Email to My Yoga Teacher

Tammy,

Recently I went on a bicycle ride right next to the beach.  This is something I do often.   It was the middle of the day and extremely hot.

A couple of miles up the road, my bicycle computer indicated that I was cruising.  In fact, I was going a full 3 miles faster than my average speed.  It was a little weird.  I wasn’t pushing any harder than normal on the pedals.  There was almost no wind.  I was riding alone and wasn’t in anybody’s “slipstream.”  I wondered what I had been doing differently that was making me ride quicker.  I was sweating profusely and started having either a daydream, or perhaps a hallucination.  I thought I saw a big parade float in the sky pulling me forward.  As I drew nearer I realized that the float was not a cartoon character but a person doing a yoga pose with the head and back bent over in an aerodynamic position.  The phantom character was smiling down at me.  Then I realized I was actually picturing, you, my yoga teacher, in Warrior III, a pose I’ve never been able to master.

At first I was a little confused as to why I would be daydreaming about yoga during my ride.   Then it struck me.  I realized my head was tucked down and my back was parallel to the ground.  I was as close as I’d ever come to Warrior III and I was pretty satisfied.  My subconscious had put me in a pose that helped my cycling without me even realizing it.  Three cheers for yoga!

I also realized I was relaxed enough to follow the vision in my head.  What’s that old cliché?  When the student is ready, the teacher will appear in a strange place.  In my case, the old cliché might actually be that if you see parade floats in your head, the little men with the white suits will soon be tying you up.

I guess the next question is how can I relax like this in class so I can do all of the poses and skip to the advanced level classes?

This week is Thanksgiving so thank you Tammy for being my teacher and for the apparition on the bicycle.

Gary Kahn