Article by Bleeding Gums (and Toe apparently) Turner can be found here http://www.svrider.com/
Another writer scored free tickets to Glastonbury for writing a few articles for The Guardian - and was paid!
Ignites my ambition again. Time to really start spamming editors about writing something real or cool.
This week has been a bit more peaceful than last week. Had to see the doctor though, and had another famous dizzy spell when I saw the needles in his office. I've been having very bad dizzy spells for the last week every time I move my head on a certain angle. not sure what the problem is, but I think this happens most when I'm stressed. My blood pressure drops. But the good news is I won't have a stroke or heart attack.
Dizziness is particularly bad in yoga when I'm doing all the crazy forward bends. Last night's yoga session was particularly intensive. She folded me into a position I just didn't think was possible, and I was surprised how easy it was. She was stretching meridian points I didn't know I had, and my chakras were expanded to the point they were fraying at the edges. I'd draw you a picture but you wouldn't believe it. Imagine lotus pose inverted and you're almost there. I saw standing on my head, people!
I really do like yoga. But the mindset that goes with it bores me. People are just a little too fervent about their mung beans and hippy tie dye. I have even done a yoga class in India with a guru. But I'm embarrassed telling people that I do yoga because this image of hippy flake immediately forms in their mind. There are quite a few guys in the class too. Most guys you talk to say yoga is a chick thing, yet all classes I have been to are split 60:40, which means that a lot of guys are keeping their asanas very private. I don't blame them.
Often think about Clarissa - the angriest person in the world. Yoga made her livid. She went to one class and was outraged at the things that they put you through. This was the hard-core type (because Clarissa doesn't believe in beginner level) where they use ropes and tie you up to stretch you into poses. (Needless to say this was my favourite yoga class I've ever done).
Once I went to a class in Newtown that read the Bhagavid Gita to us while we were in poses that made it impossible for us to escape. That made me really angry. Sure it was linked with religious practice as a form of meditation. For me, I like the theory that yoga is your own union with yourself. Sure, put me in the pose, but don't expect me to buy into the guru nonsense.
Sometimes I imagine that Catholicism will become a form of exercise. In another 2,000 years people will be gathering to sit, stand and then kneel on wooden pews over and over again, but none of them will read the bible.
OK, I do buy into a bit of yoga, when I'm in the moment. For instance, during relaxation our teacher says: Turn your palms to the sky, let your feet fall open, surrender your body to the earth. I like that. I always think 'let your feet turn open like a well read book'. And it helps me to relax.
Still, yoga looks ridiculous. Half the class end up farting during the more intensive poses (the half that don't know you are supposed to starve yourself before you go). People look stupid. Rather than feeling blissed out and beyond the physical, there's something very humbling about it. It's like I said before: being human means that at our most divine we are always ridiculous.
Confession time: I can actually do both of the poses on this page but should I actually admit to that? Would you want to look like her?
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