Like a stray cat that shows up on your porch, then makes her way into your home...Did I find Bikram Yoga? Or did it find me?

My first yoga class was when I was 18 with my Mom and my sister in law out in Mercer PA with Deb Harrington.  I figured it would be kind of stupid and easy.  You know, for moms.  So I went and learned within the first few seconds that I was wrong.  One of the best things about yoga is how humbling it is and to humble an 18 year old really is something special.

Years went by and I didn’t think about yoga again.  Soon after that first yoga class with my Mother I moved to San Francisco, where my soul continued to grow and rot at the same time.  Finding your identity is hard.  One day, frustrated and lonely, I decided to chase another dream and I signed up for a belly dance class, where again I was beyond humbled. I was completely embarrassed because I walked right into an advanced dance class.  I was quite discouraged; is this really how it’s going to be?  I can’t do this!  Thankfully Gibson Pearl was in the room, my first belly dance teacher.  She pulled me aside and said, “I actually teach a beginner’s belly dance class tomorrow night.  Why don’t you come back and try again tomorrow in my class”? 

From that moment on, I wanted to be just like Gibson Pearl.  She was so cool and I felt so good in her class.  Sure, I wasn’t past feeling awkward.  I wasn’t past getting in my own way.  I was terribly shy, but then I’d have these clear moments where I didn’t feel as if everyone was judging me, moments where I would just ask a question without hesitation.  I wanted to learn, and you’d better believe I was awful at belly dancing for a long time but the compassion and support in the room kept me not only coming back to Gibson’s class but taking every class I could at Cera Byer’s Shoebox Studio in San Francisco.  I became less afraid of my teachers and peers and I was eager to come back and dance. 

About a year later I was given the biggest blessing in my life.  I was back at home in Pennsylvania at a big lake party where we water skied and drank.   I remember feeling angry from all the alcohol in my body.   I decided to cool off.  I walked to the edge of the dock, dove into shallow water, and broke my spine.  I saw it happen in my head, but I didn’t feel a thing.  I frantically and miraculously swam to the top.  I knew I had made a mistake, but since I swam to the top I thought I must be fine.  I mean, I’m alive…

I didn’t say anything to anyone.  I tried to act normal, and truthfully I didn’t feel much, and I made sure I wouldn’t - so I kept drinking.  I was agitated and anxious. I knew that there was pain but I just pretended to be cool, laughed, and kept quiet by my standards, until the alcohol put me to sleep.

I woke up in the most physical pain I’d ever felt in my life coupled with the most fear I’d ever felt in my heart.   It brought me to tears.  I called my Mom and she told me to go to the hospital.  Instead, I was given a pain pill by my friend’s parents and said it was “probably nothing”, and that “I looked fine”. 

When I returned to my Mom’s house from the party, several days later my Grandma waited for me on the porch.  She took one look at me and said, “You’re going to the hospital”, where I was examined, x-rayed, and it was determined that my spine was broken, c6 and c7.

After several days in the hospital and surgery my spine was fused and bolted back together.  Everyone who looked at me had this look of shock, fear, and aw in their eyes.  I didn’t understand that they were looking at a miracle.  I didn’t understand that I was a miracle.  Although I knew I was lucky I still didn’t understand, because I didn’t understand the value of my life.  To me it was just another close call.  I had so many I’d just gotten used to them.

It was only about year later when my neck was physically healed enough to take the neck brace off that I truly began to heal.  I was so excited to go back to belly dance!  I signed up for Gibson’s’ class and once again I sat there sheepishly eavesdropping on people talking.  I was listening to Gibson describe what I think may have been a “thirty day challenge”.  She said:  “I went every day.  It was so hot.  And I was getting better at it.  But I just…hated it.”

I wondered what she hated so much about Bikram yoga?

When I took the neck brace off I had lost most mobility in my neck, simply because I’d not been able to move it for over 9 months.  The rest was lost by fear.  I was afraid to turn my head to the left or the right.

Cera and Gibson showed me some stuff I could do to help.  I knew I needed more, so I went home and googled Bikram yoga.  Besides, I wanted to know why Gibson hated it so much.

I found Funky Door yoga on Polk Street in San Francisco, only a few blocks from my apartment in the Tender-Knob.  I read reviews on yelp that had one - two stars - warning people not to enter this studio because “it’s too hot”, “it’s gross”, and “they have disgusting carpeted floor”, but I kept reading.  For all the nasty things I read, I also read amazing things like people “losing hundreds of pounds”, “curing themselves of old injuries”, and “overcoming disease”.  It was unbelievable.  I had to go try it for myself.

So I did, and it was true what I’d read.  I walked up a stairwell into a crowded lobby.   It was tiny and covered with shoes.  I sat down to take my shoes off and looked up at the desk, which seemed to tower over me, with a few people with sparkling tans, chiseled muscles and tiny spandex outfits clustered behind it.  I found my way into the studio and sure enough, there was an unusual odor.  The air was thick and wet.  The mirrors were covered in a hazy film.  The instructor walked in, wearing a headset, teaching to a room 30 or more people.  My brain must have blocked out the memories of my first Bikram yoga class, because that’s all I can recall of this day.  Whether or not I enjoyed the class, I had signed up for the intro special and you’d better be damned sure that was going to get my bang for my buck.   I went almost every day for two weeks.

It wasn’t much longer after that my time ran up in San Francisco.  I moved back to Pennsylvania and I wound up in Lititz; the coolest little town in America.  (Seriously, look it up!)  Just outside of Amish Country.   Good old Lancaster PA!

I looked everywhere for belly dancing in Lancaster, and although it seems crazy, I couldn’t find a single belly dance studio in all of Amish country.  However, there was a Bikram yoga studio.  I thought, “I guess this will have to do.” 

It was there I once again tried an intro special, and this time I stuck with it.  The studio had a community class which was free every Friday night at 6:00, which I attended almost every week.  Just like Gibson, I hated almost every moment of it for the next three years.  I certainly had my work cut out for me!

After four years of practicing Bikram yoga, I was now 24 and still trying to figure out how to put my life together.  I’d wrapped up a degree in Liberal Arts and decided to work at PNC bank because I felt like I needed a “real job”.  A 9 to 5.  I couldn’t bar-tend and waitress forever.  No more coming home filthy and exhausted.  No more late nights.  No more 7 day weeks.  It was time to grow up and settle down.  (After all, that’s what people do after they graduate from college, right?)  I tried as hard as I could to be a “big girl” now.  I dressed up in business casual clothes, made my best attempt to stop saying “dude, sweet, and man”, and although my coworkers assured me I was doing a great job, I knew I wasn’t.  Not only did the discrepancies in my drawer prove that, but so did the discrepancies in my heart and head.  I could never focus.  Time just stood still.  I knew I wasn’t good at my job.  So it was hard to try.  I’ll never be some executive bank lady…I can’t even be a good bank teller! 

I can’t remember if it was the lack of inspiration that inspired me to attempt and complete my first thirty day challenge at Bikram Yoga Lancaster.  Daneen Rund, the studio owner saw something in me around this time.  Just like at belly dance, at the yoga studio I was awkward and shy.   But she and I began to develop a friendship, probably because I was in her class every day.  She told me she thought I’d be a great…yoga teacher and that I should go to…teacher training?!  She even said the studio would loan me half the tuition and I could teach classes to pay it back!!

Sure, days where I felt amazing and inspired on my mat and by my teacher I thought it’d be great to be an instructor someday.  Well, my someday had come.  I’d been practicing for four years.  I knew the incredible healing powers yoga offers, and I was conveniently working at PNC bank!  

So literally a few weeks later I’d taken out over 10k in loans, packed my bags and was headed to Bikram’s teacher training in 2012. 

‘That was the warm up series.  Now, the real yoga begins!’