30 Day Challenge- Hooky and Virgil

Day Nine- February 4th

The pizza, in retrospect, was not a wise choice. Though temporarily satisfying, I awoke on Thursday with intense gastronomic discomfort. While it likely wouldn’t last the entire day, I had to make a game time decision- stay home or go to work. If Brett and I had two cars, I likely would have headed into the office for a half day but since we have just the one, I told Brett to go on ahead without me.

I checked my work email periodically, but fortunately for me and my co-worker it was a relatively quiet day at the office. The majority of my day was spent guarding the couch and drinking copious amounts of peppermint tea to quiet my tummy. Whilst loafing, I finished what is now included in my top ten list of best books ever: “The Women” by T.C Boyle. This literary masterpiece is a poignant story of the women in Frank Lloyd Wright’s life and is the sort of tome in which you learn a myriad of historical gems without even realizing it.
Feeling rested and operating at 85% capacity, I prepared myself for evening yoga. Of course I’m not going to miss class even if I missed a day at work! I arrived to the studio and didn’t see any of my regular chatting pals. The mood was completely mellow and extraordinarily quiet with only 30 or so students in the room—far fewer than in recent days.

I had the good fortune of practicing next to Virgil, who had just finished up his 4pm practice and was lined up for a double-header (I have yet to try that out…maybe if I’m feeling crazy on day 30 I’ll go out with a bang). Virgil is one of the most unique folks I have had the pleasure of meeting and that old phrase “You can’t judge a book by its cover” comes to mind whenever I think of him. He is of a medium build, with every muscle completely developed—but not in the beefcake “I am a human upside down triangle” sense—rather, he is a lean, mean yoga machine. He does both Bikram and the equally challenging Ashtanga yoga anywhere from six to 12 times per week depending on his schedule. He is an iron worker with full body tattoos and when he’s not building cranes or at the yoga studio, he loves going to the cinema and riding his motorcycle. As I said, super cool guy.

But I digress. Class number nine was phenomenal, which was likely the result of having a completely non-stressful day with ample amounts of rest. Yesterday I (ironically) forgot to mention something Penni said during class that stuck with me. It came back to me during my practice today and was extremely comforting in each posture: Let go. Don’t hang on to the discomfort and don’t let the struggle bother you. You will forget about the pain immediately and only the benefits will remain—which is another little nugget of wisdom to put to use inside the yoga studio and out. Funny how that works….