Austin Style Savasana

This post, this thought, this moment, precisely, my heart is dedicated to my dear friend Neil  from the mighty shiny city on the hill.  My Dead Body Pose is offered as a gift to his forthcoming journey with Sharena.

I just found a new use for my yoga mat.  Maybe too, I have a new step in my daily routine. After two 90 minute sessions in Austin’s Downtown Bikram Studio (heated to 105°) I headed out to Barton Springs.  Btw.  BYDAustin is only for really cool austin people. Like you have to be tooootally cool (shoes or feet included) to practice there.  By “cool” I mean, you have to have some type of blood flowing through your system and should be able to stand on two feet.

Tonight was a special night at Zilker Park as the Austin Symphony was playing a free Star Wars concert outdoors.  For a moment I considered sitting on the lawn and listening to the music.  But I was hot and itchy.  I wanted to go for a swim.

I grabbed the bag with my yoga mat inside and headed down to the water.  The sun had already set, the pool lights were lit.  The bugs were chirping.  Those harmonic crickets and junebugs (i dont know what bugs are making are singing really).

Speaking of singing.  There were two oldtimers playing a fiddle and guitar.  Actually, the oldtimers were really more like a 33 baby beer bellied fiddler and 19 Adonis-sssy rocker dude.  They didn’t know each other.  I know for sure.  They played like father and son though.  AND they played to 3 zillion year old oak tree the size of el paso.  Seriously, they were singing to the tree.

So, it’s June 11, 2010, warmish-hot Texas day.  I’ve been kickin in the bikram sauna hell for 4 hours and I go to Savasana at night in the water.

The year-round temperature at Barton Springs is around 69°.  It’s an oasis during the summertime and it’s usually packed.  People swim, people tan, people with dough, those w/out, all of them people, flock to the summer oasis. They all fit in.  All 1432 of them (or something close) cool off in the medicinal waters in the Heart w/in Heart of Texas, in the center of Austin, the center.  But in the late evening, there’s not many people.  Temp of water is still around 69°

My initial dip in the Springs was in the late ’70s, Grandpa Bob, an important man, took me and my brothers.  By “important” I mean … ummmm … he told us some really excellent stuff that we didn’t quite.  At the time, there were ladies without tops.  Grandpa pointed out the “breasts”.  My brothers and I at the time were under 10.  We only saw a diving board.  Well, we did also scope the mini train and the cotton candy and ice cream stand.  But the boobs?  Really?  Not the first I have wondered about that now dead guy’s vision.  Grandpa was doing his best to tell us important stuff.  We were visiting from Detroit.  Never been to Texas.  We got to the diving board really fast and dominated it with wicked rad cannon balls, occasional spastic flips and other fancy moves.

But that was then.  This is really about my Savasana on June 11, 2010, on a warmish-hot day.  I walked to the deepest end, got nearly nAKed, goggle’d up and flopped in.  The only way to do it.  Going in slowly is painful. I swam a few laps only to realize I was too tired to swim.  So I pulled out the yoga mat.

And guess what?  You’d never know it otherwise.  The thicker yoga mats make bitchin’ floats.  It allows enough buoyancy so that your body is mostly submerged, while your breathing holes remain above water.  It also cleans the yoga mat btw.  A value add.  But, the main thing, it allows for full extension.  Inhales and exhales do not cause rise and sink.  You can float.

And so I did.  Just laid there.  On my yoga mat.  Floating in 69° water in the Dead Body Pose, the Savasana.  For nearly an hour, I just relaxed, under the Texas stars, above enchanting underwater spring fed garden, near the multiple red-eared sliders, amongst the fish.  A perfect way to end a day of hard work.

Yeah … that’s right you sucka readers.  I gave you the real paragraph at the end of this post, above this sentence.