Rough as guts

This post is about three weeks late now but I thought I'd share it anyway. When you've been practicing Bikram for a while & regularly, you forget how hard the practice once was for yourself & still is for others. Part of teacher training is to bring back those memories of feeling awful, being too hot, stressed and nauseous. Oh I did remember, very often, thank you Boss my compassion is now ingrained to my soul. 

I had another reminder of the rough side to Bikram the week after my wisdom tooth surgery. Sensibly I took nine full days off practice & teaching as I didn't want to be near the hot room with a body full of prescription drugs. I returned to my mat for the 4pm Friday class. Good yoga buddy J had joined me, we'd not practiced side by side for over six months so it was very exciting. 

First 25 minutes was great, no drama, mouth felt fine. Then I killed myself in SH2K & it was game over. Ego and fresh hamstrings were the main factors. Once my heart rate got up and my blood pumping I felt my head was going to explode...through the holes in my gums!! I sat out out of the first set of Standing Bow, I was on the floor again after Triangle. Having my mouth on the towel in Locust caused problems and by Spinal Twist I was so nauseous I laid out of that one. Funny as I was on the right side of the room everyone was turn & twisting to see me lying there, eyes screwed shut (major no no as you all know) trying not to loose my lunch. I even contemplated bolting before blowing in firm as I truly believed I was gonna spew. Rough as guts I was.

J even helped me roll up my mat and haul me from from the room the moment the instructor left. I sat in a crumpled sweaty mess in reception. A few of my regular students who knew I'd had surgery came over to offer some support. General consensus was we all agreed pain killers & antibiotics are useful & beneficial at times but they hammer your poor body. Mine just wanted to expel every last milligram out of me in that class.

It was a great reality check & opportunity for me to put my own words into practice. I'm always telling students if they feel sick to just lie still, focus on their breath & try to relax. I feel I was humble enough to know when I needed to sit down & not totally kill myself. Despite closing my eyes when I laid out toward the end, lying still did work. Water was another factor to my sickness, I was swilling it round my mouth as I thought it would help the throbbing in my gums, which is didn't. It just made me feel sicker. Stillness & breathing definitely does work, you just have to give to a chance to work.

Two more days later & I was back in the room & class went so much better. With a few more days for the drugs to get out of my system my body wasn't working so hard to detox. Three weeks later everything is healing nicely, no more horrific mouth throbbing, head exploding feelings!!