it was an interesting start to class today. there was a sign that said “no water.” period. no running water of any sort because there was a city pipeline break, no one on the block had water. i was a little dehydrated this morning and brought two water bottles of yummy well water with me. i was gonna drink them both before class but had to settle for the small one. it din’t matter, i really had to pee so the only option was the public bathroom two parking lots over. it isn’t the nicest place to piss, but at least it’s a place. downtown long beach doesn’t have public bathrooms, it sucks! but i digress.

it was interesting to note people’s reaction to the public bathroom option. our teacher demonstrated how utkatasana could be used to squat over the bowl without actually touching it. men are lucky, we just have to stand somewhere, so i was shocked that the biggest princess about the public bathroom was really a prince. this dude looked physically repulsed as he headed for the bathroom. he’d never used one before, he was standing outside, like, waiting for someone to invite him in—i had to tell him to open the door! i was already there a second time, but only to accompany my friend so she din’t have to walk through downtown santa cruz wearing very little.

i guess the main concern for most people was that there were no showers afterwards, so our teacher started class by telling everyone to think positive thoughts that the water would be back on. since i din’t have a job to go to, i din’t think twice about the water and had a really nice, focused class. i’m really working on my alignment, right now. it’s been a domino effect the last couple of months, stretching out and awakening one part of my body brings awareness to a new part. in the hot room, i’m seeing all sorts of things i need to fix. poorna-salabhasana and dhanurasana, both, i’m extremely crooked when i go up. today was the first time i ever went into either pose super methodically, really noticing where i start to lose my alignment and consciously making the adjustments to stay aligned. oh baby, new parts galore in my body!

i was so inspired by mei’s travels last night, that i silkscreened a tank top for her! if you remember the tank tops i made theresa, i thought it would be fun to do the same thing for mei, a “sweat scholarship” of sorts. here’s the four tank tops i’ve made for mei so far. these are the two colours i’ll be selling once she’s done with training in december. i silkscreened the teal “padangustasana on a lotus throne of flowers and oranges” last night, the other 3 earlier this month. oh, by the way, the name of the other drawing is “dandayamana-dhanurasana in a cloud throne of chaos.” i kinda wish i could silk screen consistently, but at the same time, i think that’s one of the things that makes these tank tops so cool—each one is unique! see you tomorrow ~m

it’s exciting to read mei’s tweets as she flys to america. the seoul airport sounds nice. i’d be so nervous. i’ve never been out of the country before. when i lived in long beach, i had a 2 mile radius that i only left for work, even then i was still close to home. the dalai lama says you should go someplace new every year, but for me that could be the next town over.

being poor is a good excuse to stay home and practise bikram yoga. speaking of which, today was another awesome day in the hot room. i thought it was gonna be cold outside, but instead it was just windy and the room was sweltering. oh man, i really had a hard time sticking with it today. my friend, who hadn’t practised in 2 months, made it look easy. she was prolly the only thing that kept me going, you know how you feed off someone else’s energy? well, that and a super nice teacher who opened the door to the room. ahhhhhhh, i had a primo spot, too, very close to the door. yeah, that was a hotwire to my heart for sure.

speaking of friends, here’s a fun animated gif for today. this is an ongoing project—self-portraits with friends. i really enjoy taking these and, look, i have hot friends! these are women i know from the hot room. in this gif, you will see sweat friends like sd and hs who i practise next to when i can, julie who comments here and julie who gave me my bike helmet, as well as new teacher theresa who i made tank tops for last teacher training and my first teacher, the baker. i can’t help but smile when i look at this. sorry, no flowers for you today, sometimes it’s all about me. as if it wasn’t already! see you tomorrow ~m

hey friends, what an exciting day ~ soon, mei will be in the states, on her way to teacher training! if you haven’t done it yet, check out her signature colour tank top or t-shirt being offered in our a-mei-zing fundraiser. the colour combo is only being offered while she’s at training so now’s your chance to get a limited edition top.

how was your class today friends? i thought we were gonna have an easy-peasy, small class today, but it filled up towards the end and got pretty roasty. your breath is the only thing that will make class easy and that was sure the case today. after every posture, i made sure to take a deep breath. i thought i was gonna crash towards the end, but concentrated on my breath instead of my growling stomach and made it through.

you know, @30days touched on something the other day. how she thinks she sweats more during class than when she first started. i think that’s going to be the case for anyone who’s practise continues to grow. i’m always finding parts of my practise where i could be holding in a muscle or flexing a muscle that i haven’t before. like today, in ardha-kurmasana, i found myself really trying to keep my knees together throughout the entire pose. usually when we’re forward, i’m concentrating on my arms, my hands, my abs but i let my knees relax and fall apart. the teacher can’t tell they’re not really touching, but i can. so that’s something else i can work on. every day, it seems like i find some little part of a pose that i can work a little harder in. it’s funny because i always feel like i’m working so hard and then i have an oh yeah moment like today.

okay, sweat friends, here’s a pretty one from last week’s farmers market! see you tomorrow ~m

how long do you stay in final savasana? is it really the most important part of the sequence? final savasana is supposed to be the time when your body receives all the benefits of the poses you’ve just done. i don’t know about all that, but i do know that the shorter your final savasana is, the longer it will take you to stop sweating after class. i’m sure the longer you stay in savasana the better for reasons other than “you stop sweating sooner,” but i’ve found it to be the case.

three weeks in a row, i’ve has super short sunday savasanas after class and each time, i’m still sweating buckets on the bike ride home. after a shower. i know i shouldn’t be so anxious to get back home for a football game, but that’s the way i am. hey, there’s only 16 games, it’s my obligation as a fan to watch every one!

alright friends, it’s a sunday short one. all in all, a good weekend ~ the packers won, sunday night football was a yawner. okay, that’s it. here’s an arrangement i really liked at last week’s farmers market. see you tomorrow ~m

oh boy, sweat friends, what a crowded saturday morning bikram yoga class. must remember that the yoga studio is not an appropriate place to meet women. hard to keep in mind when you get such nice smiles from such pretty girls. it was mat-to-mat today and we had a lot of first-timers and first-weekers in the room. i wasn’t feeling up for such a demanding class—i only had a few strawberries beforehand. like, literally, right before class, i was eating them.

towards the end of the standing series, after every asana, i reminded myself that you get everything you need from breathing, made sure i took a huge breath and psyched myself up for the next asana. by the end of class, my stomach was growling and i could feel myself getting weak, but the big breath really helped keep me focused.

you know, we talked about avoiding teachers and all agreed it was a bad idea. but what about going to class because of a teacher? isn’t it just as bad to go because someone specific is teaching? how can we learn to live without attachments if we like one teacher’s pace more than another? i don’t have an answer for that one—i take the fun friday four because my first teacher ususally teaches that class. almost every friday i tell myself that i should do the noon or the 10 because it doesn’t matter who’s teaching, but i’m always at the four.

you prolly already know, before a morning class, i like to have strawberries and almonds, or an apple, pluot, some kind of fruit and protein mix that isn’t too heavy on me. afternoon classes are a different story. these are the two meals i had before class yesterday.

i woke up and had a pluot and an apple, snacked on some almonds. lunch at 11:30 was a delicious plate of pasta, ground beef and fresh tomatoes. around 2:30, i had an egg and potatoes, this was really good too. on the bike ride to bikram, i finally had my strawberries. all of that and practise totally rocked! i know i’m an anomaly when it comes to eating before bikram, but this is what works for me. see you tomorrow ~m

i guess a pity party is a good reason to not practise today. but only if it involves ice cream, chocolate preferably in the form of brownies, cookies and maybe some doritos. if it’s gonna be a party, you better make it a good one, i say! i dunno, i practised when i still had to go home and bury my bear. i cried during ustrasana, but i was so sweaty you couldn’t tell! it was good for me to practise that day, i’m glad i did. that’s the worst thing that’s happened to me since i’ve been practising. well, my mom was sick a little while ago and that was kinda stressful, but waking up and finding bear dead was like a gigantic smash to my heart, totally devastating. the 90 minutes in the hot room that day and the weeks after really helped me, god bless bikram yoga.

did the fun friday four today. thought about sticking around for the lonely hearts six, but i’ve got my own lonely hearts club at home waiting for me. i think trixie misses bear as much as i do. this morning i read the new common ground on the deck with trixie. it had an interesting article, “yoga crushes—is hot for teacher a no-no?”

if you want the spicoli version, the article basically said hot for teacher *is* a no-no, but it’s the 21st century and a yoga teacher is entitled to be happy too. i’ll be honest, sweat friends, i have definitely had schoolboy crushes on some of my teachers when i first met them. but it’s like having a crush on the girl you see on the train everyday—she’s nice to you, but you know she thinks you’re a freak and wouldn’t go out with you in a million years, so it’s not something to even think about. i don’t get celebrity crushes either though, other than “oh, she’s really hot.”

nice cover though, huh? i’d love to photograph benders some day! jasper johal is my new photo hero. check out some of his yoga and dance photos.

if you visit his website, you can see even more of his beautiful pictures. be warned, there *is* yoga porn in the nudes section. like i said, jasper johal is my new photo hero. see you tomorrow ~m

well, how was your class today, sweat friends? i wasn’t proud of mine—i had to run out for the runs. lame-o says he’s not proud but doesn’t waste time telling you about it, does he? oh friends, i could barely move during poorna-salabhasana. as soon as we were done, i looked up at my teacher and left the room. i felt like a 9 year old boy as i ran for the bathroom. that’s only the second or third time i’ve felt that uncontrollable since i started practising two years ago. the good news is that i used to feel that bad almost everyday—my digestion has improved so much since i started practising bikram yoga.

after class, my friend gave me a huge package of cookies—om nom nom! i din’t feel like them at the time, but i’ve got my stomach about me now, so i’m looking forward to at least one in the very near future. i’m a total cookie monster—i used to spend $20 a week on cookies, when i lived the corporate life. ah, disposable income was so tasty! free cookies for me? you have no idea how grateful i am. mmmmmmmm, can’t wait.

since i’m on the subject of food and living cheaply, i wanna show off last night’s dinner.

i’m not sure how much this meal cost but it can’t be much. garbanzo beans $1.50/pound, trader joes 80/20 ground beef $2/pound, brown rice $2/pound, romaine $1, chard $1 and a 39 cent potato. it’s a lot of cooking (especially with only one hot plate), but it’s worth it. i can’t afford coconut water, so i gotta get my nutrients the old fashioned way—by eating them! this dinner was not only overloaded with nutrients, it tasted super a-mei-zing! the potatoes were seasoned with sea salt, pepper and chili powder. i cooked the garbanzo beans and brown rice each with half a tomato, salt and garam masala. ground beef seasoned with garam masala, salt and pepper, cooked with the rice and garbanzo beans. i had to add the meat so the garbanzo beans could get some kind of flavor, i’m still learning how to cook them. you can’t tell, but all that is on top of lettuce and chard. now i bet you’re really hungry! see you tomorrow ~m p.s. i promise to clean my kitchen today.