0005 - The Yoga Bus

The Yoga Bus left Pittsfield at 8.37 AM, facing south on rt-100, engine revved for a rapid ascent of Killington's foothills on the way to Pico and Mendon Pass.  The vehicle, a black Jeep Wrangler, took the s-turns with a seasoned maximal velocity - the pilot a local for 7 years now – that never could have occurred if some transient Saab or BMW from Massachusetts created for the driver and sole passenger a one-lane no-passing-zone hell.  

Today the Yoga Bus is a black Jeep Wrangler with a cracked LCD stereo that makes sense immediately upon glancing backwards and taking in the child seats.  The driver is an unshaven, man in his thirties wearing a 'Sub - Pop' t-shirt and slim designer jeans - a 6 foot 4 inch yogi, with too much centeredness to be deemed lanky, while possibly having lanky arms and legs.  Sometimes the Yoga Bus is a black Saturn piloted by me, a shaven headed, square faced fellow in MMA shorts and a three quarter sleeved workout apparel top made by Reebok from the mid 90’s – almost all the logo washed off at this point.

Hitting Killington, and other traffic (and, thankfully, a passing lane) at the Route 4 junction, the Yoga Bus faced westward, and barreled up over Mendon Pass before careening straight down into the plains of southwestern Vermont. 

The moment one passes McGraw's Tavern at The Inn at Long Trail, the highest road around, you know it's all down hill from here.  Your stomach drops as if your car where on roller coaster tracks, pulling you down faster than your body wants to fall.  It is at this point that you know you are leaving the valley.  Here one is outside the caress of the Green Mountains - one is descending into a new climate.  Mendon sits poised as the first town before 'town' - 'town' meaning Rutland.

The entire ride to Mendon, off to one's right, one can peer into the Green Mountain National Forest, a blanket of wildlife that is supposedly forever set aside by Congress.  This swath of trees covers multiple peaks.  One of the smaller of them with an undistiguishing and uncleared summit at 2600', lies before Lower Michigan road, immediately before rt-100 swings east with the White River into Stockbridge, and is called Hedgehog Knoll - the mountain I mean when I say 'my mountain', as in, the mountain I live upon.  

Everyone is welcome to board the bus provided that there is room.  Or room will be made.  We are those kind of folks here in Pittsfield.

Danny got on the Yoga Bus the other day, when it was a Black Saturn.  It would have been a good day for the Jeep, but never underestimate a Saturn, it bore Danny's 400+ lbs bulk easily.  Well, easily enough for me - he did look rather cramped, his sumo-esque frame filling my entire passenger window view, but he didn't complain.  For a man who spends all of his time eating only raw foods and training, he complains rather little, in my opinion.  Sometimes I'll go find him on a 10 mile loop, as he trudges slowly for hours carrying a sandbag.  

He only looks good, he's smiling.  95% of the elite athletes I know won't put out the power he'll emit today in energy expenditure.  

I can't count how many people are too self conscious to go to a Bikram Yoga class because of their weight, fearing to show a little skin and get sweaty with a room full of people.  They must be too fat, in their minds.

Danny didn't have that hang-up, and that lead him to having an amazing class, doing every posture in the sauna like environment.  Danny did what so many can't - let themselves do what they want to do.

The Yoga Bus don't care about your yogi status.  It cares about as much as yoga cares about your yogi status.  Yoga is an activity, not a thing - and all participants are equally engaged, that is, when they are fully engaged.

There is no position outside yourself by which you can judge 'your yoga' versus 'yoga'.  In fact, there is no 'yoga' outside of you.

Yoga is wave, not particle.  We can ride it like S turns, in the Yoga Bus.