hi everyone, thanks for sticking with me through this trying time. i really appreciate your comments and e-mails, often times, they’re the only highlight of my day. 2012 is gonna be much better, right? since the new year always brings in people who’ve never practised bikram before, i thought i would share my beginner’s advice to bikram yoga, which might help you even if you’re already a bikram badass.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 1
don’t expect to do anything that the person in front of you is doing. it’s like riding a surfboard. you can’t go out and rule the waves on your first day out, don’t expect to be in that beautiful standing bow your first day in the room. relax, don’t worry, just do what your body will allow. your first day in the room, concentrate on the instructions, take them one step at a time, don’t go further than your body will allow and be comfortable with that. it’s okay, no one else is judging you.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 2
there is no shame in sitting out a pose. there’s a lot going on in the room. if you find yourself gasping for air, struggling to keep up with the rest of the room, sit down for a pose, get your breath back and relax. we all have to sit down at one time or another, it’s not a bad thing.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 3
get into savasana as quickly as possible. don’t waste your time wiping off the sweat, huffing, puffing or groaning. turn around and get on your back as fast as you can. savasana doesn’t last that long, so you gotta make the most of what they give you. make it a contest—see how fast you can go get into savasana. seriously friends, that could be the best part of bikram, flat on your back doing and thinking nothing. that’s why it’s the hardest pose. no drinking, no wiping sweat, no fidgeting. it’s corpse pose so you can’t even twitch your nose a little. i think this has taught me so much discipline in my practise and even in my day-to-day life. that’s not why it’s the hardest pose though—getting all the voices in your head to stop—that’s what makes it the hardest pose and one i’m never ashamed to work on.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 4
don’t keep score. a long time ago, in a studio down the street, my teacher told me, “it’s only yoga, don’t go home and write down all the things you did bad.” it’s really easy to beat yourself up over your practise, “i did this good, but i couldn’t do this,” who cares? they call it a yoga class, but there’s no grades. heartbreakers, after class, your teacher isn’t gonna say “your standing bow sucked,” so why should you?

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 5
smile. even if you’re not happy to be in the hot room, remember: you paid money to feel this way! i don’t think people smile enough in the hot room. even if you’re miserable, smile at yourself in the mirror and don’t take yourself so seriously. smiling may not improve your standing bow, but it will improve how you deal with falling out of it. you know that saying “i have to laugh to keep from crying”? sometimes i smile to keep from running out of the room! not really, but you get it, right?

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 6
don’t hate your teacher. friends, they’re not doing this to be mean, they’re trying to help! making dirty looks at your teacher isn’t gonna make your 90 minutes in the hot room any easier, trust me. it doesn’t matter how old they are or what their body looks like, learn to trust your teacher and appreciate their words—they’ve been through training, you haven’t.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 7
be prepared—be hydrated. this doesn’t mean chug a bunch of water right before class, you gotta start the night before! before bikram, avoid soda or coffee and stick with water, it *will* affect your practise, i promise. the more you stick with it, the less water you’ll need during class. honest.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 8
put sea salt on your food. your body just sweated for 90 minutes. it’s a detox, but that doesn’t mean your body doesn’t need some of the things it sweated out. sodium, potassium, calcium, etc need to be replaced in more than usual amounts because you just sweated more than most people do in a week! i think salt is one of the perks of being a bikram badass, enjoy it!

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 9
cave in to your cravings. your body is gonna want things you never knew it wanted. you might even eat more because of all the extra energy you’ve exerted. listen to your body, it knows what it wants and needs. my favorite example of this: i worked with a woman who was raised vegetarian by hippie parents. she was the lecturer at the department pot lucks on the evils of meat. that was before she was eating for two and began craving steak and bacon. she’d never eaten meat in her life and she wanted bacon. did she cave in to the crave? you know it. heartbreakers, your body knows what it wants and needs, all you have to do is listen.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 10
try. i love the story about bikram sitting on two telephone books, tearing one page out a day to get into fixed-firm pose. you gotta work through your injuries if you wanna recover from them. master each pose *one* *stage* *at* *a* *time* and you won’t hurt yourself because you never go farther than your body will allow.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 11
enjoy final savasana as long as possible. you worked hard for 90 minutes, don’t run out of the room as soon as class is over. this is the most relaxed your body will ever be today, enjoy it. i know the tempation is to run out of the room for fresh air, but final savasana is when your body absorbs the benefits from what you’ve just done in the hot room. enjoy it and know that you’re also building discipline by not leaving as soon as you can!

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 12
stick with it. you’re not gonna see results right away. how long have you been living without bikram? you’re not gonna get fixed overnight. i look at it like this, 36 years of bad posture compared to 2.5 years of healing, how much progress do you want in a week? a month? keep coming back as often as you can, once a week, 3 times a week or everyday, you’ll notice a difference not only in your practise but also in your real life. maintain a regular practise and you *will* see results.

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 13
keep your eyes up. your body follows your eyes—always keep your eyes looking up in class, at the top of the mirror if you have to, it will keep your energy up and help you stay positive. as soon as you start looking at the ground, your energy will fall, don’t let that happen to you!

beginner’s advice to bikram yoga pt. 14
clean your gear. think of your yoga mat as a dinner plate that has the hottest dish in the world—you! you’d wash your plate after dinner, so why not wash your mat & towel? and seriously, that doesn’t mean, washing it in the shower, rolling it up and throwing it in the trunk of your car to sit and ferment, it needs to get dry. trust me, your fellow benders will thank you.

alright heartbreakers, i hope these tips help you, i’m sure you have a few of your own, so please add them to the comments section. don’t forget to check out my bikram yoga inspired drawings that are now on t-shirts, tank tops and hoodies! all the proceeds go towards my teacher training fund. this past year (2011), i earned $12, which isn’t even enough for a bikram class, so let’s see surpass that by thousands in 2012. xo,m

this is what it’s like where i’m at. the red mountain, and that’s actually what it is known as, may look beautiful, but trust me, it doesn’t change. that’s why i love the ocean, it’s different every second, always changing. the red mountain just stays there like a bump on a log. can you tell i’m a little depressed today? well, not really, but the scenery has worn thin on me and i’m anxious to get back to california.

how about a brighter topic? i went to a vinyasa class last night and a hot yoga class today! last night’s vinyasa class was the first real vinyasa class i’ve been to. earlier this month i went to a 60 minute vinyasa/bikram mash-up and it was nothing like this! vinyasa is nice, it’s a lot more upper body work than bikram, but that doesn’t make it better. bikram works every part of your body in an order that prepares your muscles for the next pose. vinyasa is a little more free form and, like i said, more focused on the upper body. still, it’s yoga and right now that’s the important thing. i’ll get back to bikram soon and someday i’ll teach bikram and i’ll be a better teacher because of these classes. xo,m

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well, i went to “hot yoga” tonight, it was kind of fun, kinda whatever. you all know i’m a devout bikram practiser, so straying from the series isn’t really my bag, but why complain? i’ll talk about the differences in later blog posts because tonight wasn’t the normal hot yoga sequence. tonight seemed pretty unscripted and we did a lot of poses i haven’t encountered before. the best one was lotus, lol, but only because i’ve been sitting in lotus since i was in high school. then we lifted ourselves up and i can do that on my fingers, so i felt all hotsy-totsy, ha ha. other times, i was totally looking up at the teacher or other students to see what the hell we were doing. i don’t know the names of yoga poses not in the bikram series, so when the teacher calls them out, i’m like, “huh?” honestly, i’m still not even sure i’m doing downward dog right! i think this experience will be good when i’m a bikram teacher—i’ll have a better understanding of why people want to modify the poses, so i’ll have that in my pocket when i get back to bikram. mmmmmmm, i miss a good bikram butt-kicking, if you got one today, know how jealous i am of you! xo,m

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hi, how are you? i know it’s been a while, but i haven’t felt like much of an inspiration the past few months. mostly i’ve been down and depressed. if i could cry myself to sleep at night, i would. living out here is like solitary confinement and every day seems to take me farther away from where i want to be. i try my hardest to be positive, but i just haven’t felt like writing.

the past few weeks, i’ve been working on an acoustic set that i could perform at the local open mic. you see, heartbreakers, your humble narrator was in a band once and, even though there hasn’t been a band, he never stopped writing songs. well, i put together a short set and decided to record it in garageband and that’s what i’ve been working obsessively in ever since. omgosh, i’ve been having so much fun, recording, listening, rearranging stuff. plus, the keyboards in garageband are so cool! i’m gonna bring new wave back, friends, honest.

alright friends, that’s what’s been keeping me busy lately, but i’ve also made it to a few “hot yoga” classes and i’m anxious to share my experiences with you because some of it is so different than bikram! i’ll start tomorrow, but i’ll just tell you know, we don’t do toe stand! alright, that’s just a little taste of the different flavored yoga i’m enjoying right now. see you tomorrow, m ~|~ p.s. thanks to leigh, sue, steve and mary for keeping the candle burning while i was gone.

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i got a boy/girl matching set of schwinn collegiate bikes a little while back. these are the original tires, look how the rubber has dried out and cracked off, you can see the threads of the tire. all i need are new tires & tubes and these rides are gonna be bad ass.

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this ice machine is a good reminder to not wait. i’d been wanting to photograph a really old ice machine at a nearby park, but was never happy with the lighting. the other day, i noticed the machine is gone. never wait for a photograph, if you’re feeling it, take it. this happened to me before with the greyhound bus station in santa cruz. only half-a-block away from village yoga, i rode by the bus station everyday, always thinking to myself that i should photograph the sign out front. but it was so close to the studio, i felt like i take that picture any day, the bus station is always gonna be there, no rush. until one day i rode by and saw them knocking down the bus station. ack! never wait, friends. xo,m

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this park has 6 baseball fields and free wi-fi! catching up with daily photos. ~m

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