all hail the yoga all-stars

have been doing bikram yoga for the past 8 months.  i really enjoy it.  i like the heat and how it helped me to finally enjoy stretching.  i like the fact that my lungs feel stronger and i can hold a note longer when i sing.  i like that i can now feel into my body and have a greater understanding of what is happening inside of me.  i like that i am stronger and have better balance.  all in all my yoga experience has been pretty awesome.

i've done a number of other kinds of yoga.  i've done sun salutations, enjoyed deep long meditative poses, stood on my head, and done the low slow flow.  bikram has been a very different experience for me.  first, it is the only yoga i've done where i have felt i've advanced.  i think that the very athletic nature of the yoga appeals to me - that and the fact that we do the same poses every time.  i get to work hard and see my progress.  it's heartening.  second, the yoga crowd is different.  bikram is a very very american version of yoga.  the poses and postures are not, but it is inherently capitalist in nature.  it is franchised, automated, and monetized.  it is completely macdonaldized.  sometimes when i think about this it makes me want to walk out - to say to heck with it and find something more traditional.  other times i take a lot of comfort in the fact that when I go to another bikram studio elsewhere, the experience will be the same.  as a result of this balanced dichotomy, all kinds come to bikram.  college students, hippies, housewives, hipsters, body builders, runners, rich, poor, old, kids, people of all races - it is a cornucopia of people who all come for different reasons to get the same thing.  the other day i got to class to see a coach bag hanging right next to a homemade crocheted one.  some women in the locker room talk about how they love their bmw's - others talk about how they will only eat eggs from 'happy chickens' - priceless.

the one thing that i find the same across all yoga classes is one demographic - the yoga all stars.  if you have ever taken a yoga class you already know about whom i refer.  they are the perfect, the amazing, the strong, the beautiful.  they walk into class, tall and thin, washboard abs already tensed and toned.  they wear perfect yoga costumes that always match.  they walk in with perfect posture.  these are the people whose bodies seem to be made for yoga.  no matter what, they are flawless in their postures, amazingly strong, and ridiculously flexible - gods and goddesses, superheroes really. 

i try so hard not to hate them.

yeah, i know, i am in class for me.  i am not supposed to compare myself to others.  this is about my health and confidence and well-being.  however i grew up in a world where body image is distorted as a female and an athlete.  once when I was doing situps at the gym at clark another student called out to me, 'keep going, you need it.'  i'm self-conscious no matter how hard i try not to be.  i do my best to concentrate on my own figure in the mirror and remind myself that i am beautiful and strong and amazing too.

other times, i try so hard not to stare at them.

these are amazing people!  when i am able to manage my own self-consciousness i just think they are so incredible and beautiful that i catch myself starting.  they can bend lower, stretch higher, and do more than i can and i am in awe.  i am sure that this could be uncomfortable for these people.  who really wants to go to their class to better themselves and find someone staring up the back of their ass all night?  i could make the argument that hey, the way they look the should just expect it, but that would align me with people who say that a woman who dresses sexily deserves to be raped.  clearly not excusable behavior.

but then again, we are all yoga all stars in the end.  in a bikram class you go through 26 postures.  the odds are low that there is not at least one pose that you could do exceptionally well.  most of my teachers don't point out individuals for praise, but those who do often end up saying something kind to every person in the room over a class.  i myself am very proud of my standing bow pose and by half locust.  tonight one of the women in my class, who you would never pick out as an all-star, was asked to demonstrate her standing head to knee.  i marveled at her strength and balance as she stood up in front of class and showed us her perfect posture.  she beamed at the chance.

i can't say that i won't have that continual internal yoyo of emotion about the pretty pretty people who come into my class in cute clothes and make us all look like yutzes rather than yogis, but i do like that i can keep some perspective on it.

all hail the yoga all-stars!

there's rules in wilderness?!?!?!?!

went hiking today in the hills outside corvallis, or - where i now live.  green, lush, beautiful - even though we have not had rain in a very loooong time (thank god because it did nothing but rain for weeks when i got here).  

as i drove to the trailhead i saw the requisite fire warning signs.  we are at a yellow now.  do you ever wonder if we were to be at the same homeland security warning level as fire level would the terrorists spontaneously combust?  no? ok...fire warnings yes...so i passed those and on to the parking lot where i learned that to climb mary's peak from that angle requires a $5 day fee.  now, i have climbed mary's peak a great number of times from a couple of different directions, but this is the first i've seen the fee.  and $5 without even being able to have a fire?  as they say at the end of the world - wtf mate?

first, i did not have a $5 bill - just a $10 and a $20.  i'll be damned if i am going to pay $10 to walk 6 miles up a 4000' hill - you know i never really GOT the mountain snobbery until i moved away from the rockies.  mary's peak is beautiful, and i really really enjoy it - maybe a mountain - definitely not a peak. i decided to be a bit on the shady side.  put a $10 into the envelope and filled it out, stuck it on my windshield.  if i came back and it was still there i'd take it home with me and get them back later when i had the proper change (of course those of you who know me know that i will never go back to the lot where i have to pay $5 to hike rather than go to the free ones).  i suppose that makes me a bad person.  

i headed out on my way to the actual trail.  wanted to leave the newly paved lot, the construction site below it, and the rather large toilet house behind.  when i got to the trail there was yet another sign.  this one said i had to have my dog on a leash no longer than 6' at all times. i turned to ask summit if she knew where we'd put her leash to find her taking a shit just off the side of the trail.

yeah summit, i feel that way too.

rules in the wilderness...now i know, i know, hiking up mary's peak is MOST DEFINITELY not wilderness.  people can drive to within 10 minutes of the summit for pete's sake (also, who is this pete we refer to all the time?).  but really - rules.  have you seen the honey badger on youtube?  i think you should because i am telling you honey badger don't care about rules and little bear don't care either.

check out this badass salamander i found on the trail recently.  do you think salamander cares about rules?  salamander don't care!  yeah yeah, fire rules are there for safety.  i don't want to burn down mary's peak.  i don't even actually want to go up there and have a fire, but le sigh to the max - i know how to not burn it down.  i also hiked through the ghost fields in and around yellowstone - no trees yet after 23 years. i know what fire can do AND i know that the fire there burned so badly because fire had been removed from the ecosystem for way too long.  when you remove something from an ecosystem it throws off the balance.  fire is a predator just like hawks and wolves and honey badgers.  you take it out and you can get trouble.  

i am not proposing we remove the fire rule.  it just makes me sad that we need to have it.  i know not everyone is skilled or aware or remotely uncareless (hehe made up a word).  i suppose little bear do care, but little bear don't like it.

and the $5 fee?  see this tree?  what this tree gonna do with $5?  tree don't care.  yeah i get that there is maintenance and work and all kinds of things that are done that these dollars cover.  in this bent though i have to say that i side with good ol' uncle ed in his desert solitaire diatribe about national parks.  let's get the roads out of it!  let's save the roads for people who can't walk to the top (sorry ed - i differ from you on that point)!  let the people who can, do so - if they do DON'T CHARGE THEM FOR IT.  i appreciate that people want to enjoy the outdoors, but this has led to the creation of all this infrastructure, and then infrastructure to maintain the infrastructure.  that leads to having to pay to walk 6 miles up a big hill.  little bear don't care.

see this puppy dog? ok, i suppose this is the shadow of the puppy dog.  puppy dog don't care for leashes, muzzles, harnesses or any other kinds of doggy s&m accoutrement.  puppy dog would not even wear a collar except mommy wants her phone number on puppy in the event of separation.  i get that some people don't train their dogs.  put those dogs on leashes!  i went to the rogue brewer's memorial beer festival - dogs and beer, beer and dogs.  it was fun but there were a lot of misbehaving puppies not being restrained by their drunk owners.  this one should have a leash rule, but outdoors?  my dog likes to run and play and enjoy the space.  i trained her well.  she does not bite, jump, nip or bark.  i dislike heartily the idea that because some people can't take care of their pets that mine needs to be tied up.  little bear don't care.

i think what i am really saying is a) if you don't want rules avoid hiking up the east ridge of mary's peak, and b) i miss my wide open, wild and wooly, camp where you want, have a nice fire, and don't gotta pay shit honest to goodness wilderness.  gots to get me outta dodge for some of that soon!