Bad Yogi

I was pretty hungover today at yoga practice. (Still am, in fact.)

I went on the .83 bike ride last night and had a wee bit too much to drink. (Now, there’s a funny concept, and one assessed only in retrospect.)

It was a great time, punctuated by two high points:

1) Gliding down First Avenue in tight cycling formation, hitting all the lights right on yellow, one after another.

2) Being led to a secluded observation platform on Harbor Island (I think), hanging out in panoramic view of the Seattle skyline, drinking beer and getting rowdy—at least insofar as people playing beer can baseball with a U-lock and engaging in random nutsacking qualifies as rowdy—while the miraculous Daniel Featherhead miraculously flew (apparently) to the beach below.

So when I woke this morning, dry-mouthed and headachy, at 5:30AM, I thought I might as well get up and go to the studio: I couldn’t feel much worse and perhaps I could sweat out the booze with a few stretches.

I usually practice at home on mornings-after; I tend to go easier on myself in the living room than the shala and I generally skip the inverted poses that really get the hungover head throbbing, but since tomorrow’s a moon day and because with all the morning meetings this week, I’d only made it to the studio once so far, I decided to ride over to AYS.

I’m never quite sure what the respectful gesture is: do I express my devotion to the practice by showing up in whatever state I’m in or do I stay home unless I’m relatively pure?

I was paranoid about sweating beer on everyone, but I couldn’t smell any and even Jen didn’t wrinkle her nose when gave her a good-morning hug back at home.

Oddly, I had a good practice, at least in terms of flexibility. But that could be due to the four Excedrin I popped before leaving the house.