The Mighty Cobra & The Pink Rabbit

By Tracey Croisier

Everyone, at some point in time, wants to do a 180-degree u-turn with their life. Depressed and adrift after surviving the dotbomb implosion, a divorce and 9/11, Miss Pink leaves New York City and unexpectedly falls in love with Bikram's Hot Yoga. Her journey is witty, poignant, inspiring, touching and downright delightful.

Miss Pink is a tad overweight, tiff and has been accused of having "authority issues." She goes to teacher training thinking she'll be able to fly under the radar and make it through without having to change too much. To her surprise, the yoga teacher training program brings up a lot of memories and obstacles for her to conquer on her way to becoming a teacher. Her funny journal entries log the progression of the insanity at teacher training which ends with an unbelievable story of her and Bikram clashing in a class. (Maybe authority figures have issues with Miss Pink?)

The book is inspiring -- if chubby and stiff Miss Pink can make it through "the hottest place on earth," then so can you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tracey Croisier
• Release date: Sep 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301003730

Tracey Croisier

Tracey began her Bikram practice in the spring of 2004 after relocating from the east coast. She was almost instantly in the thrall of the yoga and graduated from Bikram's teacher training in Los Angeles in 2005. In 2007, she published the only Bikram-authorized memoir of her yoga experience, The Mighty Cobra & The Pink Rabbit. Prior to teaching yoga, Tracey worked on Wall Street. After years on a trading desk, she picked up a syndicated show with NBC Radio. In 2000, she was recruited by Upside Magazine to host a sassy little radio show, The Dawn Patrol. In addition to teaching, Tracey is the manager of Bikram Yoga Bellevue. And when she's not at the studio, she's having buckets of fun with her twin girls, who just turned four.

Book preview

What Others Have to Say About The Mighty Cobra

"Oooo, Miss Pink, your book is going to a big success. Just think of it!

--- Bikram Choudhury

As a man that just started thinking about doing yoga, I really expected to not like this book. I started reading the book and couldn't put it down. The characters were very funny, wise, silly and real. If you are interested in a fun read or looking for a book that might just change your world view, this is the book for you.

THE MIGHTY COBRA & THE PINK RABBIT

By Miss Pink

Copyright 2012 Miss Pink

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and, really, authors everywhere.

I dedicate this book to:

Yogiraj Bikram Choudhury

Mrs. RAC Webster

Barbara Bohrer’s Gloworms

My Prince

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Meet the Mind Monkeys

Authority Figure: Podium Tossing Band Director

Authority Figure: Recess Monitor

Happy Anniversary, Colon

Eff The Yoga

Yoga Boot Camp: Day #1

You Want Me To Rub Your What?

Escape Plan: Ambulance!

The Crazy Guy

Escape Plan: Taxi!

The History of Yoga (as told by Bikram and transcribed by Miss Pink)

Can’t I Just Be Miss Blue Today?

GI Jim

The Hazing

No, No, Cry There, Not Here

Even Jane Fonda Likes A Breeze

Oh, That Hot

Authority Figure: Porridge

Hiding Monkeys

Marvelous Diane From Boston

The Drubbing

Excerpt From Leaving The Land Of Should

About Miss Pink

Prologue

Once upon a time, there was a girl raised in a happy house filled with joy.

(Though her hair was cut too short and she was often mistaken for a boy.)

Like her clan, she was kind hearted and dressed with flair.

Like all the girls in her family, her body was shaped like a pear.

She never once thought that being a pear was necessarily bad,

Until authority figures said things that made her oh-so-sad.

Her ballet teacher told her she’d never be able to take a pointe class.

The tutus, my dear, are not wide enough to cover your ass.

The drill team instructor said she’d sure win the top spirit prize.

However, we can’t cheer to victory with those big thighs.

The broadcasting dean said her writing style was profound, uncanny.

However the television screen is simply small for your fanny.

She went through life, day after day, feeling quite odd.

I’ve only got this one, she’d think, this one pear-shaped bod.

Her romantic life often went from mediocre to bad to worse.

To heal, she’d cozy up with Bailey’s and pen mean-spirited verse.

The tall trust fund frat boy stole her heart and then turned snide.

I adore your brains and smile but loathe your backside.

The banker sent flowers and notes, not aware he would offend

When he whispered, I have a fetish for you and your giant rear end.

The one with broad shoulders had a rod that just wouldn’t get hard.

I’m sorry my sweets, but every time I see your thighs, I think of lard.

She kept going on, sometimes quite woefully, down life’s path.

Taking comfort in knowing she wasn’t as sad as Sylvia Plath.

It made her angry; this pear shape wasn’t exactly her choice.

Over time, she garnered great attention for having a great voice.

Hiding behind the smokescreen of the radio dial,

She finally found her passion, her reason to smile.

At home, though, she would run and swim,

Hoping one day to simply morph into thin.

A dear friend Helen cajoled and begged, You’ve got to give yoga a try.

I can’t, I can’t, I’m such a stiff little pear, stretching makes me cry.

She started with yoga made gentle for those over 65.

It hurt, she was sore, she limped—this was no way to thrive.

She tried again, at a place where they hopped and spun.

However, the 6 A.M. wakeup calls were simply no fun.

About to give up, she went to a studio that promised she’d sweat a lot.

For the first time in her life, the shape of her body she simply forgot.

The heat made her sweat and detox and become loose.

One day she said to herself: My, I’ve got a nice little caboose.

She transformed, she dripped, to new heights she did reach.

Knowing by the tenth class, this yoga she had to teach.

In order to teach, you get a blessing, an official stamp

By surviving Bikram’s infamous nine-week yoga boot camp.

She was hooked, her skin glowed, she had become a regular yoga junky.

Though she did fret about the voice in her head, a mean-spirited monkey.

As our pear grew up surrounded by a family well-rounded,

Bikram’s physical feats, by age four, simply astounded.

As our pear was told, Your body won’t do, that’s impossible, never, never;

Bikram was told, Your body is your ticket, you’ll be great forever and ever.

So our two opposites came together one year, a little like The Odd Couple,

She being doubtful and stiff, he dynamic and supple.

They butted heads, they disagreed, there were insults, and someone came undone.

Who? To find out, you’ll have to start at the beginning, on page one.

Monday 3 January 2005

We had a great Christmas. Just got back last night from the east coast wedding—hard to imagine that baby Amanda is married now. She looked really great; actually everyone did. My two aunts returned to Weight Watchers after a 10-month hiatus and dragged the bride-to-be with them. It is what we do, my family—we weigh. And we struggle with weight. We talk carbs and goal weights and we occasionally walk away from Weight Watchers to give Jenny Craig a try. If Jenny lets us down, we’ll toy with the Sonoma diet and reminisce about the Scarsdale diet. Sometimes we’ll muse to each other, sure wish we could lose those last damn ten pounds. Sitting around the dining room table, someone eventually sighs and says, We have just got to watch every bite. If we don’t, we’ll end up looking like Aunt Katherine.

Poor, sweet, maligned Aunt Katherine. No one knew for sure what she did weigh. She was quite large and rumor had it that she needed truck scales to get an accurate number. She was at least 400 pounds, maybe 430. Jolly, funny woman with diabetes, and a penchant for whiskey and dark chocolate. I always liked Aunt Katherine; she was funny and a bit gassy and swore like a sailor.

This is a momentous family gathering for me. The last time I went to a family thing—my uncle’s funeral, I think—I was trapped in a torturous two-year divorce process, I still hadn’t recovered from losing my dot-com job, and my dog was still incontinent. The interactions with my family were pretty brief.

Still living with him, huh?

Yup.

Still haven’t gotten that divorce yet, huh?

Nope.

Still living in that old farmhouse?

Yup.

Didja try that bean casserole? Good, huh?

Yup.

That was then.

Now I’m back and I’ve got buckets of news. The biggest news item is The New Husband. Bad enough that I’m the first kid in the family to divorce, but then, to the shock of my nice Midwestern family, not only did I remarry—I met The New Husband at a bar! And not just at a bar, but at a singles party! And then, I eloped with him, practically the next week! (We did wait twelve months, but my family tends toward long engagements.)

Not only do I have The New Husband in tow, but we’ve had a pretty eventful year: he moved in with me while we finished up the renovations at his house—and—I got accepted into yoga college.

I will admit I was sort of nervous telling my family about the yoga thing. They are quite hardy, the family. They have manly jobs involving trucks and construction and farming thingamabobs. They are the sort of men who like pie at lunch—and the women who make those pies from scratch. The men hunt; the women quilt.

My branch of the family tree is a bit of an anomaly. For starters, my parents actually left the little town and moved to a big town. My dad has had suit-and-briefcase jobs and my mom has not had to make a lunch pail for him. My dad often jokes that if he had to actually go out and kill his dinner, he’d happily be a vegetarian.

I took my parents’ small-town escape a step further and I moved to the giant swarm of New York City. I dabbled in public relations and Wall Street.

In short, our hardy hunting trunk of the family tree already thinks my branch is a bit alien. The very fact that we have not driven a tractor in our sheltered lives makes us veritable circus freaks. Adding yoga to the mix? Heaven only knows.

I can’t entirely blame it on them, though, you know, this perceived yoga-aversion.

The thing is, I’m no bendy twig girl. I’m a pear-shaped, middle-aged woman with wobbly thighs and an ongoing concern that the new jeans/bathing suit/lighting/hairstyle/purse/lip gloss (fill in the blank) makes my butt look fat.

As I wandered through the divorce maze, I was battling some sadness. The doctors were quick to throw an antidepressant prescription at me, but I felt that I had earned my crying jags. I wanted to be certain that I wallowed in my unhappiness. I’m not sure why, but I think mostly I feared that chemically induced happiness might backfire and I’d just end up with chemically induced stupidity or, worse yet, an odd Stepford-Wife-ish appreciation of my smelly, flatulent ex-husband.

My therapist gave me a list of things to do when you are depressed. The list went like this: establish network of friends for support, increase physical activity, eat healthier foods, find enjoyable hobbies, see a mental health professional, meditate, do yoga.

Being an overachiever, I found a way to get most of that list covered in one fell swoop. I joined a synchronized swim team, thereby increasing my activity, making new friends, establishing a hobby and eating healthier. I bought meditation tapes and listened to them with a closed and suspicious mind.

Yoga?

No way.

Therapist and I had an agreement: if I did everything on the list for six months, she wouldn’t push the pills.

And the therapist stood her ground—everything on the list, including the bleeping yoga. Again, the joy of multitasking struck. One of my synchronized swim teammates taught yoga. And not yoga, but easy-peasy (to my mind) yoga: gentle yoga for seniors. I cringe to admit this, but here ya go: I thought maybe I could out bend at least the elderly. (That’s awful, isn’t it? But I was quite desperate.)

All I got from the senior yoga class was free coffee and an intensified pent-up loathing of flexible people. Even 70-year-old widows recovering from double hip replacement were better at yoga than I was.

Oddly, handsome Prince was one factor in my abrupt change of heart. An ex-girlfriend of his convinced him to try Bikram’s hot yoga and Prince thought I’d like it. Initially, being a slightly competitive snot, I thought, oh no, I will not take up her hobby. But Prince is an earthy sort and his enthusiasm for Bikram’s yoga struck a chord.

I’m looking over our family’s sea of familiar faces and am so happy to see Prince working the crowd. He’s normally a pretty quiet person, but he seems to flit with ease through my gaggles of gawking relatives. Prince has quite an advantage: he has gone hunting. The relatives collectively cheered on hearing this—he’s not a subway-riding city freak, he’s not a prep school rube who can’t tell a duck from a goose—no no! He’s a regular animal-stalking guy.

I slip away and find Aunt Mary Jane. She was the stricter aunt when I was growing up; she’s got a wicked stern eyebrow arch that’ll scare any child into not only stopping what they are doing, but also erasing the desire to ever be naughty again. I figure if I get the yoga news past her, I’m into smooth water.

I tell her my yoga college news and her eyes get real big and she says, Didja really?

She clucks her tongue and shakes her head side to side and whispers, Is that something The New Husband made ya do?

I told her about my gentle yoga attempts and how, the last time she saw me, I disliked yoga as much as I dislike flossing.

But then last year happened. She nodded her chin and up and down strongly.

If we were a Southern Baptist family, she’d follow the chin nodding with Tell it to the man, sister. Instead, we are Northern Lutherans, and chin nodding is as vigorous as it gets for our clan.

I don’t have to explain last year happened to her. She knows. She sat by the phone like everyone else in the family.

***

So I’m newly-divorced and I go to a singles party and I meet Prince. We are just five weeks into a new fairy tale-ish romance, I’m freelance writing and Prince poaches eggs for me on the weekends and then, blam. I’m doubled over in pain, Prince is driving at warp speed to get me to the emergency room. Pain like I’ve never ever felt, white cold pain, the kind that takes the strength out of your legs, the kind that makes you mewl like a kitten, vicious angry pain that gives morphine a run for its money.

Sonogram shows an ovarian cyst has ruptured. No real known cause or cure, really. Just ride it out.

(And let me tell you, there’s nothing like your new man holding your hand through an emergency vaginal sonogram to fling a dewy relationship to an entirely new level.)

The Monday after the ER visit, I go to my gynecologist for a follow up. She does a full exam and checks the breasts while we are at it. Her eyes darken and I’m given an emergency mammogram slip and the following Tuesday, the mammogram reveals two cysts on the left breast.

The mammogram center is really nice and posh and they do a sonogram just to be sure and they humor me when I say I want both breasts sonogrammed for the sake of symmetry. Sonogram reveals calcifications in the right breast. Calcifications are little sandy bits that usually hang out together and then often turn into a cancer of some form. My mum is a feisty breast cancer survivor, so part of me feels resigned to it all and part of me is glad I know the terminology.

Not only do I know the lingo, I also know that when the doctor’s office says you need to come in the following day, it isn’t to unkink an insurance issue. I assume the worst, immediately go to Google and research wig options. If I’m going to go bald from chemo, I’d rather harvest my own hair than glue someone else’s on my head.

The doctor has good news. The right breast calcifications were all sucked up through the mini- Hoover vacuum for the biopsy. They are fine; benign; noncancerous. Phew.

The reason the doctor wants to see me is that my pap smear came back showing abnormal growth, probably not a good kind of growth. There’s some kind of lab holiday and then some kind of snarl with the new patient privacy laws, so I have to wait 11 agonizing days to hear the newest biopsy news.

Eleven days. Two hundred and sixty-one hours, at least half of which were spent staring at a stale pack of Marlboro Light 100s, desperately wishing I hadn’t quit smoking. I drank a lot of Bailey’s Irish Cream in those 11 days. On the morning of the twelfth day, the doctor informed me that there was a cervical polyp, a little bump, and again, the biopsy Hoover vac sucked it right out. Benign. Okay. Time to throw out the wig brochures.

I vowed that cold November morning—I did—I swore to myself that I would be so nice to my body from that point forward. Well, right after Thanksgiving. Well, okay, right after Christmas. The holidays would be about rejoicing and celebrating and then in January—as long as it wasn’t bad weather—then I would live every single day to the fullest, I would worship my body in new ways, I’d eat organic leafy greens and moisturize more often and be better about taking a multivitamin.

I blink, and it is April. Bada-bing, my six-month follow up appointments are looming on the calendar. All the gals—both breasts, the cervix, the ovaries—need to be prodded again, to make sure no weeds have sprouted. I know I cannot sit through another agonizing week, I will surely pull my hair out strand by strand, staring at the phone, waiting.

I’m not sure what I will do, but I know that I have gained a few pounds in the past six months. There I am, bouncing on my ergonomic ball, Googling to see if there’s such a thing as low-cal Bailey’s. Bing. I get an e-mail from someone I haven’t heard from in a goodly 10 years. College pal Nicole drops me a note and writes quite glowingly about Bikram Yoga.

Maybe Prince’s ex-girlfriend was on to something good. Nicole is a perfectly sweet and wonderful sorority little sister – she wouldn’t lead me astray.

***

Say that name again; how did you pronounce it? Aunt Mary Jane asks.

Beak, likes a bird’s beak and then rum, like, you know, rum.

Is that a person or a place?

It is a person.

Is he one of those Buddha statues?

No, actually Bikram is alive and well.

I tell Aunt Mary Jane that I hadn’t really heard of him either until my friend emailed.

Well, prior to Prince and prior to Nicole, I vaguely remember reading a newspaper article a while back about some kind of copyright issue. But that was about the extent of my knowledge.

Aunt Shirley—Mary Jane’s older sister—walks over in her crisp and decided way.

What are you two talking about over here?

I tell her Bikram, and explain that it is hot yoga.

How hot does it get?

She whistles as she pulls in air through her lips. One hundred and five degrees? Is that safe? When we brought in the baby chicks for the feed store, I think we kept it right around 95 degrees. Too hot was dangerous for the chicks. You think this is really safe?

A small crowd had formed. My family, we are lemmings. We follow each other and when more than two lemmings are together, the others panic, feel left out, and flock.

One uncle wanted to know if I wore baggy pants like Gandhi. A sweet cousin in her 20s said her church told her she wouldn’t be allowed to organize a yoga class as the minister believed that yoga belonged to Hindus, not Lutherans.

There are now a good dozen or so family members gathered ‘round, full of questions. That’s one thing I adore about my family—our unending curiosity.

Finally one of my cousins blurts out, I thought ya had to be skinny to do that weird yoga stuff. Half question, half accusation.

Another jocular wedding guest (and, let’s be frank, jocularity was brought on by seven Pabst beers) says that yoga isn’t so much about weight as it is about wrapping your legs around your neck. That comment ignites a hearty round of people wanting a demonstration. I half-imagine them waving giant foam hands in the air, it has become as boisterous as a Super Bowl playoff game.

I decline their offer for proof of my yoganess. I say graciously that I am not warmed up. I have barely finished the sentence, and there’s unprecedented laughing, and not jolly laughter now, no, no, we have slid past bemused and right into the slippery sarcasm slope.

My