Spin Class is NOT Yoga....right?

I usually get up and go to the YMCA to work out on Monday and Wednesday mornings, typically arriving between 6:15-6:45am. This morning, thanks to the new puppy, I was up at 5am. There's a point during sleep where you know if you get up now, you're up. And if you go back to sleep, you'll sleep for longer than you had intended, and that choice was before me this morning. So, having a lot to do on this Monday morning a week before Christmas, I chose to get up. After finishing my grocery list, I decided to head to the Y to get my workout done. When I walk into my YMCA, there's a spin class room that's very near the entrance and I usually see them in there pedaling away to some good music. I've been tempted to join them to check it out but them I remember that I really don't like to bike all that much and I head upstairs to the eliptical machine and my DIY channel and end with a bit of yoga asana. It's a very effective, enjoyable and educational time of day for me. This morning, I walked in at 5:55 and decided that I would try out the Spin Class. Now, anyone who listens to anything about exercising or going to the gym has heard about the Spin Class. The people who spin are dedicated. They sweat. A lot. They're motivated people. I, on the other hand, don't really like to bike as it's not a comfortable situation. Nevertheless, I ask the ladies at the front desk about the class and they encourage me to try it. I tell them I don't really like to bike because it hurts my butt. Instead of saying something like, "Oh these seats are really comfortable. You'll be fine." They say something more like, "I KNOW! My butt hurts for days after this class." Ummm, not really the reassurance I was looking for but the decision has been made and I'm going to try it so I can at least say I've done it and know if I like it or not. Okay. Here we go. I recalled seeing that people always walked in carrying a water bottle and a towel. I luckily had a water bottle in my bag so I grabbed and filled that and, not wanting to dig all the way through my bag, decided to forgo the towel. How sweaty can you get, anyway? (I've done plenty of Hot Yoga so I actually do know the answer to that question. They make special towels to absorb all of the Hot Yoga sweat because the answer to "how sweaty can you get" is VERY sweaty. Gallons of sweat, sweaty. So, I KNOW sweaty and felt that this couldn't possibly compete). So, I walk into the room bidding the front desk ladies to wish me good luck, which they did. I see a bike that no one has yet claimed with their water bottle and hop on. I begin to pedal and notice that the tension is obviously on 0. Sweet! My next thought is, "Dang, this seat is NOT comfortable." Seriously, these seats are joke, right? It's hard as a rock and nestles up right between my sitz bones so that, with every turn of the pedal, it just nestles itself deeper into the edge of the bone which it is obviously wearing away like water running over rock for millions of years. So, I'm not comfortable. As I'm having this very obvious realization, the teacher comes over to introduce himself. Like I said, spinners are a dedicated bunch so when a new face walks into the room, it's like a spotlight is shining down on you with sirens that scream, "NEWBY, NEWBY, NEWBY!!" So, George comes over to say, "hi" and make sure I know how to use the bike (I was feeling just fine on tension level zero, thanks!). He was very nice and welcoming and he seemed to think I'd be just fine in class. Okay. So everyone saddles up, the music starts, and we're off. My butt hurts but the tension is okay even though I've started to crank it up past level zero to maybe a level 1/2. I'm good. We do a few minutes of warm up and then he tells us to really crank it up so that our pedaling matches the music. Okay, I have to increase the tension because I'm flyin' over here! So, I turn up the tension a bit more and look down at the floor and notice a few droplets there. Is the ceiling leaking? No, I'm starting to sweat. We're about 3 minutes in and it's happening already. As we progress through the 45 minute class, each song becomes a different focus. Sometimes it's a hill, sometimes you stand up, sometimes you get a drink (for a few seconds), but you're always pedaling and always adjusting the tension up and down. When a seemingly never ending Beatles song comes on through which I was really turning up the juice on that tension, I remembered that Beatles songs are only about 3 minutes long. This was going to be a long class! He finally tells us to stand up for the next song. So, we crank up the tension and stand up so we can stay with the beat of the music. As I stand up, I feel all of the blood flow back into the my bottom much like the flush you feel after Garudasana (Eagle Pose). Hmm, interesting. I've had yoga teachers say (and I'll admit to using it in my classes too) that we store our junk in our trunk. So, pairing the cleansing effect of the blood flush with the junk in my trunk, I'm thinking that I got rid of some stuff every time I stood up in class this morning. Yes! We get about 1/2 way through the class and George brings us into a seated hill sequence. He says to really get your glutes into it but I'm sorry George, my glutes are busy being masticated by the bike seat. I'll catch you later on that one. My quads are serving me just fine, thank you very much. By the next song, I'm starting to understand why Amanda Bynes got off her bike and started doing her makeup in the middle of class. I can sympathize with that. When there are 15 minutes left of class, George comes over to check in with me and give me a little pep talk to get me through to the end. "You doing okay?" "Yep" "Can you make it to the end?" "Yep" Okay, here we go. Last 15 minutes. I got this. I've been practicing Yoga for a lot of years now. I know what it's like to have days where you get on your mat and struggle through a practice and then finally reach a point where you just let go. Your breath comes easier,you feel yourself relax and, suddenly, the struggle is gone and you're just there, on your mat, with your breath, and it's just bliss. As we were working into that last 15 minutes and there's a pumping song on the stereo and my thighs are burning, I'm breathing hard and deep and then...it all just melted away. The discomfort, the sweat that was now dripping off of me in rivulets, the struggle...it just dropped away and it all felt good and right. It was that moment of bliss that I've felt time and time again on my mat and it was right there in Spin Class. I don't yet know if I'll do another Spin Class. Time will tell and I have to see how I'm feeling over the next day or two. In the end, I'm grateful to have the reminder that I can experience yoga - that coming together of breath, calm, and release - whether I'm on my mat, on a bike in Spin Class, or driving in my car. It's always with me and available to me and thank goodness for that!

Camper: How a Nature-Skittish, Squeamish Girl Grew up and Became a Camping Mama

I'm an unexpected camper. I went camping with my mom and grandparents once, maybe twice (but probably just once) when I was a kid. My grandparents had a big camper that they'd take to a lake and hang out for awhile every summer. My mom thought it would be fun to join them. Boy did she learn her lesson. While she grew up going to the family lake house every weekend in the summer, her daughter did not. And she did not like this idea of camping or putting her feet into a lake where you couldn't see the bottom and what is that touching me!?!?! The fire made me sneeze, I HATE mosquitoes, the bug spray makes me sneeze and itch, and creepy-crawlies are not on my list of favorites either. Needless-to-say, my only takeaway from that camping trip was the obsessive searching for and worrying about spiders that I absolutely knew were sharing my bed with me. I must have been a ball of fun. So no-one was more surprised than me when, 25 or so years later, I found myself suggesting to my husband that we try camping. What? Well, I became a mom of boys. That was part of it. The other part was listening to stories told by my brother-in-law about how his mom would take him and his 4 siblings camping. By herself. He talked about it with such fondness and with such respect for his mom that I decided that I wanted to be that mom. I could do this. I could get over my life-long aversion to all things camping and take my kids camping. By myself. Yeah! It goes deeper than that, though. I want my boys to see their mother as capable. I want them to see me as someone who doesn't back down from a challenge, who does things, tries things, and makes things happen even when they're hard and even when it goes against all that I've ever known to date. I want my boys to have those same, awesome memories of going camping with their mom. And, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em - that's pretty much become my motto since sons 3 and 4 arrived. So, I convinced my husband that this was a good idea - or at least that it wasn't the worst idea in the world and that I was going to do it with or without him so he might as well be on board (he's a saint, that one). We gathered all of the necessary supplies that my friends and the internet told me we needed to have, figured out how to put up the tents, I purchased full-fledged allergy medication and bug spray, found a spot and headed out with another family on a moms and kids trip. And it was awesome. My boys loved it in a totally primal way. They came alive in a way I had never seen them be alive - they were exuberant, wild, filled with life and joy and so very happy. It was a joy to watch them; I knew I had made the right decision and was so glad I had taken that leap. I should mention that my twins were all of about age 2 1/2 at this point so nothing was easy, including camping, but I was determined and they too seemed like different kids. They even loved sleeping in the tent. It really was awesome. We did several mom and kid trips and had a great time. We even convinced other moms and kids to join us and it truly became this whole village type of thing and I loved it. My husband even started to join us after that first year when he kept hearing all of our great tales. We have now caved a bit and, last summer, got a pop-up camper which we're having fun using. We're mostly fall campers and having a pop-up allows us to extend our season and gives us a place to go during inclement weather and still be able to move around. My oldest son, the teenager, still prefers to set up his tent and have his own space which is perfect for him. Some call it cheating, I don't care. We still tent camp sometimes and sometimes I can still convince a mom or two to go camping with us. Somewhere along the way, we became a camping family and I couldn't be happier. Last weekend, we went on our most recent trip with our Spanish Foreign Exchange Student who was with us for the month of July. Camping in the US is different than camping in Europe and it was fun exposing him to how we do it on this side of the pond. He loved his first roasted marshmallows and s'mores declaring them "beautiful!" My favorite moment, however, was when a rain storm hit. We all went into the camper and crowded around the little table. There, we sat playing games for a couple of hours, laughing, talking, and being together in a way that just doesn't seem to happen in our busy, modern lives at home. One of the biggest reasons I love camping is that it allows us to be together as a family in a different way than we are on a daily basis. There's no technology, nothing to distract us, and life gets simple. We go for hikes, we sit around the fire, we play games, toss around the football, we laugh, we talk, and we just "be". It truly is beautiful.

Summer is almost here! We've had quite the year so far with M being in 7th grade, G in 6th grade and the twins age 5. Everyone is growing up and it's a blessing and a challenge all at the same time but mostly a blessing. We've had challenges surrounding dogs in which we had to put Teddy down due to him biting too many people and not being safe to have around anyone except M and myself. And then we got this awesome, amazing puppy that we all loved so much and she died when an infection in her belly went septic. We were devastated. And yet we remain open to love and giving that love to another dog that comes our way. And for those who know us, it's not surprising to think that will be soon as we tend to move on with life fairly quickly. In other news, we all survived the winter that almost didn't end rather well. By the end (in early May), the kids were bored with their usual playthings and were getting into some of the toys and games that they haven't touched in a long time. It was fun to see their creativity blossoming. The twins became expert fort builders over the winter and we now know the location of every single blanket and pillow in our house since all were used sometime in the last couple of months. Life continues to move forward and we all continue to grow and learn. We work to see and smooth out our challenging areas and breathe more life into our areas of strength. Tim has a great balance at work that enables him to use his extensive knowledge and skills of supply chain systems and all things technology and organization and still spend plenty of time with his family. And I continue to teach several yoga classes a week and am moving toward formally offering my services as a nutritional consultant. We've spent so many years navigating the world of food allergies and healing that I've amassed a fair amount of knowledge that can be helpful for others; I look forward to watching that develop. The boys are wrapping up their school year. It's fun for me that I can now give them the complete list of what I want them to accomplish in order to be considered "done" with school for the year and they can largely work on it at their own pace. M is almost entirely self-directed and he loves that. G still likes to have some direction and support and that usually works well for all of us too. The twins are dabbling here and there with math and learning to read and simply exploring life which is the best teacher of them all. So, we'll see how soon I can eek out another post. It's nice to catch up every now and then. I think about it often but rarely actually get to logging on and posting (obviously). Just add that to the list of things I could be more consistent about. Life is nothing if not fulfilling and I'm grateful that I have so many wonderful things in my life that I can't find time for all of them. It's nice to have options. :) As always, life is good.