I went to Hip Hop Yoga at Hand to Heart Yoga with Erin today. It was a very interesting experience and not at all what I thought it might be. By yoga standards, it was a very intense and very aerobic one hour. I don't know where it stands by hip hop standards. I will probably take a sample class of real hip hop at Verve this Saturday afternoon and report back.

I broke out into quite a sweat. Some of the exercises pushed the isotonic limits of my puny muscles and I could actually feel my muscle fibres and bundles twitching out of sheer disuse. Maybe this is what Neo felt like in the first Matrix movie before he learnt to fly 60 minutes later. But everyone knows that only happens on celluloid. Because 60 minutes later, in real life, I bought swiss cheese slices and ate it on toast. I really like swiss cheese. It has a whopping 20% calcium and 8g protein in one serving.

I also love Celia Cruz.

And I sorely, no, make that VERY SORELY missed her during the class. My muscles probably ached for her because I didn't dig the soundtrack to my exertions so much. I am not sure what the other yogis in class thought. Quite inexplicably, all of them were named "Sarah". Not that replication of names has anything to do with musical tastes... The point is, for me, without Celia's clave, everything was slightly off tune...

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

Apart from reservations about the music selection, I really liked the class today. I am not entirely sure if it's hip hop, though. It could be... but to my untrained senses, it seemed more like a hybrid of yoga and aerobic dance. I will go again next Wednesday and see if my muscle endurance has improved any. Meanwhile, I am going to have to increase my consumption of egg whites and cheese if I keep up with all this dancing and hurrying about in knee-deep snow. Not an entirely unpleasant side-effect... :-)

I somehow drank a lot of chinese loose-leaf green tea today. By "a lot", I really mean A LOT - close to a litre or more. I didn't stop there. I went ahead and ate all the leaves as well because they tasted pretty good at that time - a flavour-packed cross between kale, spinach and mesclun. Their total packed volume equaled around 8 ounces (half my generous tea mug).

I shouldn't have.

Now my teeth feel as if they are about to fall out. It's not a dream. They really feel like they are doing one of those synchronized-in-a-row rockette kicks and getting ready to pop out, any moment now. It's not painful but it's such a peculiar floaty feeling - localized to the gums.

I am now wondering what chemical in those leaves has produced such a potent alteration of perception. I am just a bit curious if anyone else has had such an experience. But then, maybe I am being too optimistic about there being people out there who have actually downed a liter of green tea and eaten all the leaves after that.

I just hope they don't really fall out. I can't deal with being toothless tomorrow.

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On a side note, searching for "teeth falling out" on google images brings up a video-chat still of (e:paul) and (e:lilho) labeled "lilhowithbandwidthleprosy1090". 6th row from the top:

I posted the live salsa version of this earlier but I couldn't bear to listen to Chemaney going off-tune and murdering the Ricardo Montaner melody. It may have been great in his album but his live version annoyed the hell out of me. And the flamenco dancer was creepy and his jeans were ridiculous.

So here is the much-loved original.


Since I criticized Chemaney's ludicrous jeans, I feel it's unfair of me if I don't even comment on that beach-shot cover of Montaner's album. That has got to be the fake-est beach-shot ever, don't you think? He is sitting IN the water but his trousers are completely dry with the waves splashing all around him. What did they take Montaner's listeners for? Blind?

I developed a crazy craving for papayas over the past couple weeks and luckily found that they sell fabulous Caribbean Reds from Belize at Pricerite for $1.29/lb.



I couldn't resist and grabbed three big ones off the display and dragged them back to my lair yesterday evening. As a result, I am now sitting here with Bengay for some miserably strained deltoid muscles and a particularly awesome salad of cubed papaya with a lime juice and black pepper garnish.

I say, fair trade.

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PS: I am SO glad pricerite came to roost downtown. You can't imagine how inconvenient it was to take a bus all the way to Wegmans for things I couldn't get at Guercio's and then wait in the cold for the bus back. I remember walking back with my cart (because there was no bus for nearly 40 minutes) a couple times, Both times, I had 2 gallons of milk spoil on me the next day because of the 80 minute-break in refrigeration. Also, I don't like the price-mark-up at Weggers. It may be fancy looking and all spiffy but I don't think it's good practice to increase prices of produce and keep prices of sugary stuff and baked-goods low because it encourages poor eating habits in the population.

I skipped yoga as well as salsa this past week because of grad-school worries. And an alarming proportion of my hair is edging towards white. I have concentric worry lines under my eyes and I think I am slowly losing my mind whatever meagre muscle I have on my body. But then, when did I ever let something like that stop me from making wild resolutions? Never. So in February, I will

• Do a whole lot more of statistics with R Fridays and Saturdays

It helps that I actually like R as opposed to hating SAS.

• Salsa Salsa Salsa Thursdays

I am dropping out of the intermediate class. I am not good enough for all the complicated patterns and frustrate myself in the process. And something about that class edges me out of happy mode. Could be one of the leads or a combination of things... I don't want this minor detail derailing my fascination with salsa music and dance. The beginner's sessions with Sean and Sarah, on the other hand, are pure magic and I feel like a sufi saint in them...

• Yoga and Hip Hop Wednesdays

Erin at Hand to Heart (Bryant & Elmwood) is a really amazing guide. I might add the Wednesday evening Hip-Hop yoga to my vinyasa sessions. Who knows, someday you might see me suddenly twisting into this pose:


I guess that leaves the first three days of the week for having massive freak-outs about graduating. Fair enough.