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.