Sounds so good

Moving right along with the Bikram TT event: the mood was ridiculous excitement.

When I finally left work I unexpectedly hit hard core traffic and felt the initial fluster, followed by my self-given mantra: ‘Clearly this is an exercise, clearly I am not self-actualized.’

It’s all part of the experience, nothing will phase me, bring it on Bikram!

With nothing else to do, I rolled down the windows and began searching for a song on the radio. A great song. Something to match my mood, pump me up, or just give me some good time happy. Out of the 12 preset selections on my radio every single one of them sounded good. Led Zeppelin, Miranda Lambert, I even got a Bob Dylan. No songs that I would put on my top 10 list, but man they all sounded so good.

When I arrived (exactly at 4:30 pm by the way, no stress) I met my wonderful friend who happens to be the inspiration behind my yoga passion. It was her idea, from the beginning, and I am forever indebted. The best part was that I could clearly tell that she was just as excited as I was.

As soon as we started our Pranayama breathing I realized that this was my first class outside of my studio and the details were very different. Rather the sounds were very different. The tent had an imperious heater hum that pretty much drowned out all other sounds. I missed the ‘music’ of my studio that I know I look forward to. The sound of glass crashing as it falls through the recycling shoot just across the street. The raining pitter patter of sweat as it romantically drips off everyone’s elbows as we stand in tree pose. The bass I can barely hear coming through the floor from the hip-hop studio below when I press my ear to the ground; my toes touch and feet fall open. Sound becomes such a clandestinely invasive part of meditation because you are brought to the primitive place where nothing else exists outside of the senses.

I began to notice the ‘music’ of Bikram’s tent. “What the f*#% are you doing??? You are not doing anything!!!” That actually really pumps me up, kinda like Disturbed. Those are the heavy metal parts; you’ve got to be in the mood for heavy metal and when I'm in the mood, I love it! And then during tree stand in place of my raindrops he sang, chanted, loud. I have no idea what but it calmed my soul, my favorite chorus ever. There were little songs too, where the diction alone made music: “Boss”, “Sweetheart”, “Miss Blue Bikini”. Just the way he said it; the way it sounded made me want to come back for more just so I could listen to his soundtrack.

Raise my glass to yoga!

One of the spokes of my wagon wheel that I will spend a lot of time thickening is yoga, specifically Bikram. I’ve been practicing for just about 9 months now. By no means do I consider myself an expert, but I do believe in it. There are so many things to say; so many benefits. But that’s the topic of many future blogs that future Martina is going to write. Present moment Martina is going to write about this very second:

San Diego is currently hosting Bikram Yoga Teacher Training. Many fine & fantastically flexible attendants join from all over the world to be trained in the specific teachings of Bikram so that they can in turn fulfill their yoga karma and spread the magic. This has given us San Diego residents an opportunity of a lifetime: to take a class instructed by Bikram as part of the teacher training agenda. Sure we can easily drive up to LA and take a class in his studio but this is HUGE. Hundreds of people all eager to learn, all packed together in a tent during this fine city’s first intense 2010 heat wave. Imagine the talent! Imagine the energy!

So here I sit, 2 hours before I start to make my way over there and I feel like I just stepped up onto the podium of the woman’s event final: 100 yard free-style, no fly-style.  But this is no sprint. This is…a compilation of everything. My entire day has been psychoanalyzed: 1 glass of water every other hour, make pee almost exactly 20 minutes thereafter, handful of almonds for breakfast, no coffee today, caprease sandwich for lunch and now I’m about to panic because I ate all the fries.

It’s making me wonder: is all this excitement a result of my ‘fight-or-flight’ surge of adrenaline & norepinephrine because I’m about to really get my ass kicked or is it just a natural response to the surge of serotonin & endorphin I’m experiencing because I’m doing something I love. Maybe it’s a mass pack of every hormone my body knows how to make; all I really want to say is what a colorful cocktail!

Getting Naked and the Birth of the Wagon Wheel

Up until now I have resisted blogging. What the hell would I blog about anyway? Nobody would read it and yikes, talk about online pornography. I don’t want anyone to see me that naked. Just naked, I’ll live. Verbally naked, hell no.

This analogy got me wondering: Was I so afraid/ self-conscious/ shy the first time I ever let someone see me naked?

I think I was 4. My friend had a killer mud puddle in his backyard after it rained and to get in it real good we had to be naked, so we got naked and no, I was not afraid. 25 years later, with no real reason (other than to embrace the freedom of uncensored publishing) I find myself with that same innocently wicked desire to get naked and jump into the mud puddle of cyberspace.

What the hell would I get naked about anyway?

It seems like most bloggers have a theme. A beautiful thing, something to keep them on track. But let’s be realistic. I’ve never been able to narrow anything down to just one passion, one interest, or even one focus of academics. For crying out loud I went to France to study science, now concentrate! Faites-moi confiance!

Life is a wagon wheel. A wheel is a circle and a circle is infinite. Therefore, there are theoretically an infinite number of “spokes” with varying girth to support the outer frame of the wheel from collapsing in on itself while carrying the weight of the wagon. Sure, you only need a few spokes to have a wheel strong enough to hold the weight, but the more spokes you have and the thicker they are, the stronger the wheel and the more weight you can carry with your wagon. Why would you want to carry more weight with your wagon?...Why would you want to live your life?...Follow me?

How do you get thicker spokes?

Knowledge, learning, experiencing anything imaginable as much as you can in a lifetime. Scuba diving is a spoke. The more dives you do and the more classes you take the thicker your scuba spoke gets. Same goes for any passion, hobby, subject,… anyone in all the infinite realities could ever think of. There is the meaning of life! Go make wagon wheels!

And what could better keep me on track than a wheel? So there is my theme. Anything and everything infinitely imaginable (including black holes).