Don’t I look Yogafabulistic! I sat on that rock for 30 minutes till someone…..

The things I notice is that I look thin sitting down. You can see space between my elbows, I did a happy dance when I saw this photo!

……finally, came to my rescue and took that picture. Okay, for the first 20 minutes the squirrels in Mears’ Park literally ran circles around those lovely white birch trees dancing mere inches from Corky’s nose just across the water. They were relentless, if I had my F350 dually and was out at the Torturro’s I ‘d saunter over to my truck pull out my pink pistol pull the trigger and shoot corn nuggets to feed the poor fellows. I am not that red neck, I don’t own a gun, yet! My dad did make sure I was proficient in gun safety and I did my share of shooting as a kid. Just not a real gun fan now a days. No need to own one, at least not for me.

I just knew that Corky and I would look so cute sitting there, that surely someone would come and offer to take our picture. I hadn’t planned on the squirrels or the fact that by the time the dog settled down and my clearly obvious gestures of sitting there with my Droid……

Bill's sister lives on Little Birch lake and we spend many weekends at her cabin with Bill's neice and nephew. Linda is one of the strongest women I know and she raised two fine children I am proud to call family!

…..in my hand taking pictures would surely end, when a kind person finally offered to take the photo. Thirty minutes on a small flat stone surrounded by cold water, one can say I was stiff and that smile was trying. But it is the photo I was looking for to celebrate the next chapter of Will and Bill’s Excellent Adventures.

You see moving to Minnesotawas Bill’s idea, not mine. However, Bill has followed me all over the country this last decade while we opened a bed and breakfast and an equestrian event production company, so there was never a question when Bill wanted to return to his family. The problem was

After we got my great photo I wanted one of Corky!

The Fat Yogi and Nicole.....look at that fat cowboy it is a wonder my horse ran that fast!

that once I got here, it did not feel like home and then to add to the misery, Minneapolis got hit by the November Snownami 2010 and then pummeled by one of the worst winters in more than 30 years….. I don’t do snow!

I like to cross-country ski and downhill ski and I am little kid on a tube or a sled, but…… I don’t do snow! Just like as a cowboy barrel racer, I did not do horse shit. Of course I have shoveled, albeit less than my fair share of shit and snow, but I have shoveled a great deal in my life. I would not call me lazy, I am just extremely motivated to find other options than shoveling. You might say I have shovel PTSD.  In fact I shoveled my way through six years of graduate and undergraduate education. Every summer I worked for my Mormon buddy who owned a landscape company. He and I would spend weekends in the fall either setting up a pumpkin stand or preparing for the Christmas Trees and gift shop sale at his nursery retail center in Idaho. I more than know the value of work and being poor, but i also know how to avoid a shovel at all cost…..I bet I am not alone in that skill. It is all because my father had me shovel 13 tons of mud from behind our house in the 80’s to pay for my high school ring.

I have shoveled so much that I know I don’t like to shovel, it is a job best left to those who enjoy it and I am willing to go to great lengths to avoid things I don’t like. So my horses were kept in stables and my life is in a loft in Lowertown St. Paul.

Why Lowertown Saint Paul?

Last year after spending several weekends trapped in our home or a hotel because our hybrid could not clear the snow in the alley. It did not matter though, none of the

Living in a loft neither of us will have to shovel! Poor Bill he was way better at shoveling than I was.

4wd’s could clear it either, the city was shut down. Shortly after the trauma I told Bill that I would live in Minnesota as long as we are in a Sky Way condo  or loft and then I worked until I found us one. Hence the photos of the our loft. Next week we will showcase the loft in it’s own blog post.

So the reason this photo of our next life adventure, is of me alone sitting contentedly in Mears Park with Corky. Is because I finally am feeling like I have found a home. I have a vision for my future and a

Bill on a tractor in Oklahoma!

plan. I have a wonderful family that supports all I do and I have a brilliant husband whom I adore. Lowertown Saint Paul, Minnesota is now my home.

The Fat Yogi’s Next Bold Adventure!

So as Bill settles into his new job at an IT firm in the Twin Citiesarea it is time for me to begin working on my next projects. Here is where things are getting interesting. Once I shed the weight, I found some incredible energy and a new vision for my life. Bill says, “You change the world one person at a time, Will”. I never really know what he means but I think the person who changed

So here we are! Will and Bill in Minnesota!

from my blogging so openly and honestly about being fat and doing yoga is myself and since I love to write and create and share, I truly hope that I can inspire others to shed their fears and find their own best life. Along the way I am going to blog about my schooling, not only will the recipes continue, but there will be projects that I share with my readers as I learn them and work on them in my new studio/mudroom in our loft. I often feel as if I have been blessed with an incredible curiosity but a short attention spanwhich was why barrel racing was such a great sport for me. The

Here is the cool old werehouse that houses our loft!

entire competition would run from 14-18 seconds, I probably have ADHD and that was about all the concentration I have, of course we accomplish about 80 separate movements in that 14 seconds….lol…back to the story….

So I have been accepted into the pre-interior design program at University of Minnesota College of Design. I know exactly what my readers are thinking and they are right, gay guys barrel race, no matter how much I pretended the sport is filled with straight dudes, there are a few, but honestly that sport is gay guys and hot chicks. So yes I am following my next passion in life and going to design school as a 47-year-old man. My daughter Hillary just got a $20,000 scholarship to the University of British Columbia, so we will both graduate the same summer in 2015. How cute is that?

We are never to old to got back to school and chase our dreams!

Here is one of the rooms I did at the Inn and Spa at Parkside that Bill and I owned in Sacramento, CA. Bill really wanted a yellow room and it is not one of my favorite colors to work with so I used it once! The end result surprised me. The room was called Kiss and I imagine there was a lot of kissing done in this room. That was the point!

So the Fat Yogi is still going to be a blog where we really talk a lot about being fat and doing yoga, because it is an everyday struggle for me to eat correctly. But I do go back to the principles out lined in my food plan every time I take a diet holiday I never go more than three days and then with steely determination I start over and the end result is 182 pounds and dropping!!! Yogafabulistic!!!

During the first week or so of moving into our new loft while we were building walls and furniture our diet was less than perfect and as we got all the dishes unpacked and the kitchen restocked, we went firmly back on the eating plan.

So yes we are going to still be a blog about food and yoga and reclaiming our lives, but part of reclaiming our lives is following our passions. My entire life has been spent it chasing

It took us 30 days, two new walls, a new entry area studio/mudroom, and 1300 square feet of vast empty space. Are you curious about what I have gotten done and what is going to be done? Stay tuned!

my passions and it is fitting that my hunger for design and my desire to live with my husband Bill Swenson has brought me to the first home I have truly felt is not just Bill’s home but this loft on Mears’ Park in Saint Paul. Is now my home also!

I Have Lost 36 Pounds! My Waist is 33 Inches! Check out my After Photo! Nothing is ever coming between me and my Calvin’s!

Nothing is ever coming between me and my Calvin's ever again!

The last couple of weeks have continued to be as busy as we have made an offer on a loft in Saint Paul, bought bikes and have been cycling the great city of Minneapolis. I have been stretching and doing yoga at home. I have a 20 minute routine I have developed to keep me flexible between yoga classes when I get busy. If anyone would like to learn my 20 minute routine let me know. It is simple but gets your major joints open each day for a more enjoyable day. Especially if you are an avid outdoor enthusiast. We are planning to do cheat day bike rides as a way to get out doors and see the Twin Cities

 

It is like the Twin Cities have been asleep for 4 months and has just woken up and everyone is outside…..I love it!

My First Class With Bikram Choundry

 

Will and Rajashree at the Yoga Championships: More to come tomorrow on my interview with Rajashree and USA Yoga! Plus videos of the Minnesota competitors!

I was able to escape from the harsh winter of Minneapolis, MN to the perfect March in California for 10 days. On my first full day there, I went to the Los Angeles headquarters for Bikram Yoga, to take a yoga class at the world headquarters. I knew that on the following Monday Bikram himself would be teaching but as long as I was in Los Angeles for the Yoga Championships I would practice at the Head quarters. Imagine my surprise when he the teacher that day.

After four months of hard winter in Minnesota, I was surprised at how perfect the weather was on my drive to my morning class. Of course my own winter madness had not thawed as well as I had hoped when I found myself chewing out a fellow yogini for taking a parking space that was rightfully mine. So you can imagine my surprise when I walked into the lobby of the studio that was jammed with students, not just a packed class, but a class so full that our mats and towels overlapped our neighbors mat and towels on all four sides.

Abbey and her husband rescued me by taking my mat and towel. I was so happy to see a familiar face in that sea of people, I hurried into the locker room and changed. Abbey and her hubby had saved me a place next to them.

Bikram made his way into the class and began teaching right from the start. He let us know that his classes were always long because so many people come so far to takes his class that he always gives 100%. This class was no exception it went about two hours.

Bikram is 100% a large personality person and he is a happy person. You can’t help but feel his excitement as he teaches. You actually smile and giggle a lot in his class. Of course the class is so crowded. My head was in the guys feet in front of me and my feet were all over the lady’s face behind me. It was a little disconcerting too not be able to see your knee, your eyes, or anything you wanted to look at to correct in the mirror, all you could see was bodies, but not your own.

When I bent over to do separate leg stretching, on my way down I had to sway to the right so that my chin would not hit the backside of the dude in front me as I went around his leg then ducked under his butt. However I forgotten how I had gotten there when Bikram finally released us from the pose. I raised my head straight up in to the ass of the guy in front of me.

Bikram really explains each and every pose and in a class of 80 or more students he had no end of students to guide into better expressions of the current pose. Of course that means the rest of us are free to remain in the pose until Bikram releases us. Yikes!!! No wonder I forgot how I got down separate leg forward bend and almost knocked the guy ahead of me over.

If you have read either of Bikram’s books or listen to his CD’s, you know that Bikram is a character and a live wire. I don’t really want to tell you everything he said or everything he did that inspired me to be a better yogi, but he was definitely inspiring!

Bikram is a celebrity in the world of yoga and to take a class from a world-class teacher, who has taught presidents and movie stars, is treat that we should all make time to enjoy.

Hot and Sexy Hook-Ups at Bikram Yoga? Plus the ERECTION poll- Do they really happen in class?

 

Does Mr. Martin really think that a yogi can even think about sex while doing a pose like this? I know that sex is the last thing on my mind when I am concentrating on following the dialogue to get into the poses of Bikram Yoga!

Hot and Sexy Hook-Ups at Bikram Hot Yoga? Plus the ERECTION poll!

Everyone at my yoga studio has been getting all worked-up about Clancy Martin’s article, ‘The Overheated, Oversexed Cult of Bikram Choudhury’ in this month’s Details magazine. Mr. Martin spent a few days at the San Diego Bikram Teacher Training and he shares his highly sexualized observations with the readers of Details Magazine.

 

Now, I have not been to a Bikram Yoga Teacher Training, so I can’t declare that there are no hook-ups happening, but it appears that Mr. Martin may be living in his own fantasy world. What is more likely is that he spent a few days with some of the most fit men and women on the Earth and was soundly rejected or he had an agenda of writing a sexy story and took a lot of artistic license. Either way his description of Bikram Yoga and hot sweaty hook-up sex has not been my experience or the experience of any of the hundreds of yogis and Bikram Yoga teacher’s I met met over the years.

He launched into his diatribe by sexually describing the participants as ‘not quite naked’, men with ‘perfect rippling muscles’, and the women he describes as, ‘long and taut, with fatless stomachs curved just enough to be erotic’.  His first two paragraphs are completely titillating, designed to turn on and excite the males readers of Details, but does not portray the realities of Bikram Yoga.

Now, I am not a prude and frankly there are some very sexy bodies that attend Bikram Yoga classes. That much is accurate, but to claim that men are getting erections in their yoga shorts on a regular basis certainly is doing more than stretching the truth. I have practiced Bikram Yoga at studios all around the world, from Maui to London for the last 4 years and I can report that I have never seen a man with an erection during yoga and I have spoken to teachers all across the country and they have never seen a man with an erection in class.

If Mr. Martin was paying attention to the dialogue being taught by Bikram and his teachers during the sessions he attended and not drifting in and out of a sexual coma, he would have heard that the yogi’s are directed to look into the mirror and only look into their own eyes or at their own knee or at a spot on the ground. Yogis who attend Bikram classes have a real sense of respect for their fellow yogis. There is an unwritten law of privacy in the classes. We each are directed to gaze at ourselves and give that privacy to others.

With such a focus on respecting the privacy of others and gazing only at yourself, one wonders when these so-called erections ever surfaced in class. Now I am going to be frank, I have never seen an erection in class and I have never had an erection in class, but that does not mean it does not or has not happened. However, in speaking with the other guys in the locker room at the studio we practice at in Minneapolis and trust me us guys have real locker room talk despite the fact that we are a mixture of straight and gay, none of us copped to getting hard in class or seeing a guy with a hard on in class. So again we have to question Mr. Martin’s sources.

So we have looked at the privacy that is honored and taught in class and at the experiences of the men who attend class and so far there has been a resounding not to the issues of erections in class. But what Mr. Martin fails to realize is that Bikram Yoga is an intense full body workout that really can kick the ass of the yogis who practice it. Seriously it is a tough 90 minutes. Class is literally 90 minutes of heat, sweat and tears. Students are so focused on their own ability to make it through a physically demanding  class that getting turned on and getting laid is the last thing on your mind. I am not sure exactly what was going through Mr. Martin’s mind, but I can tell you that sex is not on the minds of the students in the class. You cannot contort your body into the camel pose and at the same time throw wood!

Hence that is the reason for today’s poll, to see if male erections occur in yoga classes or teacher training and to see if anyone has ever seen one in a yoga class. One would think after reading

Mr. Martin does to yoga what men have done to women since recorded history, he sexualizes the practice and the participants without really delving into the healing benefits of yoga and the life changing experiences many of us who practice Bikram have come to love.

Now I must say that women generally attend yoga more than men do, but there has been a huge increase this month in the number of men coming to our studio here in Minneapolis. Just a few days ago the class had about 15 guys and three ladies. So the top side will be more men will be introduced to Bikram Yoga and many will actually learn that this workout kicks the ass of any other workout they have ever done. This is a tough workout and men will enjoy it.

While Mr. Martin may have sexualized the clothes that yogis wear in hot yoga, he was really missing the point of why we wear so little to class let me enlighten him, “Dude, it is hot and we sweat, duh”! The less we wear in class the less trapped we feel. In reality the men wear the equivalent of a square-cut Speedo and women wear yoga bottoms and what resembles a sport bra. Yes we wear clingy clothes that form to the body, in order to move with freedom in the poses and not constantly have to rearrange shorts and sweat pants. Not to mention that we would be miserably hot wearing traditional gym clothes!

I am sure that there is a certain amount of sexual dalliances that occur at Bikram Teacher Training, but I imagine that most of the Mr. Martin’s experience came from his own imagination!