Then…So I tried. But I could not find any pictures decent enough, of my bull ride, to share. But believe me, t’was a hoot!
Now…Inadvertently, I left off a couple of my “Only in Milwaukee activities,” from my Urban Cowgirl blog post. I beg your collective pardons. First, it’s worth mentioning, I’ve lived in Milwaukee since 1974 via Kingston New York. I’m completely aware of the fact that the city is woefully segregated. Despite that fact, I tarry on, doing “white people things.”
When I first began Bikram Yoga, I was the only black (never been to Africa) woman in that sultry, sweaty and somewhat smelly studio.
90 degrees. 90 minutes. I thought to myself, “I can do this. I was born in July!” Sure, I am thick but I am fit, and needed to jump start taking better care of me this year. This intensity was just what the psychic ordered.
But a few minutes in, I wasn’t just black. I was hot and black. The room was full of other hot bodies, mostly white ones, but a few of Asian and Middle Eastern descendants braved it out.
I immediately questioned their 90 degree claim. People generate heat. It had to be at least 105 degrees in the room, and I had not struck a single Yoga Pose. Marveling at the heat, I lay on my back (as I observed the others were doing, it seemed right, so I did it too).
My lower back took on considerable stress, as it rose up off the ground. My lower torso, ample as she were, created that hollowed curve off the floor.
“Focus on your breath”, I heard a woman’s voice urge. I could not. I was focusing on the widening pain darting up my spinal column. The weight of my glutes seems far too heavy for lying on a stiff floor, relaxing and sweating the black right outta me, right smack dead on the rented white towel. Surely, there will be a brown imprint of me when, and if, I get up. I meditate on relaxing!
Overall, the experience was good, I just can’t emphasize the hotness enough. Sure there is water for the parched, but drinking too much water during a Yoga session was frowned upon.
The teacher, I thought her a slight unreasonable, melodically gave direction (none of which she took) to get in and out of 26 different poses.
I’ve “flesh to move,” (before I strike a Yoga pose) and that’s exactly what I found myself concentrating on (excess flesh), not my breathing — as we all had been urged. What breath? I felt compelled to hold my feeble breath, as I was simultaneously grabbing my right foot standing up on my left foot only, then charging that hanging right leg forward (no hands) and lock my standing left leg. Yes! She didn’t think my legs were dainty petite and feathery. I know they’re not. My legs are sturdy, dense and heavy, which is why holding my breath seemed necessary.
To the fly on the wall, watching me falling in and out of many of the 26 poses was comical. I’m sure for those who caught a gander at my struggling to grab my ankles from the back while lying on my stomach I looked much the flopping fish out of water. I had the left ankle in my sweaty hand but the right ankle–the right leg would not lift to meet up with my hand. I tried relaxing into it, but I was forced to let go, when I felt the force of the floor on my tummy, caused familiar bubbles to form. I did not want to let one go, as many others had done within the small four walls, cradling their stretching efforts. Not in public. No, I won’t. I don’t care if it’s natural, it’s nasty. It was already too hot and congested to further self-pollute the Yoga process.
In short, which is what most expect from a blog, I twisted this body of mine on the floor, like an eagle, a camel and finally a cadaver. The cadaver pose is known as siddhasana, and it’s a resting pose.
Unbeknownst to me, I was not dead at the end of the 90 minutes, in what my mother loving calls the “sweat lodge”.
Bikram is not a sweat lodge at all. Though it induces a mind boggling amount of sweat for all.
Melanin or not, this form of exercise is not designed for white people only. It’s made for light people (those standing sitting poses nearly did me in).
I ruminate on the floor — dead-like — when I realize we are being asked to thank ourselves. I stand, weak, sweating rivers all over myself. The teacher (my Yogi??) looked at me directly, and said, “congratulations, you did it.” I did it? What “it”? I was puzzled. She went on, with some other yoga talk and said, “For all you first timers, your only goal was to stay in the room!”
Stay in the room? That’s all I had to do?! I nearly gave birth to a virgin child, right there on Commerce and Humboldt. I had been pulling, stretching, fast breathing and slow exhaling and all that had been required of me was stay in the increasingly pungent room for the entire 90 minutes?
OMG!
“Namaste,” she dropped on us all, perkily (she could afford to be perky having not expelled the energy nor the amount of sweat the rest of us had ), and with that blessing, left the room.
Once afoot, no brown imprint either, I lumbered to the lobby. More energy? Hardly. Feel better?nah…worse. Oddly Addicted? Yes.
Since that January 2011 walk on the white side, I’m hooked. And I’ve even seen quite an array of black women stop through as well.
So I have introduced this graceful form of exercise to my high school daughter, Nyla.
After her first time, she nearly melted too. Then the next day, she went right back, across the city, by bus, without me! Now she’s oddly addicted too! Yikes!
There are spots in the Milwaukee, that while not located in the central city, the hood, or whatever is PC today, are too darn inviting and fun not to be for any and every one.
How else will I ever really, get in the black?
Coming soon…Yolanda’s Hillbilly Fishing on the Mississippi Y’all!
