Conversations with Bikram, Part II

5:00 pm class: Bikram

I'm dragging, wondering how much longer I have to take class. And it's only week two.

Out of some death wish, I put my mat in the center of the room, close to Bikram's podium. I've been fearing pain all week, and it just gets in my way during class. It's time to bust through it. The teachers will not get any more merciful as the weeks progress. I want my pain now.

I bust my ass during class, so Bikram won't have any reason to pick on me. But during standing bow -- which I've had a love-hate relationship with from day one -- he points at me.

"Your feet aren't even in REMOTELY in one line! Get up here!"

The class stops as I get up on the podium and get into standing bow, in the eight-inch space in front of Bikram's chair. Bikram grabs my right arm (which stretches forward) and left leg (which kicks over my head). He looks at my left foot and announces to the class:

"She needs a pedicure." He pulls my arm forward and my leg up towards the ceiling.
"Stretch forward. Kick more. Stretch more. Stretch more!"

He keeps pulling. It feels like I'm going to rip in half. I have no balance of my own; if he lets go I will probably lurch off the podium. Then he yanks on my left leg. I hear a horrific double pop in my right hip and feel a huge rip in my right hamstring. While he holds me in this ungodly stretch:

"Who paid for the training? Whose money is it?"
Dear god, just let me go. Okay, my mother lent me the money, but he made fun of the last woman who fessed up to that: "Your mother wasted her money!" I'm not going to fall prey to that. "Me!"

"And who got the money?"
Holy shit. This is bad. "You!"

"And who ate the money?"
What if he really damaged my leg and doesn't know it? "You!"

"So who's the idiot here?"
Why did I sign that waiver releasing him from all responsibility of injury? "Me!"

He lets go and I stumble off the podium. My right leg is still freaking out and there's about an hour of class left. It still hurts to walk. Why did I fall asleep in Emmy's lecture on pain?

Thank god my roommate is a massage therapist. When we get home, I sit in an epsom salt bath, then Nalini works on my leg for about an hour.

Well, I wanted my pain now. That's what Bikram sells. And does he deliver.