this ain't burger king yoga

Parivrtta Utkatasana

after 13 years, i know different yoga teachers bring different energy to my experience of the practice.  over time, i've learned to manage my freak-out meter related to the gap between what i want out of class and what i might be getting.  i'm not great at self-management all the time though and like anything else, it takes practice to stay present and allow things to unfold as i battle with my mind.

yesterday, i took a level 1/2 class at a studio in vegas, a class described as intermediate by the front desk gal.  class kicked off with use of a bolster.  looking back, that should have been a sign of what was to come but i was open to it because the teacher said it was "meditation".   with our eyes closed, we laid on top of the bolster, arms outstretched and heart arched upwards.  she asked us to practice "non-striving" and to release any ego-driven energy.  ok.

after 20 minutes, we began to flow.  i mean FLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOW.  so slow, you'd think i was in a class meant for geriatric yogis.  the experience was exacerbated by the way the teacher spoke:  noooooooow raaaaaaaaaaaaise your arrrrmmmmmmms up........hannnnnnnnnnnnnnds touchhhhhhhhhh........and bennnnnnnnnnd......at the hippppppppppps.......floooooooooooooooooooooatinggggggggggggg dowwwwwwwwwn....

right off the bat, i thought:

WTF?  OH MY FLIPPIN' GOD.  who moves at this pace in an intermediate class????

i glanced at the clock.  10:20.  i still had more than an hour to go.  though i was skeptical, i remained open and kept moving, hoping it would pick up a bit.  but it didn't.  as you can imagine, this paaaaaaaaaaaace became a liability at parivrtta utkatasana.  time seemed to stand still while my quads were lighting the studio on fire.  perhaps this was what the front desk gal meant by "intermediate".  my breath deepened and i repeated my recent mantra over and over:

remainCALMintheheart! remainCALMintheheart! remainCALMintheheart!  WTF!  can we at least switch sides???

i glanced at the clock for some hope.  hell no. 10:35.  oh god.  my ujjayi breath, normally strong, surely revealed panic.

i kept gooooooooooooinggggggggg.  i took a bathroom break, or two, maybe three.  but i always returned to the room, ujjayi focused and ready to continue.

10:50.  my experience of the practice began to shift for me and i'm not sure why.  the sequencing was less intense because we moved to seated postures?  my mantra was working?  class was almost over?  i don't know, but the panic button was released a bit.

11:15.  i noticed two people got up to leave early and i found myself contemplating the same.  this was my last chance to bolt but it was time for handstands, so i stayed.

11:25.  class ends in 5 minutes! (yay!) i slipped into savasana before the rest of the class but it wasn't long before they followed.

(cue the floaty flute music.)

after 10 minutes, i began to rouse from savasana and it was another 5 before the music finally stopped and savasana was officially over.  who gets edgy with an over-the-top savasana?  me.  especially when class technically should have ended 15 minutes prior to that.

i left the studio feeling proud of my commitment to seeing the class through.  but hours later, it occurred to me that perhaps i should be paying attention to something else about this experience.  by now, my ability to focus and plow through difficulty is a known superpower.  underneath that, i see this:  if things aren't going my way, i struggle, bitch and scream inside while trying not to struggle, bitch and scream.  me vs. me, negotiating past patterns and the desire to cultivate compassion for myself.  the more i try to resist my patterns, the more heightened my awareness of them becomes.  will i ever be able to simply observe and not react to this?  i wonder what it would be like to trust the present moment instead of negotiating with familiar thought patterns that don't serve my spiritual development.