fixed firm

Bikram yoga has a cultish quality to it that I find comforting.  The postures are the same every time, the order is the same.  Even the instructions are the same, regardless of the instructor.  Look back, fall back, way back, go back, more back… I fall into a hypnotic trance and obey.  There are specific phrases they use that prickle my spine.  Choke your throat…  Now suffer here...  You are a capital T, like Tom, not a broken umbrella!  All the instructors follow the same script and my mind chants along; it has become a Top 40 hit I cannot stop singing, and liking it has nothing to do with it.

But I do like it -- in the same way I imagine cult members enjoy being in a cult.  It is predictable, it is comforting, it is painful in that good-for-you kind of way that makes you enjoy your martyrdom.  I like how my body can do strange twisty things I did not know it could do.  I like the way I leave so empty of energy, resistance, and …  water.  I like feeling myself fill back up.  I like emptying it all again.  I like being corrected, I like striving to be more correct.

Savasana.



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