thursday

It is no surprise that I hate the rain. Well, it's raining. The past couple of days, if I remember correctly, have been really on and off with the rain. I never know when I'm leaving the house if I should take sunglasses or an umbrella. But right now, it's just pouring. I hope it will stop for The Corners tonight! I really wanted an americano and a donut when I woke up, but I don't even want to so much as walk across the street in this shiz. When will it end?! So I am listening to the Beirut Pandora station to make myself feel better. Beirut reminds me of the desert! Not sure why? But I like it!

Speaking of The Corners- let's talk about this. Portland Mercury and Willamette Week reviewed it as part of the Portland Underground Film Festival yesterday. WW didn't even mention it, but the Mercury sure did. They called it insufferable and said to "skip it" in favor of some film called 'Taint' that features "ejaculating zombies" and "a humorous home abortion scene". Okay, so we'll take that review with a grain of salt. But still, it stung a little. This film was our life for several months. Longer for Keith and Jon. Way to support your city's local film makers, you dingbat assholes.

And while we're speaking of films, I rented Shutter Island out of the redbox last night. Keith had been wanting to see it and I was sure I wouldn't like it. But, since those stupid reviews left a little rain cloud over his head I decided I would rent it for him. Especially since the last two movies I redboxed were 'Dear John' and 'It's Complicated'. We didn't start the movie until almost 10 and it was over two hours long, but I got sucked in and stayed up to watch the whole thing. This is quite a feat for me, I used to have a really hard time sitting down to watch an entire movie. This movie completely blew me away. It was phenomenal, fantastic, and took a few dramatic twists that really worked. It wasn't the kind of movie you could just pop in while doing something else and still "get it", so if you're going to watch it, you need to give it your full attention. Keith and I might watch it again today to get the "bigger picture" effect. Man, it was great! Highly recommend it. I thought it was supposed to be a horror film, but it's not. It's actually listed on imdb as 'drama', 'thriller' and 'mystery'. See it now!

Okay, enough about movies. Let's talk about yoga. Yes! Yoga. Yesterday I had two great classes. I have come to truly love Wednesdays. Yoga at 5:45 am, then I take Eva's spinning class at 6:30 and teach my class at 7:30. A lot of the people in the spin class come next door for my yoga class afterwards, so that makes it really fun. Eva even takes my class after I take hers! I call it "spin and zen night". The problem with yesterday was that I'd only eaten a potato with ketchup, a bagel and a banana all day (in that exact reverse order) and I started feeling really shaky and jittery midway through spin class. Yikes! So I left class 5 minutes early so I could run down to the front desk and buy, then inhale, some sort of food bar. Not sure what it was, I didn't even bother to look. I just grabbed one that said 'soy' on the label and ate it in four bites. Then I ran back upstairs and taught my class. 40 students. That's a good number, because class is full but I still have room to move around and demonstrate if need be. And sometimes, it's not so much demonstrating as I just want to practice, too! Especially when I do some crap like, "HOLD PLANK FOR 10 BREATHS FOLLOWED BY A 5 COUNT CHATURANGA", I think the participants appreciate when I'm "right there with them", as I say. Last week, I asked my students if they'd like to hear some classic rock jams in class and they threw their arms in the air and yelled yes. I delivered. Here's my playlist from last night:
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Simple Man
Bob Dylan: The Man In Me
Eagles: Hotel California
Led Zeppelin: Stairway to Heaven
Lynyrd Skynyrd: Tuesday's Gone
Neil Young: Harvest Moon
Grateful Dead: Ripple
Bob Dylan: Knockin' on Heaven's Door
The Beatles: Imagine
...and we had a nice juicy six minute savasana to a beautiful Krishna Das track that I don't know the name of!
You may be reading this and thinking I am crazy. You may also be right. But! I know my students. And they know me. I've announced several times how much I love music, and I've talked about the power I believe it has to muster up that we didn't know existed. It has the power to bring back memories, put a smile on our faces, and just in general make everything more fun! Yoga, after all, is supposed to be fun. I want people to look forward to my classes because of my fun music, creative flows and lighthearted approach to an ass-kicking vinyasa class. When people tell me on their way out that class was fun and they can't wait until next week, I feel like my job is done. I also love it when people share their success stories with me. For example, "two months ago I couldn't touch my toes, and now I can!" I love teaching yoga! It feeds my soul more than anything else in this world. Now don't get me wrong, while I do try to make my classes fun and accessible, there's still a spiritual aspect involved. We always take a few minutes at the beginning of class to transition from life into our yoga practice, we set an intention, connect with our breath. And we come back to that randomly throughout class. After class, in that space between savasana and 'namaste' I ask students to notice the differences in their bodies and minds "now as opposed to an hour ago". I think God put me on this Earth to teach yoga. I'm no Kathryn Budig or Seane Corn, but I am Tami Hurley, learning more and more with each passing day and each passing class. Yoga gets me through. There are days when I think, "How am I going to teach tonight? How am I going to get out of bed at 5 am and guide folks through a YOGA PRACTICE?!" But I always find a way. Just thinking about my yoga practice and how it has changed my life, just typing these words, puts a huge smile on my face.

And on that note, I shall end!

xoxo-
T