**Hot Yoga with a Wobbly Frame**
*The stretching is secondary; the essence lies in the awareness.*
Discounts are effective only if utilized. My 50-class hot yoga pass? Thirty remain, just two months until they lapse. What helps me isn’t discipline but a small ritual prior to class. A box of Intention Cards is located at the entrance. Most practitioners walk past it, but I rest my hand on the deck, shut my eyes, and select one. I wait until I’m on my mat to reveal the card.
The first occasion, I didn’t think much of it — aside from the fact that during intense poses, my gaze kept straying toward the card. My mind oscillated between chatter and the aspiring yogi within me trying to remain grounded. The card became a stabilizing force, a gentle nudge. After class, I rushed to the locker room and noted down everything that came to mind. In the following class, I took my journal.
Some view it as a diversion — my partner does. He believes that insights will remain with me until after class. I disregard that. Each breath ignites a thought, an epiphany, or a dialogue between my characters that I cannot afford to overlook. So, with moist hands, I pause, scrawl a note, then return to the pose we’ve already transitioned from. At one moment, I was present in the room, but my thoughts wandered elsewhere — a spa on a space station, evoked by the heat, nurturing a novella in the works. When the teacher raised her voice — I suspect directed at me — the daydream shattered.
After class, she asked if I was training to instruct. Initially, I thought she was commenting on my poses. Either she was mistaken, or perhaps I’m quite good and just overly harsh on myself. Then, she indicated my journal. The intention cards and the concepts they ignite have become my primary incentive for returning. I acknowledge what’s unfolding: by concentrating on my breath and the repetitive motions, I enter a meditative state that allows my creative instincts to rise above the cluttered thoughts. I recognize that these realizations are also populated with busy thoughts and are, fundamentally, distractions from the discipline of yoga.
Perhaps one day I will take my partner’s suggestion about trusting my memory for after-class reminders. For now, the open journal stays beside the intention card, waiting.
This is the first of many musings from *Hot Yoga with a Wobbly Frame*.