Kim Anami

3 22

Are you dying daily?

I’m still traveling, as part of this epic road trip, home-hunting year. We’re off to Bali again in April (one of our homes) and I’m holding a retreat there in May.   

What’s warm in southern Europe in April? Anything? Suggestions for awesome spots in southern Spain and Italy?

We’ve spent most of the winter in LA, taking advantage of an innovative and healthy cultural ethos which can give birth to such things as this:  

It’s a juice vending machine, serving fresh, cold-pressed juice, 24/7. This is at Kreation Juice in Beverly Hills.

I’m in my element.

I’ve been hitting up some of the local, rockstar yoga classes while I’m here.

One of my faves is Vinnie Marino’s class. He teaches in Santa Monica and his classes are full of super-buff, fit people.

His class does that to you.

The sessions are typically packed to the gills (80 or so people) and yoga mats are lain side-by-side with virtually no floor space visible.

It’s like a big, sweaty rave.

The other day, Vinnie was sick.

It was tragic.

People turned around and walked out of the studio. Others were on their cell phones, trying to find another class that would rival the intensity of his.

I asked one woman where she was going. She mentioned another class by someone else later in the day that would be hot, sweaty and edge-pushing.

“My body NEEDS that,” she said.

I get it.

I’m always a little nervous before I go inside Vinnie’s class. There’s a tangible buzz as people are lining up to get in the door.

The energy is high. There’s anticipation and excitement.

Something is. Gonna. Happen.

You don’t know exactly what. But during the course of that class, you will be taken to your edge, over it, under it and through it.

The thought of it makes my heart pound.

Vinnie has been on his own journey of growth and wellness for 30 years. He once was a junkie and he’s since cleaned up and traded drugs for other forms of getting high. He’s been teaching yoga for 15 of those 30 years.

He is someone who has seen the dark and the light, and his classes are a shamanistic journey through it all.

In the end, there is deliverance. You go farther than you think you can. He pushes you through it.

I walk (or float) out of that class and I feel reborn.

This is the same kind of transcendence I look for in sex and orgasm. I feel reborn when I’m willing to stretch out over my edge and not look back. When I throw everything into the fire for the chance of something new.

It’s training for life; whether it’s on the yoga mat or in your bed or anywhere else you challenge yourself.

And dare.

In that class, every pose is an invitation to go into it, to go deeper, to get to that edge, and stay there.

You learn the art of edge-living.

And dying.

Have you died yet today?

I haven’t, but I have it in my calendar for 7pm.

~K xx

 

Cliff image by Rhys Davies.