Read This Book!

Full disclosure:  I love Suzanne Morrsion.  There is evidence of this here, and here.

So, I was very excited to get her book in the mail (that's right folks, I got a reviewers copy, just like a real writer would!), and also very nervous to get her book in the mail.  Although I knew from being an avid follower of her blog that she was a good writer, there was always the off chance that her book wouldn't be very good.  And then I would have to lie.   Or just pretend that I had never received it.

Luckily, I didn't have to do either of those things.

Yoga Bitch; One Woman's Quest to Conquer Skepticism, Cynicism, and Cigarettes on the Path to Enlightenment, is everything it is cracked up to be.  Following here is the email I sent to Suzanne after finishing said book:

Yeah, um...notice the date stamp on that email?  That's right.  September 16th.  It's November, people.  I am a terrible book reviewer.  But, being of the "it's never too late" mind-set, I now present to you (drumroll, please): My Review of Yoga Bitch!!!

Ahem.

I remember when Suzanne went on her trip to Bali in 2002.  Well, I remember seeing her after she'd gotten back...or at least, I remember hearing from people say that she was IN Bali while she was there.  Suzanne and I went to college together...we were friendly, but not friends, so I have only foggy memories of her departure to Bali.  I didn't even really know what yoga was, when I heard that Suzanne was overseas, training in it.  I did remember being surprised, even with my paltry knowledge of yoga, since nearly all of my memories of Suzanne up to that point involved wine and cigarettes. I remember being impressed.  I remember thinking, well, maybe I've got this girl pegged wrong.

After reading Yoga Bitch I realized that, while Suzanne was clearly 11 million times more in touch with herself than I was during those college years (don't ask)...going to Bali for a yoga teacher training WAS as out of character for her as it seemed.

After 9/11, while preparing to move to New York from Seattle with her then-boyfriend, and sort of freaking out about all of it...Suzanne decided that going to Bali to study yoga with her favorite teacher and some fellow seekers, was just what she needed to infuse her life with some clarity.  Little did she know that she'd be shacked up with a bunch of yogis who thrived on journaling, hero worship and um, pee.  As in...urine.  As in...drinking it.  I can't even...this subject is well covered in the book, and in other reviews of the book, so I'm just going to leave it at that. 

(Would it be terrible to admit that while Suzanne was writing about all the myriad reasons that her fellow yoga-school mates were engaging in pee-drinking, that I thought, well, gee!  If it does all THOSE things....  Argh!  I'm a sheep!)

Anyhow, the book is funny and insightful and moving...it's a "yoga memoir" yes, but really it's a book about a woman who is probably too smart for her own good (hollah!) trying to find her way in the world.  It's about a woman who wishes she didn't need a little spiritual guidance, finding herself in a spot where nothing else will do, but a little spiritual guidance.  

And, it's about a woman who, while engaged in all of the above, has a serious earth-shaking moment of transformation.

This is the thing that I've not seen talked about in a lot of the other reviews of Suzanne's book, and for me it was the most riveting part of the book...I'll try not to spoil anything here, but whilst on her Bali adventure, Suzanne has a...what would you call it?  An awakening.  A real one.  For those of you not versed in yogic lore, there is something called a "Kundalini rising" that can happen to a yoga practitioner.  It is the Grand Prize of yoga.  The mythology goes that there is this coil of Kundalini energy that sits at the base of the spine, lying dormant, just waiting to be roused so that it can shoot up the spine and, well, make you enlightened.  That's right, dormant enlightenment.  And Ms. Morrison (lucky duck)...woke up her Kundalini.  Accidentally.  It's an amazing story, made even more amazing by the hilarious pot-shots she takes at herself while recollecting her time walking around Bali, acting like a saint.  

Yoga Bitch is a memoir, it's a love-story, and it's an incredibly insightful look at what it means to start down a spiritual path, even when you are the last person in the world who would ever use a phrase like, "spiritual path".  Suzanne is an incredibly gifted writer with a lot of wit and a lot of heart, who is able to delve into deep emotional depths, without ever being ooey or gooey.  In a nutshell, go get this book.  It's awesome.

Go to Suzanne's website for links to the myriad places to buy Yoga Bitch.  Or just go to your local Barnes and Noble and look in the "new non-fiction" section.  Last time I was there it was on the table right between Malcolm Gladwell and Kendra Wilkinson.  

Review: Om Yoga Center

So, here's how this will work: every so often I will take my little yoga butt to another yoga studio in the city, attend one of their classes, and give you the low-down on the place, from soup to nuts. Or rather, from "Om" to "Shanti". This week we begin with Om Yoga Center...an uber-popular NYC yoga spot.

Atmosphere:
I'm sorry, but if I had a little "star" system, Om would rate preeeetty low on the ol' atmosphere scale. For one thing, you walk in and it is deathly quiet and deserted (or at least it was at 3:30 in the afternoon), and dim, dim, dim. The dude and dudette at the front desk were stone-faced...I had to ask the guy who signed me in to please tell me where everything was. (Which wasn't even all that helpful as their studio is layed out like a maze, and he rattled off the directions so quickly I just had to pray for signs...).

The studio itself is quite large, with lots of winding hallways and rooms with cutesy names (every yoga studio in the world is guilty of this...oh, that will be taking place in the sky room...you'll be having class in the love room...just leave your mind right outside the earth wind and fire room...) and the dressing rooms are practically palatial compared to the Lotus. This was actually really nice, as I'm so used to bumping elbows (and all kinds of other things) with my fellow dressers while shimmying in and out of my sometimes-sweaty yoga togs.

After getting dressed I lined up with my fellow classmates outside the earth room (sigh) where we would be taking class. Again with the silence! No talking, no laughing, no groovy chant-y music playing...we all just kind of jammed ourselves against the wall and pretended we were alone. Other signs of chilliness: a full-size model of a skeleton staring at me from down the hall. (I mean, I get why it's there, but really...necessary?), and a large-size note next to the perfectly organized rolled-up mats declaring over and over that if you are NOT a member or a teacher you are NOT to touch these mats. Mats for you (oh, non-member peon) are hanging up in the studios! (Okay, now I'm just being snarky. I promised myself I would keep an open mind, but the vibe was really killing my I'm-about-to-go-to-class buzz.)

Class: (Intermediate/Advanced, One hour and 40 minutes)
Finally, the doors opened and we were allowed in to the studio (also huge), and all beige, which I was not super fond of...though the light was nice and because of the monochramatic thing going on it felt kind of ethereal, which I like...and stocked to the brim with mats and props. I found what I thought would be a nice hidden spot, one row from the back, and set myself up.

Note: I hate being the new girl, and I hate even more being the new girl and feeling like I have to "relax" or "warm up" on my mat before class. It makes me supa self-conscious. So...picture that.

My teacher today was to be...let's call him "F"...the straightest straight man I have ever taken a yoga class from. Perhaps even a trace of a New York accent? F. wandered in with coffee cup in hand to our class (all women, mind you) and wandered from student to student, chit-chatting and making them giggle before calling things to order. I was hoping that he would not come over to me to have one of those "are you new?" conversations that teachers feel obligated to have when they see a new student in class, as they are oftentimes embarrassing, and also make me feel like I'm wearing a "new girl" tattoo emblazoned on my forehead (but also I was kind of hoping that he would. No, not for the reason you think! But, because it's nice to feel that the teacher is looking out for you when you are new.)

He didn't.

Class began and I quickly realized that I had not chosen my spot as wisely as I had imagined. Turns out, at Om (or at least in this class), they orient the front of the room toward the middle, meaning, there are two rows of mats on each side, all facing in toward the center. Meaning, you are staring at the people across from you while you practice.

Boo! Double boo! Me no likey. Where do you look?! Do you look at them? Do you look right past them as if they aren't there?! Do you stare at the floor the whole time?! What the...ugh! Blar! Noooooo. Bad. Bad bad bad. (Okay, seriously, I thought this was totally uncomfortable, but you do actually forget about it pretty quickly. And I'm sure there's some good, spiritually enlightening reason for setting things up this way.)

As for the class itself: though I felt frustrated by the set up and the total lack of music (!!), and the continued somber atmosphere, the class itself was good. I say "good" and not "great", because I, personally, like my classes to have a bit more "flow" to them...this class was sequenced for learning, more than for moving, if that makes any sense. What I LOVE about the Lotus is that, no matter the teacher, the classes tend to be physically inspiring and move with the breath in a creative symbiotic way--not this pose, pause, pose, instruction, pose, pause stuff. I miss that, in classes that are otherwise, but I do not deny the benefits of working with poses for the sake of the poses individually and not just the overall output of the asana. Which is what F. was doing. Some of the work in ardha chandrasana was particularly helpful...at one point he made an adjustment for me and said softly "it's not all about your leg" which was a bit of a revelation, as it has been pounded in to me over and over that half-moon is very much about my leg!

Moment of Brilliance:
We did a long handstand practice toward the end of the class and after a bit of us all hopping up into handstand against the wall, F. encouraged those of us who have been practicing for a while and used to being upside down, to start playing around with micro-bends in our elbows after we got up. He emphasized the micro part of that instruction and asked us to pay attention to how it shifted the weight on our hands and the rotation of our shoulders. He likened it to the up-and-down play that is so often done in standing poses (bending the knees and then coming out, re-bending, etc.). I tried this and it ROCKED my handstand WORLD!! I realized, as soon as I did it, that, not only was all my weight focused in the heels of my palms, instead of spread throughout the whole breadth of my hands as it should be, but also I had been paying so much attention in my handstand practice to my legs and my feet and my lower ribs, I had completely forgotten about my hands! That would be like doing an entire standing practice only thinking about your arms, and then wondering why you kept falling over! This one instruction, for me, was worth the entire class.

Conclusion:
Though I can't see myself getting really excited about OM, I would go there again in a pinch. I still think Laughing Lotus beats it on all fronts, and going there made me realize just how much I value a sense of fun and improvisation in my practice, and in the atmosphere of the studio itself.

YogaLia Rating: 3 Lotuses (out of 5)