climbing is the new yoga

I've never done yoga before. Before last Friday, that is. The day before climbing at the Tor. Bad idea. Yoga kicked my ass. I don't know what I was thinking. It must have been an arrogant moment when I thought I would jump in to this yoga class, dominate all their yoga stuff, then wake up the next day to crank at Santa Maria. So, I'm sitting in class, getting my hips all warmed up or whatever, while these tiny women start sitting down next to me. No worries - I bench press. And I climb. But I've heard stories - that these classes are gnarly, that these people are actually pretty leathery. And I'm believing none of it at this point. Fast forward through 45 minutes of 'down dog', and I am digging deep to not explode a testicle. There's frickin' sweat running off my face onto the little yoga mat, my everything is burning, I can't stop shaking, I might have crapped my pants, and the chick next to me has looked like a marble statue for the better part of an hour (and by 'chick' I mean 'hell spawn'). I felt them feeling sorry for me, like I had been in a horrible accident and was re-learning motor skills. Yoga is what I imagine Twister with Satan would be like. Fuck yoga. I got on Better Than Life on Saturday. Felt pretty strong but energy was low. Go figure, maybe it was the 60 minutes of Hell-pretzel action the night before that made me feel like a chew toy. Note to self: no more of that business before Tor day. My finger felt not better, the left ring finger I've been nursing for a couple months, so I made a short day of it. After warm ups on Power of Eating and Chips-A-Hoy, I bolt-to-bolted Better Than Life, then redpointed Chips and Auto Magic. My weight is down to a little under 190 lbs and things are feeling pretty strong, but this finger has got to get better. So, my plan is to stop climbing mid-week, do what I can on Saturdays at Santa Maria until the weather shuts us down for the season, then take some time to heal this winter. Taping between my knuckle and first joint helps a bunch too. Phil was absent on Saturday. No doubt, he was missed. But it was tons of fun nonetheless. It was me, Paul, Hawk and Elhanan - all friendly dudes, all psyched to be at the Tor on a good day. I had a lot of fun.