yoga at its best.

yesterday i had the fun task to go and buy myself a new airbook. unfortunately it wasn’t as fun as i had envisioned it because i had to go to the v&a, i was hormonal, and the sales person at the istore wasn’t as clever as i would have hoped for so it took forever. no, actually scrap the first and the last – i was just hormonal. i watched glee afterwards and cried all throughout.

at 10pm after i was done with all the crying i decided i should do something useful and so i started to download over 2000 holiday pictures on the new airbook. for some reason that didn’t work immediately and once it worked, it took forflippingever. that didn’t help my overall mood. i thought i decided to write a little story about it all, only to realize that i couldn’t because i didn’t have a writing program yet. bleh. luckily that was the moment when i came across the pictures i am about to share and they made it all better. pictures from the bestest and most fun yoga class ever.

so my plan was to do lots of yoga while travelling. i bought a yellow sticky towel in lieu of a mat and downloaded the bikram dialog on my computer, i packed a set of yoga clothes and started to envision myself practising on a hotel balcony, bamboo floors, gentle breeze, overlooking the ocean, and all. alternatively i was being surrounded by some little vietnamese kids, teaching them tree and lion pose, laughing and giggling a lot. not sure how i acquired the kids in my vision, but i wasn’t questioning that at the time.

and then reality came along.

it started well enough in bangkok where i had made contact with a local bikram studio before and actually found myself in dire need of a good stretch on my first day. you’d assume that an hour and a half is plenty of time to get places, however in bangkok it is not especially if like me you can’t read thai and don’t trust directions. so after an hour and twenty-seven minutes i was already dripping sweat (thanks, humidity!), it was about to rain, and i was about to cry, because i had just spent an hour and twenty-seven minutes trying to find that damn bikram studio that didn’t want to be found. i was about to give up and look for a cocktail instead when i finally saw a sign “bikram this way”. it was after an hour and twenty-nine minutes that i arrived out of breath and by now completely drenched at the studio. hurray.

class was as it was to be expected- a bit underwhelming; after an hour and twenty-nine minutes i guess i really needed bikram himself to be there or for them to throw confetti at me for making it in time or something. nevertheless i got my stretch and thanks to the teacher took the boat back to my guest house which was awesome.

• after that my yoga practise became even trickier and i could give you some excuses why i was so lazy for a month because of it, but actually i have solid, good reasons: 
• a sticky towel only sticks on a mat. it doesn’t stick on any other surfaces, something that i wasn’t aware of before i bought it.
• a sticky towel doesn’t substitute a mat. comfort wise you may as well be rolling around practising on a bare floor.
• most 1 or 2 star hotels don’t have balconies overlooking the ocean.
• people look strangely at you if you stick your tongue out at their kids. try to explain that you weren’t being impolite, but wanted to do yoga with their kids is hard in vietnamese.
• whenever there was time for yoga, there was also time for beer.
• drinking beer makes you less sticky than doing yoga.

so it should come as no surprise that the only sort of yoga class happened after two beers, on a junk boat, in swimsuits with more laughter than proper breathing. mind you, it was one of the best (and nobody pulled a hamstring or went overboard which always makes for a successful class!)

sorry no editing, no out-takes - they were all just too awesome:

bangkok, baby!

i arrived last night at 2am in bangkok, which now had completely spoiled my plan of having my first pad thai upon immediate arrival. it took another two hours to get from the plane to the asadang, but once i arrived everything was just right. i have told you of my high hopes for this guest house and you know how it sometimes goes with high hopes. they get disappointed and especially if you spend an exorbitant amount of money on something, it usually cannot live up to it. well, it wasn't that case last night when i arrived. i will write a proper story about it at some point, but just know for now this place is magical and if you ever come to bangkok stay here immediately and book the room with the balcony and the tiniest spiral staircase that leads up to it. i swear back in the day they used this room to lock up the naughty princesses: the most beautiful, but the most difficult to access room in the whole house!

it was 4am by the time i arrived there and i was completely hyper and instead of taking two sleeping pills i had a beer on my balcony. then i jumped around like a crazy person, uuuhing and aaaahing over the fresh orchids, the shampoo that smells like jasmine, and the fact that the mini bar is free. when i finally did go to bed i couldn't sleep because i was planning my day ahead which resulted in me oversleeping and waking up extra groggy.

cats on a hot tin roof are my neighbors.

now after my first day i am back on my balcony. with a big bottle of singha which the kind chaiya organized for me from the shop next door, because wouldn't that just cheaper. water is rippling next to me by the canal that i'm overlooking and the night is warm. you will ask why the heck i am at my hotel and not out on a saturday night in bangkok, right?

i had a bit of a revelation today. here was my original plan:

get up at 9.30am.

see wat pho, the grand palace with the emerald buddha, and wat arun.

eat pad thai for lunch.

find that little massage place which a journalist friend of mine recommended for a cheap, but incredible thai massage.

go to the night market to eat THE pad thai, a tip from yet another travel journalist.

have at least a beer on khaosan road.

i only got as far as wat pho two hours after my intended start in the day. which i realize now is because my alarm was set to 9.30pm. after seeing the reclining buddha and some others, i wanted a massage then and there even though i knew it would probably be cheaper at the little massage place. i didn't care, because i was technically at the thai massage centre of the world, it was hot and humid - by the way if you don't like the temperatures in a hot yoga studio, do not come here! - and i wanted to not have to run around to find a massage when there was one right in front of me. after the most blissful 30 minutes my feet ever had, i also realized that i didn't want to spend thb 500 ($15, zar 150) to see the grand palace. ups. scandalous, i know. but i started to ask myself - what do i really want to do and spend my money and time on? not what people think i should do or the guidebook or my friends who have been here or the travel bloggers i like and read. what do i want?

 peekabo buddha. it think he not only looks enlightened, but also a little bit cheeky which i like.

and so i went back to my hotel to have a coconut ice-cream snack. then i managed to find my way to a bikram class, which i will tell you more about later, because i still think it was quite an achievement. i took a slow boat home and got probably the best view on wat arun, lit in the dark, dazzling, and grand. then i went to eat pad thai next door to the asadang. and i ate all of it. and if there would have been any space left in me i would have ordered another portion. it was THE pad thai for me tonight and i almost wanted to cry it was so good. 

and now sitting on my princess balcony, being eaten by mozzies, listening to the sounds of a city and feeling very content. that contentment that comes with truly hearing me, feeling me, checking in with me, being me. mind you, i am also incredibly tired and full, not only of pad thai, but of a new city. a city that i want to become friends with and maybe more. i don't want to be over it before it even started just because i tried to do it all in two days. bangkok, i like you, so let's take things slow and have another beer on my balcony first, okay?

view from the boat. sorry for the quality and lack of wat arun, but my iphone was really scared to end up in the water. 

relax, don't do it.

i’m still getting used to the south african winter. after a few winters of being incredibly cold i learned my lesson and got a good duvet and started to wear proper shoes and a jacket. before i was one of those grumpy, cold people, stomping my flip flop clad foot: but this is africa, why do i need to wear a jacket?! but now i learned and the weather and i are fine.
however the work seasonality is still a strange one for me. like so many other people here, i too work in a seasonal job – production. that means long, work filled days during summer and short days, filing and picking up three phones calls per day in winter. i know i should enjoy less work and while still in summer i do look forward to the winter season. before i usually come up with a list of all the incredible things i want to do with my newfound freedom free time. last year’s winter list included:

give my flat a make-over.
give my wardrobe a make-over.
lose 5kgs and make my abs visible.
learn french.
blog every.single.day. and spellcheck too.
learn to cook new meals that do not include pasta. okay, that would never be on any list of mine.
write the novel. oh yes, i too have that plan, don’t we all?
write real letters to friends and family at home.

guess what is on this year’s list?

how a peacock squashed my nose.

as per usual i started to make a list of all the things i wanted to do on the long weekend. luckily i almost immediately ditched the list. i have been very good at list making lately, but not so good at ticking things of said lists. nothing makes me feel less productive than just making a list, but nothing that’s on the list. and when your productivity is already low the last thing you really need is to have it rubbed in your face by with the accusing look of an uncompleted to-do list. so i stayed away from the list, but just allowed myself to be genuinely excited for the three days off.

and though exciting might not be the term for some to describe the type of weekend i had, for me it was definitely a good and a busy one. i went mushroom hunting with some friends and turned into a photo snapping, maniac tourist when we saw baboons back at the car park (which was fun at the time, but unimpressive after my friend told me later that she just saw koalas and kangaroos at a graveyard (!) in perth). on sunday i had a lovely father’s day dinner with my south african dad thanks to his daughter thekla who cooked up a storm for her papa and then got further spoiled with my friend making oxtail pies from scratch for us yesterday.

i took a nap every day, which – call me old – was a highlight!

i also spent a few hours each day at the studio, teaching and practising and found myself with very sore arms this morning after surprise! surprise! a few vinyasa classes. if you want to know one yoga related thing about me it is that i only like bikram yoga. as far as all other kinds go, i know different people like different things, but for me i couldn’t care less about them. however with the way local studios are structured i don’t get enough bikram practise, especially when i teach myself, so i decided that i needed to give vinyasa a chance again.

a lot of people say that they feel intimidated by bikram yoga, that everybody who does it is insanely fit and toned already, an a-type personality, etc. this may or may not be true for some, but for me it is not. however it would describe how i feel about vinyasa. plus it adds an element of speed that always reminds me of an aerobics class when i am the person who is always a step behind because i can’t coordinate my arms and legs in a timely manner.

but we all know the little drawing with the circle and the dot, the comfort zone and where the magic happens and since i need some magic right now, i braved a few classes. it wasn’t quite magical, but i did enjoy myself a little, that was, till i attempted peacock pose. with my legs in full lotus, because that’s apparently easier (ja, right!), and my face flat on my mat i had all of a sudden nowhere to go and no idea how to get out of it. if you don’t know what i am talking about - i made a little drawing so you can picture it - how it should look like and how i look like:

obviously i was a bit embarrassed, not so much because i couldn’t do the pose, but because i couldn’t even get out of it slightly graceful and under what i perceived the watchful eye of other students around me, who know me as a teacher. it was only with a sore nose that i somehow wiggled my way out of the pose and then just sat on my mat and laughed.

and so here is what i learned this weekend:

magic is overrated.

if you can’t get up gracefully, opt for just getting up.

laugh at yourself before others do.

turning an experience from i failed at something into i tried something and only squashed my nose a little is something you can call an accomplishement.

the story of how i killed my fridge with stillness.

i'm not particularly good at sitting still. this is one of the reasons why i never go to the movies and why i don’t meditate. i have tried a few times unsuccessfully to do it and still body and my mind. i either end up with roaring back pains which seems to make the semi-still mind not very worth it or i fall asleep when i attempt to do it lying down. bikram yoga was probably made for people like me as it is also called a moving meditation. however even with all the movement, my mind still manages to go elsewhere; think about cupcakes or how cute the boy behind me is and how i should pull in my tummy  more or how i envy the girl in front of me because she doesn’t have a tummy to pull in. so all in all not very meditative either, but at least i’m working up a sweat.

on sunday i came out the shower to find my yoga mat on the floor drenched in sun and i had the sudden urge to just sit still for a moment and also drench myself in sunlight. even though the german in me is enjoying the cold and the rain and uses the weather as reason to stay gemütlich inside, the sunlight appealed most to me about the idea to sit on my floor and do nothing. i needed sunlight on me immediately. i am not sure if it deserves the term meditation yet, but i enjoyed sitting quietly for about 25 5 minutes, didn’t mind my wet hair dripping and had fewer thoughts than i thought i would. overall it made me feel quite peaceful and just when i started to rethink my whole approach of meditation-is- stupid-and-for- eremites-in-caves-who-have-nothing-better-to-do-only, the fridge died. i basically meditated the fridge kaput. so much meditative energy  coming out of me and boom! – electricity tripped, me still and fridge still. great.

i conclude: meditation – good for you, bad for your home appliances. just like the bacon which set my oven on fire last month.

about me.

i recently made the decision that i want to upgrade this blog on a whole lot of levels. but as i mentioned in my last post i am a lazy sock so despite me having a lot of time right now (see, i already did learn to admit – i am not too busy!), not a whole lot has happened yet. add to my general state of mind that i have to pack for a camping trip in desolate wilderness beautiful platbos forest and you will see me in a slight state of panic not conducive to writing or making blog upgrades.

so i decided to do a go-to post for lazy socks bloggers and make a list with random things about myself. under the pretence that it will eventually move into the about me section,  it will thus qualify as part of the upgrading and not be a complete and utter sign of my laziness.

x things, i didn't count how many, about me:

apparently i'm a funny and not only by german standards.

i speak english with an american/german/south african accent. my uncle still calls it my bloody yankee accent but he also calls my motorcycle boots cowboy boots so his americanisms are clearly a bit off.

i like to travel and to come home equally much.

compared to mine, modern family is quite old school, most days i'm okay with that. i have A LOT of cousins and sometimes i number them for easy reference but not necessarily in the order or importance.

i like to drink wine and do yoga equally and together on special occasion. therefore i claim the title queen of wine.

i teach bikram and find that any other forms of yoga are stupid just not for me.

my parents made me take a typing class after school. that was the single most useful thing i ever learned though i hated it at the time and they had to bribe me with mc donald’s lunches.

giraffes are my favourite animals so i tend not to post very many cat pictures. if that is what you came for, sorry.

i have very messy hair. i use de-volumizer and to the demise of most tie my hair up all the time because i end up looking like a baby bear if í don’t.

i was a complete failure in physics. my teacher said i owed him a six-pack for enduring me in his class for a whole semester. i told him this logic could work either way. we called it even and nobody got beer.

i do kiss and tell sometimes. i kiss well and tell good stories too, so just consider yourself flattered if i involve you in either.

as my mind is busy packing for said camping trip i may or may not have forgotten important details about myself. so if you detect something that I missed and you need to know – just ask away, I will answer almost anything. 

To read or not to.

I wanted to write about books. So I wrote and wrote and upon looking for a reference in my stories already posted, I realized that I had basically written and published the whole thing already two years ago. Shit. Does that happen to other bloggers too? You would assume I can remember these things. Or at least check my own blog before starting to write. Anyhow, read it here and know everything is still the same except for the fact that I got a Kindle and love it to bits. Putting corners in pages is overrated.

However I wanted to write about books because I was inspired by my favourite list-lady who asked for lists with your favourite books this week. Since I have just experienced the joy of finishing a book in just a few hours (Gone Girl) again, I feel quite inspired to lay low on the Grey’s and instead read something new. So I liked the idea of exchanging book ideas with others.  But upon looking through some of the lists others had already written I realized that might be a tricky one. I might share a common interest in Harry Potter with someone, but if the rest of the reading list contains of Nicolas Spark and Lauren Conrad, I… rather not comment.

Mind you someone could feel the same about my list. After all I don’t like the Great Gatsby nor Great Expectations.  I thought instead of summarizing the books I’d rather give a short explanation why I like them so much. Know where I'm coming from and then judge away if you must. Hopefully you will rather go and buy some books,  Lauren Conrad or other…

The Travel Book – Lonely Planet.

My best book of all times. It has moved across oceans with me despite its weight. It’s my book for inspiration, for making me feel good, for dreaming about other place, for deciding where I want to go to on vacation, and for looking up capitals of the world if I need to win a bet and want to outsmart Google.

Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class – Bikram Choudhoury

A must for a teacher, but also a really great for an avid Bikram practitioner. It is equal parts posture clinic and a really good read. The man is crazy, but really funny.

Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone – J.K. Rawling

An ex-lover gave it to me as a farewell gift when I left for New York. Call me silly sentimental, but I felt very connected with Harry as we were both thrown into new worlds that were a bit scary, but where we ultimately belonged.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet – Reif Larsen

I smiled throughout the whole book and I still smile whenever I make corn on the cob. It is just.so.freaking.awesome.

The Brothers Lionheart – Astrid Lindgren

My favourite childhood adventure ever. Dragons, evil rulers,  revolution and cherry blossoms.

Why Do You Kill?: The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance - Jürgen Todenhöfer  

& A Mighty Heart – Mariane Pearl

I’d put these two together, because to me they both tragic yet wonderful stories that illustrate human compassion, tolerance and forgiveness as qualities above all else to make the world a better place.

The Night Circus – Erin Morgenstern

Made me want to run away and join the circus for real. Ever since I have been bugging her on Twitter to finally write another book – she is brilliant.

The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty - Anne Rice writing as A.N. Roquelaure

Not sure why Amazon compares it to 50 Shades of Grey in their review, because it was there first and it’s a BDSM novel done right. And yes, it does live on my nightstand.

The Alexandria Quartet – Lawrence Durrell

I have tried and failed many times to get into it. For some reason I think I must try again, because something tells me I’ll love it and it will be a favourite.

For full disclosure and here comes the part you can judge me for: I love all historic novels by Ken Follet and Rebecca Gablé. Tough thanks to the latter I will also kick your butt at pub quiz when the topic of War of the Roses ever comes up.

Bikram mon amour - part II.

 

I don’t like to just copy and paste something I see on the internet. Sometimes I do, yes, but in general I think it makes for a lazy blogger. Today is different though as I just found something on the Yogazone Facebook page and it just hit me:

 

This explains why all my relationships in the past haven’t worked out - I actually have never dated anyone who does Bikram too. Dah! This is what I need:

Problem solved, next please!

Coco love.

I think we have sufficiently exhausted the fact that I love all things coconut, right? Lucky for me I double checked my old blog posts to see if I had already written about my love for coconuts before writing this one. NOT! I found the one where I did and I even called it life lessons from a coconut, because that’s how important I think they are. You can read it again here and then go out into the world and eat/drink more coconut.
The drinking part was always a bit tricky in Cape Town as it was really hard to find coconut water for a long time. PnP carries fresh ones sometimes, but I learned that lesson in the Seychelles – they are bloody heavy and won’t easily fit in my yoga bag.
Luckily Wellness Warehouse has caught up with my wishful thinking and is now carrying nicely bottled coconut water from Coco Life. Tada. Let me just say having my little bottle after class yesterday was the highlight of my day. And yes, it was even better than the kittens. That's why I thought I should work on more of these highlights and I wrote this letter:

Dear Coco Life person/people/owner/marketing/PR team,

will you please sponsor me? Feed me coconut water trice a day or at least once after each Bikram class? I will even wear a t-shirt with your logo if I have to though I'd prefer little shorts. You know cotton, tight, short shorts, saying coco life across the bum. Smart people and cute boys looking at my behind in class would surely get the reference to the Coco de Mer coconut which actually looks like a bum. What do you think? You can also just send me coconut water if you are not keen on the shorts/bum idea, I won't be upset, promise!

Sincerely,
your biggest fan*

Any


I will keep you posted on the progress.

 *I know it sounds a bit creepy/stalkerish, but they need to know that I'm not joking around, I really am their biggest fan.

Struggle for the good.

Many wise men believe that struggle is good for you. Maybe they are just telling us this to try and make some light of a horrible situation, but you just have to look at the Dalai Lama und you will believe it works. At least in theory. Maybe you actually have to be a bit holy to start with.  

Bikram, though nobody but himself would count him into the same category of wisdom as the Dalai Lama, believes it too. Not involving hunger, oppression, and forced migration in the struggle, hi just happens in the quaint, contained environment of a yoga mat. Which, if you do yoga, you will know, can be the most liberating of all places, but also the most scary. Quite often changing on a daily basis. He doesn't mind that inconsistency and he doesn't mind the scariness. It all comes with the struggle and struggle is good. Usually during locust he will actually animate his students to struggle harder like struggling is your new best friend. If you get uncomfortable in any posture really, well, just struggle some more and believe in the old-fashioned slogan of what doesn't kill us, makes us harder.

Another yogi friend of mine puts it a little less harsh and simply says that you gotta put in effort till it becomes effortless. On the mat or off I think that applies to almost anything in life. Some things ain’t easy and we need to work hard to get through. Which we usually try to avoid, because we like the way of least resistance. I think struggling has become a lost art in our world of 90 day marriages, 2 minute noodles, and a whole lot of general quick fixes. Maybe we should reconsider and try to relearn this art and actually bite our teeth into something else than a fast-food burger.
Instead of letting it all go and having it easy, maybe we should struggle a bit harder? After all the Dalai Lama is quite awesome, so wouldn't it be neat to be a bit more like him? Or at least manage a perfect locust one day?

In case you do wonder what brought on all these questions and less than happy thoughts… it wasn’t my perfect locust posture. I have just struggled a lot lately with life and on the mat and am trying to make sense of it. My yoga practise always seems a nice metaphor for what is going on in my life. Yesterday again I had such an intense class, my blood felt it was boiling and I could hardly lie still for a breath or two and I really, really struggled. Thinking about it and how it made me feel, I realized that it might not be a bad thing. That in fact a bit of struggling might just be exactly what I need to bring out some good – on my mat and off.

Food for thoughts.

I might be in the dog box with you, but I just can’t get a story rolling. There is simply too much stuff on my mind this week, all feeling very important (the stuff, not me), but it doesn’t really add up to much of a proper story yet.

If you care to know regardless, just because you love me or because you are bored right now … I started thinking about Christmas gifts for my family and whether I should buy some in Morocco. Only then did I slowly start to wrap my head around the fact that I will be in Morocco shortly, which seemed more time appropriate than thinking about Christmas. I will admit I’m slightly terrified. I don’t think I have ever travelled to a country which will be so different from what I know. At the same time the thought of being completely outside my comfort zone is exhilarating. As we all know -after reading all these yoga studio postings - this is very the magic happens! I will also tell you a secret. You may find it weird. Ever since…well, ever, I loved to hear the adhān. Even in Istanbul when I first realized that it is mainly electronic these days, which made me sad, because some things just shouldn’t be, I still loved it day and night. Church bells make me nostalgic, but the call to prayer fills me with a sense of desert and kohl eyeliner and adventure. I find it romantic in an odd way. Don’t ask why, that’s just the way it is and yes, Orlando Bloom in Kingdom of Heaven may have reinforced that feeling over the years, but he did not initiate it! With all that in mind I am actually quite excited to go to a proper Muslim country for the first time and be kept awake by something else than my elephant-esque upstairs neighbors.

However I have mainly be thinking about yoga this past week. There might be a new teaching opportunity for me, but it’s not confirmed and I’m nervous, feeling like the girl who waits for the phone to ring. I’m actually expecting an email, but you know…same sort of feeling.
I have also thought a lot about Bikram. About all of it really…the man, the concept, the teacher training, my own practice… I even started reading Bikram’s book and the dialog again and to my surprise I find much that is new and inspiring. It also makes me desperately want to be back at my old studio and practice twice a day if I please and not be restricted by silly timetables as I am here. Dear Cape Town studios, I really want to practice on a Friday afternoon/evening – how come that none of you, 5 hot studios, offer one proper Bikram class??
I don’t know if anyone can feel my frustration, but it doesn’t matter. You can just regard this post as a diary entry which was allowed to go public. I could add much more to this one-way conversation, but I don’t think you are terribly interested in my bad massage experience or my new found love for Katjes and hate for bloggers who write about chewing gums or work ideas swirling in my head. No, I don’t think you will care at all and I don’t blame you. I will mention though that I am back on Pinterest, mainly because so many people started following me and I hadn’t pinned anything in years and felt bad. I decided it was actually the perfect place to put up giraffe pictures from now on, so you have an actual choice whether you want to see them or not. Go here if you dare.

Sharing one last thought before I’m off for the weekend: I will be attending Cape Town fashion week tomorrow. Yup, you read correctly. I didn’t think I would ever bring myself to it. Ever. Can you see me rolling my eyes and the sarcasm dripping of your page already? But what one does to make a teenage niece happy. At least you will get a highly snarly entertaining fashion report out of it on Monday. Till then… happy weekend!