conservatory in Warsaw when she was two. She moved to the States at age nineteen, having memorized and performance-polished 23 Beethoven Sonatas. We took state piano exams and performed publicly once per month.

I started training in martial arts in high school and soon two classes per week just wasn't enough. I made it through an intense physical and mental weeding-out process to become the only female (besides his daughter) invited to train as one in a group of six at the Grandmaster's home studio.

I took up running after college and soon enough trained for and completed a 26.2-mile race.

And now I seem to have chosen to practice probably the most physically demanding and strenuous form of yoga, Ashtanga. But it must be a release. It can't become pressure. There is intense pressure at work to never make a mistake, and if I do there could be potentially serious consequences because my work influences the decisions that other people make, which in turn influences other people's lives on a daily basis. Yoga for me has to balance that out. I need to go to class ready to stretch and sweat and breathe and progress naturally, whatever that means for me. I can't let yoga become another method for measuring up (to what, anyway?). I can't let it be another venue where mistakes are forbidden. I don't want to break myself down before I can build myself back up. I want to continuously build up: confidence, muscles, flexibility.

I enjoy the rigor of an Ashtanga practice because that's what I'm accustomed to, but it must stay in perspective. Yoga has influenced my life so positively in the short time I've been practicing, I couldn't bear to burn out.

The Countdown Begins

I think I am going to turn in my car on Monday. It's a federal holiday. I'll still be able to attend a much-needed-banish-the-winter-blues Chili and Beer party way the hell up in Gaithersburg on Sunday without begging for a ride. I'll beat the actual end of my lease by 24 whole hours.

This weekend... my last hurrah until I do something marvelous like get a cute little Vespa come summer.

Pics

We went shopping on Rodeo Drive and had fun trying on Versace sunglasses until one pair looked stunning on me and I almost broke the bank.

Of course we had to see the Hollywood sign.

For whatever reason (I won't extrapolate the obvious), celebrities have their own, exclusive Scientology Center not open to the lay-Scientologists. I really don't want to get on my soapbox here, so I will simply point to Luke 14:7-14.

We had an amazing Thai meal at a gorgeous restaurant.

Finally, we got all glammed up to go to a concert. I had never heard of the band, but it is always fun to hear live music and see people enjoying it... plus the concert was invitation only, so I felt very special!

So all in all it was a very fun weekend and I'm glad we were so spontaneous! It had seriously been far too long since we had hung out. I miss you already, Trent!

LA Pictures Coming Soon!

One of the many things I appreciate about Trent is the way he mercilessly challenges the things I say and the way I think. He doesn't let me get away with anything. He isn't afraid to comment on my patterns of behavior. It's disconcerting in the best way.

I realize that I have rather rigid emotional boundaries and that my guard is way up during most of my social interactions; I think it's only because we have known each other for almost a decade that he isn't intimidated by me.

Gettin' Down to Bizznazz

Trent and I are having a great time in LA, but alas, our time together is coming to a close. He is putting the finishing touches on today's blog entry, I'm lounging in front of the TV, and soon we will have to spring into action and head to the airport.

I arrived on Friday, late, and was pretty wiped out from the time change. We were both starving and drove directly to the nearest sushi bar to rejuvenate ourselves. After that we headed back to Trent's apartment in North Hollywood and commeced the lenghy process of catching up. We had a great time reminiscing about how we met and the things we've seen each other through. It's amazing to know someone for ten years (since I was a teeenager!).

On Saturday we spent a leisurely morning hanging out at his apartment and then went off to do some sightseeing and shopping in Beverly Hills. I came very close to purchasing an amazing pair of sunglasses at Versace on Rodeo Drive... but my poor frugal spirit wouldn't allow it.

On Saturday we did some more sightseeing - the Hollywood sign - and some more shopping and generally catching up. Then that night we got all dolled up and had VIP access to an invitation-only concert which was very fun! Afterwards we went to a famous bar called The Abbey (I think every gay person in America has been to that bar at some point in their lives) and actually saw someone from one of my guilty-pleasure TV shows, Work Out. Trent knew her companion, but they were sitting together at a table alone, and didn't want to intrude to say hello.

All in all the weekend was mellow and very fulfilling. I love Trent so much! He is the only person who doesn't think I'm a nut for my Simpson's preoccupation. We took lots of pictures which I will post tomorrow.

Okay, I gotta get packed and ready to catch my flight back to cold, snowy DC.