Pranayama breathing (long version)

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

He first showed me what it was about eight years ago,
when we were hot and heavy into each other.
Only a month or so after we fell in love on our first date.

It was Pranayama breathing, a deep inhale and exhale,
the first exercise in Bikram Yoga,
something I had never even heard of before.

It was Telluride, in the crystalline winter,
a frost hanging over all the brick and mortar of the historic downtown.
We were on Main Street, a few blocks from the lift.
We lived in my bedroom, mainly, shacking up comfortably
in the twin sized bed on the floor.
It was called The Rasta House. It had a good vibe.
We spent most of the time with the door to my room,
right off the bustling living room, closed.

Sex was good. Great, even. We talked often of our "magnetic connection."

In my room that day, he interlaced his fingers under his chin
and began to breathe
while lifting his elbows up.
He was looking so straight ahead.
So serious.

His mouth was making this spooky, loud snoring sound,then he began to exhale,
head dropped back, elbows came together in front of his body.
HAAaaaaa! He breathed.
His breath smelled a little like chewing tobacco.

I looked at him like he was crazy and thought to myself,
"I really hardly know this guy, he is weird...weird.
This is weird."

I laughed out loud.

He made me try it; I couldn't get the rhythm down.
My snoring sounded like a dying duck,
a suffering, dying duck -
probably shot by someone with no idea
what a great duck I was.

He touched my arms, trying to get my elbows together
in front of me while he explained
ALL the great benefits of this yoga he used to do when he lived in Boulder.

I didn’t even care for one split second.
I didn’t even pretend to look interested.

I pulled him onto my little bed, while the roomies smoked bong hits
just outside the door.
I whispered in his ear, "breathe into me."
The touch on his ear drove him wild.
We had passionate, free breathing sex,
taking up every inch of the twin bed
with our flailing bodies.

We forgot all about that pranayama stuff for at least two years...

Two years later...

On our way to Boulder, Spencer (the man from the twin bed days,
we eventually graduated to a futon!) and I stopped in Basalt
to visit this couple named Bel and Emily Carpenter
who I’d heard about frequently from my man.
They were old friends.
As a matter of fact, back in Boulder where they all grew up,
Spencer had introduced Bel and Emily to Bikram’s Yoga
after he had religiously started taking class healing the tendinitis in his forearms.
At one time he said incredulously, "I couldn't even hold a beer!"
Bikram Yoga changed Spencer's life (and his drinking habits) dramatically.
Bel and Emily fell for the stuff completely
and were off to teacher training in L.A. the next spring.
Eventually they opened up a studio in Basalt,
then Aspen, then Glenwood Springs and finally in Carbondale.
When Spencer and I came through Basalt that day more than five years ago,
we took a class.
My first class.
I was the "new girlfriend", as Bel’s mom confessed to me later
when she explained that she didn’t put too much effort into
getting to know Spencer’s girlfriends until they had been around a while.

Weird scene.

I was an outsiders in the insiders world.
I was easily the worst practitioner in the room.
I even felt fat for the first time looking at all of the ripped regular students,
one of whom Spencer had dated and hadn’t exactly broken up with yet.

Awkward, and I’m not talking about the posture.

I had a chance to see about 20 people doing the pranayama breathing in that class.
Still I wasn’t really impressed.

I was overwhelmed.
And sweaty.

We drove on.

It wasn’t until about two years later that we ended up
moving in with Bel and Emily to go to massage school in Basalt.
One of the "pirks" of living with the Carpenters was free yoga.
I tried it more and more and eventually could actually touch my hands to the floor.
Then we moved out
travelled every season and were a regular set of vagabonds
until we finally settled in down the road from Bel and Emily in Carbondale, Colo.
a few years later.

Nice place.

The Bikram studio in Carbondale opened in the summer of 2007.
At the time I was working as a newspaper reporter at The Valley Journal,
one of my many post college attempts at a "real job".
I had put in two years, my standard, and was feeling pretty antsy
to rediscover myself and the world around me.
I wanted/needed more than two weeks off per year, I reasoned.
"Benefits be damned," I thought to myself. "That's no reason to keep a job."


I went to one class at the Carbondale studio
and for some reason felt a sense of ownership there
even though I hadn’t invested one dime.
I had a vision that the studio could be an amazing, thriving place
and that I wanted to be a part of it and help it grow.
I marinated on these thoughts for several days and continued to go to yoga
while researching the teacher training on the sly...
I finally confessed to Spencer that I wanted to go -

I got a luke warm response...

You see, I have been known to have a new plan for every changing season.
All great ideas, me thinks, but rarely what Spencer likes to call "realistic."
Well, he gave me the initial skepticism on my new, "plan of the week" (it is true, the week before I was planning for sure to go kayaking in Nepal with my pals.)
I stuck with this plan, though.
I wasn’t deterred by anything,
even the $10,200 price tag for training.
I was going to Hawaii for nine weeks, God Dammit!

So, somehow I managed to weasel myself out of Carbondale for several months,
including a three week stint on the Grand Canyon kayaking,
before teacher training.

Yes, I was living the dream.

Foot loose and fancy free as they say...

But, teacher training was no vacation.
Two rigorous yoga classes a day, lectures and posture clinic at all hours in between.
It was tiring, but amazingly I felt like I didn’t need to sleep.
I was activated; sleep-proof!

It was on Friday, November 16, 2007
that I stood with 280 of my peers in my last yoga class of training,
my 100th class in about 60 days.

What a difference a few years make (I still think it's weird, but ohh so good to be queer.)

"Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth,"

Bikram said to an emotional group of almost realized yogis and yoginis on that day.
The emotion was running high. All the cryers were crying and even some others.
We all had so much feeling within us.
We had lived and breathed together for so long.
We were facing the end.
My throat felt tight.
"Breathe in by the nose and out by the mouth,
but all the time through the throat," Bikram said.

"This is our last class," I thought, really wistfully.

Sadness.

The training was so much more than I had imagined.

"It’s so fucking hot!"
"He’s going to kill us!"
(my next thoughts)

We took our last twenty Pranayama deep breaths together.
As a group, we created this amazing hurricane
of swirling energy in the steamy, stinky yoga room.

We were lifting each other up.
Feeding ourselves and our neighbors with our strength,
our power,
our divine light.

I never, ever, breathed so deep,
nor exhaled so long.
It was as if my life depended on it.

This is it.

In through the nose, out through the mouth...

One week later (after our last class in teacher training)...

I stand in front of 15 students at the Basalt Bikram Yoga studio.
Bel is taking MY class.
I’m the teacher.
"We’re going to start with Pranayama deep breathing," I say,
almost not recognizing my own voice.
"It’s good for the lungs and the respiratory system.
You should hear a slight snoring sound on the inhale, a HAAaaa sound on the exhale."

I smile to myself, thinking of that day,
standing with my lover (husband, now) by the twin bed in Telluride
hearing that sound for the first time.

"Weird," I think to myself once again,
looking at my students in front of me and the new life I’ve created.

Weird.

Breathe in, breathe out.