David Mark Erickson

Some more thoughts and reflections on my 14-day yoga challenge.

So far, I think Day 8 (Monday) was the hardest day I have had yet.  I switched to a late afternoon class to give my body some extra rest and recovery time since it can be pretty tough to make a 9 am class after being out late most of the weekend.  The late afternoon and early evening classes are generally busier since it is when the 9-5′ers can make it, and so it was a bit of a shock for me after being used to the mid-morning classes where the vibe is definitely more mellow.  I was also feeling very antsy since this was the final week for me to finish moving out, as well the following week I will be flying to the states for three weeks.

Day 9 (Tuesday) was so-so.  I tried to keep my power levels and pacing below 75% to let myself recover from the previous day.  Frustration is a real killer and I have noticed that if I try and push too hard on a follow-up day from a previously so-so session I can get myself into trouble. However, I did have a big realization on Day 9 about some diet and nutrition issues.  As I noted previously, I was concerned about my digestion and ‘regularity,’ and what I realized was that the issue was not so much what, but how I was eating.

It occurred to me that I was doing two, not-good things: I have been binge eating and I have gulping my food. The effect was overloading my system, slowing down the digestive process and drawing energy away from other processes. For the last two days I have been very deliberate about slowing down while eating and making sure to thoroughly chewing my food. It’s still a bit early, but I think this change will have a big effect.

Day 10 (Wednesday), again I intentionally kept things low-powered. My knees are feeling tired so I was very conscious of not over-stressing them – a knee blowout at this stage would be a real spanner in the works.

Something I also noticed on Day 10 was the difference in doing poses in a very relaxed manner, using almost no power, as opposed to opening up the throttles and putting a lot of energy into the movements – there is a curious place here between relaxation and tension, a kind of LaGrange point between gravitational forces.

This is one of the interesting points about Bikram yoga since the constant repetition of same 26 poses helps the practitioner develop a baseline and an intimate awareness level of ones body. So, on Day 10 I did the whole class using as little power as possible and it was really interesting to watch my body respond to the different method since I have never done this for a hole class, usually just for one or two poses.

I am just back from the Day 11 (Thursday/Today) session and it was very good. As I am writing this and reflecting on Day 10, I noticed that my power levels were way up today, most likely as a result of taking it easy for the last two days. This LaGrange point between relaxation and tension is something that I hope to explore more, especially as I expand my practice to other forms of yoga.

Today was also pretty cool as my neighbor in class and I went into an unspoken synchronization for most of the poses. It was like being out jogging and randomly falling into pace with another runner that you happen to encounter on the street. No words were exchanged nor even acknowledgment of what had occurred … somehow a very cool experience.

Three days to go …