Monkeys in my heart

Last Sunday a friend invited me to a yoga class. After two weeks spent exclusively in my car, at a desk, or on the couch I was in serious need of a body reconnection. I have done yoga, in a not very disciplined manner, off and on for the last 6 years, but what I have learned could not have prepared me for this class. My understanding of yoga is not very historical and not very sophisticated. I took it up pretty diligently for a year or so after my brother committed suicide. It was a way for me to process the ocean of that experience and I am almost certain that without it I would have...well, I wouldn't have been able to face the reality of that death in quite the same way. The class started late and the wooden floor was filled by the time the yogi, a be-turbaned, 67 year old woman, joyfully made her way to the front of the long room. She was late and she spoke for some time about a yoga conference she had just returned from. She had attended the conference as the lead representative of Kundalini yoga. My only association with the word kundalini was from a Love and Rockets song from the '80s. I figured it would simply be a variation on what I already knew -- mindful, sustained poses that allowed the systems in the body to reach a heightened level of function and balance. My friend warned me that the class was intense and I thought I was ready. Suddenly the yogi ended her debriefing on the conference and told the class, all seated, to raise their hands and begin shaking them. She turned on music, a kind of Indian disco, and encouraged us to let ourselves give over to movement and light. Not knowing what to do I jumped right in - I shook every part I could. The class did not stop moving for almost 2 hours. We danced on our feet, we did an incredibly difficult series of push up like movements with first one leg in the air behind us and then the other, we continued with a painstaking series of leg lifts and sit ups. It was practically aerobic. At several points during the session I began to sob and then suddenly stop sobbing. At one point I had to drop out of the movement and sit in child's pose to quiet my head and stomach. At the end the lights were dimmed, we were told to lie on our backs and cover up with blankets and an oddly agitating and calming series of bell tones washed over the room. The yogi spoke throughout the class on the topic of loneliness. She relayed advice that her guru had relayed to her in her youth, "If two lonely people come together, they can only make more loneliness. But if they have something to give one another, that is the reason they have met." The class was constantly encouraged to speak to itself, out loud, in song, or silently. Some of the students spoke up, many of then sang, I heard my friend laughing out loud several times, everyone seemed to be in serious conversation with something unseen. I struggled minute by minute with how ridiculous and vulnerable I felt and with the physical demands I was putting on my body. I did not strain, but I was inspired to reach beyond my level of comfort. I had to force myself over and over again not look to the other students to see how to move "right" - following the yogi's encouragement to move from inside our bodies, to move with integrity, to move in the unique fashion that our individual bodies were able to move. It was difficult. The room was full of different bodies, but most were in remarkable shape. But, comparison, tempting as it always is, is self-destructive. By the time the class moved to the cafe area for vegetarian soup and fresh salad I was caught between invigoration and profound vulnerability. Three days later I'm still not sure what happened. I could only categorize it as one of those very "LA moments." Disassociating, but seductive. Unnerving, but pleasing. Thrilling, but full of uncertainty. Today my triceps are burning. Yesterday it was my pelvis. I can only hope the soreness will have ebbed by the time I'm ready for another kooky, demanding, ridiculous and humiliating introduction to that house of my discontent, my body.