He sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star…

and I couldn’t stop laughing.  Seriously.  During our first Savasana (dead-body pose where you lie on your back, very still, for about two minutes after the end of the standing series before the start of the floor series of postures), Reggie, the instructor I would have previously characterized as stoic, sang Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.  He was a totally different guy last night, cracking an occasional joke about how much water some of us were guzzling, the temperature, etc.  So there had been laughter in the room (a first for me during a Bikram Yoga class), so when he started singing… well, I couldn’t stop giggling.

No one else seemed to be laughing.  Too bad.   It was funny.

Okay, something else.  I get there early and put down my mat in a place where I will have clear view of myself in the mirror (totally necessary for Bikram Yoga).  Invariably, someone will come in and put their mat right. in. frontofme.  So, I have gotten more strategic and now I only place my mat when there is a spot back a row from where 2 mats are already placed so I can slip in the gap.  Sometimes that means I am looking into a seam in the mirrors… Last night, I put my mat down in a spot where I was a row back from the mirrors between two others AND no seam in the mirror.  I thought I was GOLDEN.  But instead, another of the instructors situated himself  thisclose to me on my left side.  Annoying.  He could have shifted, but I guess he didn’t because he didn’t want to be on a mirror seam, but seriously… kinda rude.  Especially for an instructor.

Here’s the thing, though, I thought, hey, this guy is an instructor!  I will be able to see precisely how to do these poses correctly, because, if I haven’t mentioned it before, the instructor leading the class doesn’t actually do the poses – he/she just guides you through them orally.  Guess what?  This guy totally doesn’t do the poses right.  Now I admit, he is older and maybe be has some limiting conditions, but he didn’t even do the pranayama breathing right – his head hardly tilted back and his mouth was barely open AND he closed his eyes!  He didn’t keep his arms by his ears in half-moon pose, or balancing stick pose.  And then, when it was time for Head to knee pose with intense stretching posture (Janushirasana with Paschimottanasana), he was so close that I had to move to the front of my mat so my leg could extend.  Now, as I was set up first AND he is and instructor, shouldn’t he have been the one to shift?  I know… why does this bother me?  Who knows… but it did.  And I guess it still does a bit.
 
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect that just because a person is an instructor that they can do every pose perfectly, or even do ANY pose perfectly.  BUT, Bikram Choudhury stresses that you do it right if not completely… that is, you attempt it in the right sequence getting each element right before you try the next part.  That is, if you are doing Standing head to knee pose (Dandayamana Janushirasana), then you don’t even attempt to pull your “up” leg in front of you until your standing leg is “locked, lamp-post, you have no knee.”  It just bothers me a little… makes me want to not go to his classes.  Which is fine, except, I want to go every night and invariably, he will be teaching some of the 6 PM classes.  I am just going to have to let it go… because honestly, when I’m in there, I’m the only one I should be focused on anyway, right?

“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.”

Author Unknown

Namaste.