Style: Hot
Teacher: Ichih Wang
Studio: Santosha Westboro

Back on the road again. After one day of rest I've reverted into the do-or-die challenge mentality and to get started on the good foot I decided to try a new studio. While I've been to the Santosha on Elgin a few times during the ninety, today I headed into Westboro to experience the original location. Underestimating the power of rush hour, I pull into a parking space minutes before the class is scheduled to start. Glancing down at a torn scrap of paper in my hand with directions and an address, I try my best to decipher my illegible scrawl as I run down the street like a maniac. Dashing up the stairs as fast as I can I scramble frantically to the front desk, trying to catch my breath. Class has just started but I'm welcome to sneak in. Entering the sweltering heat and tiptoeing over a few yogis I eventually find myself a piece of floor and unroll my mat. The next hour and a half drifts away in a sweaty, blissful blur and before I know it I'm back outside in the warm evening air.

Getting home and setting up shop in front of my laptop, I'm sitting in its silent glow, waiting. As I prepare to throw an assortment of thoughts into the digital sea of information, I'm suddenly visited by a most unexpected stranger. Though my front door is locked, it passes through and moves in closer, descending down around me, draping itself over my shoulders. It's an old friend of mine, known as Doubt. As soon as I become aware of its presence I can feel my whole disposition being altered. The calm post-yoga bliss has soon evaporated and the void left behind is slowly being filled by the side-effects of my acquaintance. First it surrounds me, then it slowly starts to suffocate. I'm antsy, I'm fidgeting, I can't sit still or concentrate. I have no idea where this came from. Something feels different about today. After rounding the bend, completing the ninety-day challenge, I feel like I'm on the home stretch. The thing is, I'm not feeling any sort of relief. On the contrary actually. These next 28 days are unbelievably intimidating. It seems to be an immovable object and the voices in my head are cursing and berating my decision to continue. I feel like I can't do it anymore.

Unable to withstand it any longer, I close my computer and make my way upstairs. Looking at myself in the mirror, I can only shake my head, disbelieving the self-constructed predicament I'm in. It was over. Why couldn't I have left it alone? As I turn on the water for a shower my mind is still tossing and turning, twisting itself into knots. It's an unsettling, claustrophobic sensation and I feel like I would do anything to be left alone. I close my eyes and try to taper off the steady flow of uninvited thoughts, but it's no use. Nothing's working. What is wrong with me? As I step through the steam into the hot, cascading water, the stress slowly starts to release its grip. I try to hold my consciousness in limbo, keeping my thoughts as motionless as possible. Soon I'm wrapped in a consoling towel, drying my hair and trying to forget the sense of impending doom that I can't seem to shake.

It all comes down to one thing. Trust. It's hard to live with uncertainty, to survive in the uncharted and unexplored. Nothing is ever guaranteed. I don't know where these last thirty days are leading and I don't know what's waiting for me in Bali. To tell you the truth, I don't even know what to do with my life. I cant help but feel lost. Moving blindly into the unknown is terrifying. It's all about trust. Somehow deep down I understand that I just need to let go. I need to trust that when I take the next step, the ground will be there to support me. Life unfolds in the most fascinating but mysterious ways and it tends to be completely unpredictable. My mind wants everything to be laid out in an understandable order. It wants a succinct blueprint, a precise diagram. It wants a road-map with all exits clearly marked, a step-by-step itinerary that I can follow logically to get from point A to B to C. Life doesn't seem to function like that. It seems to be a headfirst plunge into potentiality. Nothing is definite and anything can happen. I just need to hold on to some trust, some faith in the outcome. It's all going to work out, I just need to know that. Tonight that knowing is easier said than done.

Style: Hot
Teacher: Michael Dynie
Studio: Ottawa Yoga

Pulling up in front of Rama Lotus under the beautiful, blazing sunshine, I take in a deep, euphoric breath and step out of my car. I proceed to take three steps, and suddenly I feel a rusty blade tear through my chest, ripping a ragged gash across my heart. I locked my keys in my car. They're still in the ignition. My car is still running.

I feel my blood come to a boil, then it begins to curdle. Every inch of my being tenses up in frustration and rage. As I listen to the engine of my car purr mockingly at me, my inner dialogue mutates into a never-ending string of profanity. Every curse word I've ever heard, including a few I invented come raging through, spewing out black exhaust deep inside me. My teeth are clenched to the point where my jaw is coming dangerously close to snapping. My fists are balled up and my knuckles are bone-white. I'm tempted to grab a two-by-four from the construction yard across the street and smash in my windows, maybe just let loose on my car altogether until it looks like a crushed tin can. Fury spins me around in circles at a dizzying pace. I want to wage war on the entire world. All the while streams of relaxed yogis flow gracefully one by one into the studio while I stand outside watching, hating them all. Oh and my cellphone is in the car. Great.

As some more time passes I abandon my God-forsaken car and walk up the street, looking for a payphone. Halfway around the block I find a phone booth and feed it a few quarters. How the hell did I do this. I call my buddy Jakob, and fifteen minutes later he meets me with a coat hanger and a fork. Um... okay... whatever works! Luckily, my car is ridiculously easy to break into and a few tense minutes later we're in. By now Ichih's Yin class is well underway, and I'm on my way back home, having accomplished nothing, other then sending my blood pressure skyrocketing out of control. Yin is definitely not going to cut it today. I need to burn this self-inflicted turmoil away with something more powerful. In the meantime, I start to realize how absurd my reaction was. I completely plunged into the deep-end, absolutely obliterating my progress and taking ten steps back. I close my eyes, sinking into a meditation, practicing a few pranayama breathing techniques. Soon order is slowly returned to my internal government, all arguing and hatred slowly subsiding and fizzling out. The frustration I endured felt like an internal chemical toxic-waste spill, contaminating my whole nervous system. I'm taken aback at how easy it was to lose control, how fast I went from bliss to a near-murderous rampage. Like a reflex, a knee-jerk reaction I threw everything I've worked so hard for out the window. At the very least it's a lesson, one I've been tested on and failed over and over again. I think I'm slowly getting the point though. I can't let outside circumstances regulate the balance of my internal climate. I need to maintain composure at all costs. The bottom line is, things could get a lot more intense then being locked out of my car, and I need to be prepared to keep calm. I'm learning, I'm paying attention. I'll figure it out eventually. I got this.

Style: Hot Flow
Teacher: Ian Fraser
Studio: Rama Lotus

A quarter of a century old. Today is my birthday. I guess that means it's my twenty-fifth lap around the Sun. It feels like it's been absurdly brief but also incalculably long. I've seen twenty-five first days of Spring, twenty-five Christmas Eves. I have a collection of misplaced abstract memories, echoes of people and places, disorganized fragments of storyline and context. The passage of time is perplexing. In fact, I've always found the concept of time to be alien, hard to relate to. It's a strange thing. You remain inherently the same inside, but outside you age and decompose and fall apart. You're an hourglass with descending sand. Or are you?

Turning twenty-five while simultaneously having a sick grandfather close to the end of his journey, I'm finding myself in a very reflective state. The fragility and brevity of individual human lives are remarkable. Someday I too will be in my last few moments, within reach of my last breath, looking back over my accumulated time. It'll be a day just like today. It's hard to make sense of things. Maybe you can't, maybe you can. For tonight, I'll let it be. No need for existential melodrama to ruin the evening. Here I am, breathing. I don't really need anything else. Time does stand still once in a while, and I'm going to soak up the moment. If it all ended tomorrow I'd die thoroughly satisfied.

Walking in through my front door after dinner and drinks at Play, fifteen close friends jump out of the woodwork, initiating an impromptu surprise party. I'm being told I no longer work at 6 am tomorrow morning. Apparently they've called my boss and arranged a day off. The unexpected spontaneity of the situation throws my world momentarily off-kilter, but soon I've adjusted to the situation and relaxed into my new reality. Before I float off into the joy and comfort of good friends, moments that are about to become part of my amalgamated past, I'm reminded of words spoken by a wise young man, and I understand. Happiness is real when shared.

Style: Hot
Teacher: Michael Dynie
Studio: Rama Lotus

It's a bit of a strange feeling. Today marks the crossing of a threshold, the passing of the halfway point. When I think about it, I feel like I've come a long, long way. At the same time though, it's like I'm still standing at the starting line. The process has only begun to make its mark on me.

Tonight I'm back in the Sun room at Rama Lotus, paying homage to the room that inadvertently won me 30 classes. When I was last here, they had some glitches with the temperature. Moving through a challenging Hot yoga sequence in the sweltering heat, gallons of sweat forming a puddle on my mat, I realize they must have figured it out. The heat is loosening and relaxing my muscles, helping me move into the positions deeper then ever.

Something is definitely happening to me... something special, something that isn't easy to describe. It's hard to remember a time when I didn't have a daily yoga practice. Maybe it was in a past lifetime. I look forward every day to that small slice of time when I put the world on hold and journey inside, penetrating the shell of my consciousness. When this challenge finally comes to an end, when I find myself on my ninety-first morning, what will I do then?

I'll probably unroll my yoga mat. Om Shanti.

Style: Hot
Teacher: Amanda
Studio: Santosha Elgin

Tepid Yoga? Having never been to a Hot class at Santosha, I figured this cold bleak night would be a great time to start. Unrolling my mat and sitting down, I start to realize it might be a little more lukewarm then hot. It was then I remembered Ichih explaining to me that their heating panels had been stopped at the border for weeks, but were going to be set up as soon as possible. For the time being heat-fans would be in use. Looking around the room, it looks like only one is working.

I'm feeling naked and exposed standing in the cold darkness, wearing tighter-then-saran-wrap hot room shorts. For a split second I am reminded of those dreams where suddenly you realize you're in public and you're not wearing any pants. Completely exhaling my lungs, then drawing in a deep, full breath, I try to let go of my self-consciousness and insecurity. Every now and again I find myself caught up analyzing and critiquing my body, noticing with disdain various details that don't seem to look exactly like the promoted Hollywood prototype of sexy. Overall I love my body, don't get me wrong. Nevertheless I find myself wrapped up from time to time. If I don't look in the mirror and see a photoshopped Calvin Klein underwear model standing on my mat, something is not right. It's hard to love bodies of all shapes and sizes when only one make and model seems to be of any value. I just want to be wanted like everybody else, to be appreciated and admired. Moving through the practice I slowly let up and let go of the America's Next Top Model casting call mentality. By the end of the class, again I feel a deep gratitude, thankful for a flawlessly functioning physical shell. I'm a perfect version of myself, and I don't need an illusory stereotype to dictate what my configuration should look like.

Style: Hot
Teacher: Louise Sattler
Studio: Rama Lotus

The laziest robot in zone 1. Today, everthing is neutral. I feel like I'm litterally walking Buddha's middle path. I've been floating scene-by-scene through the motion picture of my life completely removed. Sound seems to be coming from far away, lost in the distance. I'm watching the world from underwater, unaffectedly content with the unfolding of time. One page to the next, reactionless...

Another Hot class late in the evening just goes to show how much freedom the instructors have with the style. Two nights,
same-time-same-style-same-teacher, each class completely unique unto itself. Tonight Louise switched up the sequence, orchestrating a rigorous choreography, and that cybernetic indifference never left me. I flexed and folded in and out of the postures, experiencing the physical sensations like they were happening to someone else. Like my own ghost, hovering slightly above myself, aware and watching.

Staring into the soft glow of my laptop screen, it stares back at me with the same blank expression. Am I relaxed, or am I just drained? I have no words at my command, no vocabulary at my disposal. All grasp on language and ability to form sentences seeped out my pores and into my towel in the hot room. I'm stiff, worn out. Words will come. The craving for pure, comforting, refreshing silence is my only focus. I surrender.

Style: Hot
Teacher: Louise Sattler
Studio: Rama Lotus

Hot yoga: another anomaly? The terms Hot yoga and Bikram yoga are often confused and used interchangeably. In actuality, they are two completely different styles. Hot yoga is yet another form of Hatha preformed in a heated room. Much like Power yoga, one instructors version might vary widely from another. From what I understand it came about largely due to Bikram's widespread copyright lawsuit crusade. If you ask me, Hot yoga is comparable to Moksha yoga in that it feels like a blend of Hatha and Power with the influence of Bikram. The further I delve into the yoga universe the more the lines dividing different individual "styles" begin to blur.

After a never-ending day of dutiful tasks for the system I'm back at Rama Lotus. Today is the first of classes in their newly constructed Sun room. Dimly lit in glowing candlelight, I twist and sweat my way away from the last 11 hours. The reset button effect of daily yoga is priceless, making this 90 day journey more then bearable. When it really comes down to it, through the toughest moments I find real comfort in the thought that even on the 22nd day I'm less than a quarter way in. The unrolling of my mat is a crossing of a threshold, a gateway from the everyday world into an inner space. Every time you cross this threshold of self you never return exactly as you went in. You are altered, ever so slightly modified. You experience a mutation of consciousness, blooming and evolving into pure potential.