Walking the Tightrope at Miraval

Day 4 dawned sunny and COLD!  I left my room at 7 to hit up the smoothie bar but by the time I arrived my hands were so cold that all I could think of was coffee.  So I nestled myself in front of the fireplace with some steaming hot coffee and a 50-calorie piece of coffee cake that was absolutely yummy:

While I ate, I contemplated whether it was too cold for my first class of the day, Zen Boot Camp.  I mean, it was cold out there, people - and all I had to protect me from potential frostbite (OK, it wasn't quite THAT cold, but you get the picture) was a thin fleece pullover.  After about 15 minutes of arguing with myself I decided that I was using the cold as an excuse not to try something new (and likely physically demanding) and got my butt back outside and down to the gym.

Randy was our trainer for the day, and even he looked a bit daunted by the cold!  But we all grabbed our towels and water bottles and set out for the warmup.  On the way, Randy explained that Boot Camp would be just what we expected - tough challenges and a great workout.  However, the Zen part of the workout meant that he expected us to be 100% in the moment with every move - not comparing ourselves to others or worrying about when the timer would go off.  He suggested we breathe through the exercises and allow ourselves to observe the sensations (mostly pain).  With that said, the workout began.  We started by running stairs to warm up, then we did squats.  Not up-and-down squats though - we held the position for 15 seconds, then 30, then 45, then 60.  Each time, Randy encouraged us to make small changes in our position (lean a bit forward on your feet, then back on your heels) to explore how that changed the sensations and perhaps to allow us to hold the position a bit longer.  It was a lot like yoga!  After the squats, we jogged off to the tennis courts for suicides:

These were tough but also strangely fulfilling - racing from line to line I was completely focused and really enjoying the feeling of pushing myself harder than normal.  After the suicides we headed back to the steps for pushups and a few other exercises:

After 45 minutes I was wiped out and felt great!  Quick shower then off to Mindful Eating for breakfast.

The mindful eating experience was interesting - Junelle talked a bit about the concept and then we practiced eating in total silence for several minutes.  I found myself much more connected to my food and really thinking about how it tasted and felt in my mouth.  It was definitely a good exercise!

After breakfast I decided to brave the cold and do some laps in the pool to take advantage of the sunshine and the amazing view of the mountains.  Keeping Susan's tips from our coaching session in mind, I swam about 600 yards of drills.

It felt great and I could feel definite improvements in my breathing technique.  After that I sank gratefully into the hot tub to warm up before my next class:

Barre class was next on the agenda, and this was another tough one.  We used chairs for support while doing a variety of movements with our legs.  Every muscle from my hips to my knees was shaking and weak after this class!  Signe was a great instructor and kept us laughing throughout the half hour.

 

Yet another shower and off to lunch!  The special today was sesame crusted chicken with a wasabi kick:

Yum!

After lunch I attended a lecture on Balanced Nutrition.  Junelle was our teacher and she spoke a lot about the importance of eating unprocessed foods - that Americans are essentially outsourcing their digestion by eating heavily refined foods (such as bread made with bleached white flour), because the body doesn't have to work too hard to store these foods as fats - they are easily broken down in the digestive tract into glucose.  I found this incredibly interesting and it made complete and total sense to me. 

After the lecture, I had a few moments to gather my thoughts and contemplate the next activity: the Desert Tightrope.  This is one of the Dares that takes place on the challenge course, and it involves climbing a pole to a thin cable suspended 35 feet in the air.  Using vertical ropes hanging from a higher cable, you slowly inch your way across to the other side.  Of course, the entire activity takes place in a harness, but this didn't really diminish my anxiety too much.  There are a lot of Dares to choose from - some involve jumping off a 40 foot platform, others involve swinging 35 feet in the air, but for some reason this one really appealed to me.   I knew that the hardest part (at least mentally) would be climbing that pole - I am deathly afraid of ladders! 

Connor showed up right on time to lead Dana, Alex, Rod, Linda and me down to the challenge course, where he explained what would be happening that day.  We each talked a bit about our expectations for the day and then it was into the harnesses.  They weren't pretty, but as they were going to be the only thing standing between me and a broken leg I wasn't really complaining!  We got some final tips on how we would get down, a suggestion to climb with our legs rather than our arms, a reminder to breath through the fear and his blessing to come back to earth at any time during the exercise.  Then it was go time.

I ascended the ladder without too much trouble - having the bolle line attached to my back was comforting (although it kept banging into my helmet at first which was kind of distracting).  

 

At the top of the ladder I panicked a bit, but remembered to breath and took my first step onto the pole.  There were large metal staples to use for hand and footholds, but when I grabbed the first one I realized they were much farther apart than they looked from the ground.  Another mini-panic attack started to manifest, and I stopped it by breathing and trying to relax.  I started to climb.  

A couple steps in and I realized that this would be much tougher than it looked - I felt weak from my two hard workouts in the morning and combined with the panic that I was barely keeping under control my legs were shaking uncontrollably.  I stopped and hugged the pole.

 

Crap, I thought.  I'm barely off the ladder and I can't go any further.  I've been thinking about this moment all week, planning for success and here I am not even able to make it to the stupid cable!  I breathed, hugged the pole and remembered that I had counted the staples while I was on the ground and there were 20 of them to go until I could step out onto the cable.  I can do 20 of anything, right?  OK Shrinking Jill, just breathe...breathe...just do one more step.  That's it, you can do this...your legs are shaking but you won't fall, you're in this nice safe harness...one more step...one more...God this is hard...one more...

Then I was almost to the cable:

And then suddenly I was stepping out over thin air:

As I started to let go of the pole, Connor yelled up to me "Take a moment to breathe and enjoy the view!"  I did just that, and could feel myself relax.  It was much easier to be on the cable than climbing the pole!  After gathering myself, I began to inch slowly to the right - holding on to the nearest staple with my left hand, blindly groping around for the closest rope with my right.  I caught the rope and began to let go of the pole.  Oh boy, that's when things got REALLY hard.  It took all my strength to keep my feet on the cable and my body upright - I was swaying back and forth, my knees were buckling, every muscle in my body was trembling...but somehow I managed to keep moving until I was just holding onto the first rope - about 4 feet away from the pole.  At that point I felt like my muscles were almost at the point of failure - I was swaying and shaking - but amazingly I wasn't that scared anymore.  

 

I told myself I could come down as soon as I made it to the next rope.  Slowly, inch by inch, I kept going.  I looked to my right and saw the next rope and grabbed just in time to avoid pitching backwards off the cable. 

 

At that point I decided I was done and yelled down to Connor that I was ready to come down.  I worked myself another foot to the right so I was directly under the second rope and sat back in the harness. 

Connor slowly lowered me to the ground and it was over.  This was a very physical challenge and I was very weak and shaky...but also very proud.  A year ago I wouldn't have been able to get up that pole at all - I would have made it a few steps past the ladder and given up.  It felt so good to face that fear and win!

Each of us had varying degrees of success - two people made it completely across, one person made it about two thirds of the way up the pole and asked to be let down, and one person made it about two thirds of the way before he lost his footing and slipped off.  Overall this was a truly amazing experience, the highlight of my trip, and I'm hoping to come back next year and give it another go!  

After the challenge was over, I headed back to my room for some R&R.  It was warm enough to sit on the patio so I sipped a cup of tea and enjoyed the view of snow on the mountains:

After that I trotted up to Evening Meditation, but not before stopping off in the lounge from some asparagus wrapped in prosciutto!  YUM!

The meditation took place in the yoga center, and Natasha had comfy backrests set up for all of us:

We meditated on the chakras, starting with Muladhara and working our way up to Sahasrara.  Natasha helped us focus our attention on by talking about each one in turn - its location, its purpose, and its sound.  As she finished speaking about each one she made the sound and we joined in - each one resonated through our bodies and when the sound stopped we enjoyed a reverent silence before moving on to the next one.  She finished by using glass bowls to generate a wonderful resonating tone.  The entire experience was amazing and I felt great afterwards.

I met two new friends, Jean and Carol, for dinner and we enjoyed a delicious meal with lots of great conversation.  I had grass-fed beef bruschetta as an appetizer and elk as my main - both were delish!

 

I enjoyed a glass of champagne with my meal and topped it off with the chocolate fondue (only 210 calories) which was simply heavenly!  At 9pm I returned for dinner and fell into bed for my last night in my casita.

This morning I woke up extremely sore all over, a reminder of my accomplishment on the tightrope!  What a great end to a great vacation.  Right now I need to head up to the lobby to catch my ride to the airport and wave goodbye to Miraval - tomorrow I'll post some final thoughts on my stay!