Morning class was taught by Lisa Johnson from Las Vegas. I like her personality and her energy so I really enjoyed the class. I just let go and let her voice guide me through a great 90 class.
After lunch we had posture clinic with Bikram. He went over a couple more standing postures up to Triangle. He went off on some tangents about his guru and how smart he is.
Well I put my foot in my mouth, I really haven’t had anything to talk about up until evening class. Once 6:30pm hit the emotional roller coaster ride for all us trainees was on high alert.
Evening class was taught by Kylee, a young soon to doctor from Australia. I really liked her class and was kind of relieved to not have Bikram. I pushed myself really hard and had a really good class. It also helped that I liked to listen to her accent during this fast pace 90 minute class, great energy. The power flicked off and on during class, must have been all the energy we were generating.
When class was over and we tried to leave, Monali immediately got on the microphone and told us to remain on our mats. You could feel the anxiety in the room build and I thought ‘oh shit we are doing a back to back’. Sure enough Bikram came waltzing into the room, “check check 1 2 3 4 check”. You should have seen how fast the teacher line cleared out at the back of the room, 20 teachers out 23 grabbed their mats and bolted, quite funny actually. Otto from New York and Wendy (one of the regular staff memebers) were the only two that I saw stay and stood in the middle of their mats, ready to begin. Bikram walked to the front of the room and told us to get up and class was starting, so we did just that, no other option. I was really cursing myself for having such a good class before that cause I thought I was going to pass out in the warm up breathing. Bikram only made us do one set of breathing because we looked so bad, like we were going to keel over, wobbling back and forth. I was at the back of the room and I could see the lack of enthusiasm. I did about two breaths and felt like I was going to fall over backwards. I felt like my legs were jelly and I was doing the motions but I was by no means doing the breathing excercise properly. As we continued through class people started to drop, one by one, actually some people didn’t even start.
I had about ten drops of water left in water jug so that was my biggest concern. The guy next me left to get some water. He came back and realized I wasn’t stopping and that I didn’t have any water so he grabbed my jug and gave me some water. Bikram made fun of us the entire time about how bad we looked, it was actually kind of funny because there was no energy in that room. At party time (after the warm up when we are allowed our first water break) there was a mad dash to the door with water jugs.
By the time we got to the balancing series I was like jello and my body felt so light. When I lifted my leg up in standing head to knee it felt so light, though my arms felt a little heavier. Bikram was by no means holding us for the full time but it was still a struggle at some points. I think I just got to a point where I was so blitzed out that I was like a robot just doing what I was told to do. I was way too tired to think about what I didn’t want to do or didn’t think I could do, so I just did everything. There was one staff teacher that was behind me through both classes and actually this morning too. She saw me in lecture after class and gave me a high five and said, “You are strong girl, way to push through it today, good triple".
At the end of class when I went to lie down in savasana I saw Zia (Auntie Shirley) walking down the stairs. I just got a huge smile on my face and thought, ‘that’s exactly what I need right now, awesome’. I started waving and she saw me. The guy next to me asked if it was my mom and I told him who she was. He smiled and said, "you are so lucky, it would be so nice right now, to see a friendly face", indeed it was.
After class, Zia and I went to the café and grabbed some supper than went back to our room to eat supper with Eleni. Well Zia made it here, but her luggage did not. When she arrived at the hotel they didn’t have a reservation for her either. She was wondering what kind of sign it was…no luggage, no reservation, hmmmm. Unless she gets her bags tonight or early in the morning she won’t be able to do class in the morning.
As we walked into lecture at 9:30pm there was chiaos amongst everyone in the lecture hall. It quickly spread that during evening class people’s rooms got broken into again and this time passports were stolen. All the safes in the other tower have electronic safes and apparently when the power went out it temporary unlocked them all. The safes in the main tower in our rooms have key locks, not that I feel any better. Everyone was running back to their rooms to get all their belongings out of their safes.
It was so frantic in there and the tension was so high. The teachers tried to address this as soon and best as they could. Monali and Lynn stood at the front of the lecture hall and tried to answer as many questions as they could. We started to hear about a bunch of other incidents that had happened over the last four or five weeks in regards to security. None of which we were aware of before tonight. There were stories about people getting knocks on their doors at 4am from guys that said they were maintenance workers, patio doors being left open by cleaning staff, people getting let into their rooms without ids, key cards being re-scanned without id, and other break ins. For the last couple weeks when the room break ins started happening Monali kept telling us that we are responsible for our own stuff and to take care of it. Just the other night she asked us to email a girl some photos from training because she lost her lap top, when in fact it was stolen from her room. A lot of the frustration tonight came from the fact that we have taken the best measures to do that and it is still happening, we can only do so much before it is out of our control. They told us this has never happened before in all of teacher training so they are as concerned as us. I understand the staff has to try and control 300 people and it takes a lot of energy, I just think it could have been handled better. The way some of the questions were being answered and directed made it feel like we were in the wrong and being attacked. That is not a good way to approach anything especially when defences are already up.
When Bikram arrived he arrived with the man who is the head of security for the hotel. He came to tell us what measures they are taking now to protect us. They have hired security guards to walk the grounds and the floors 24 hours to keep an eye out. He is going to talk to the cleaning staff and make sure patio doors are locked after cleaning. He also said the police are going to be involved and they wanted take finger prints. A friend of mine who got her room broken into four weeks ago was told that and it never happened, so I don’t know. Bikram asked the security manager some of his own questions about the safety in the rooms. They opened the floor to questions and the guy spoke very good English so he did his best to answer any concerns. In the end we were beating a dead horse so all I can say is that even though I don't feel safe anymore they say they are going to do their best in terms of safety until we leave.
After all that went down, Bikram began to lecture, but not before making fun of our warm up breathing and the way we looked in the third class. Seeing him imitate us was hilarious and was kind of déjà vu. He lectured more about the mind and the body tonight, kind of bringing it all together. When he finished his talk at 1am, he started a video. It was video tape about his guru and other yogi’s demonstrating how strong the mind really is. There was some footage of Bikram doing some morning shows in 1975 and 1978 too. As soon as the lights went out, people passed right out. Though it is hard to watch some of the crazy things that some of them can do with their bodies, I actually watched it all. We got dismissed at 2:30 for bed.
After lunch we had posture clinic with Bikram. He went over a couple more standing postures up to Triangle. He went off on some tangents about his guru and how smart he is.
Well I put my foot in my mouth, I really haven’t had anything to talk about up until evening class. Once 6:30pm hit the emotional roller coaster ride for all us trainees was on high alert.
Evening class was taught by Kylee, a young soon to doctor from Australia. I really liked her class and was kind of relieved to not have Bikram. I pushed myself really hard and had a really good class. It also helped that I liked to listen to her accent during this fast pace 90 minute class, great energy. The power flicked off and on during class, must have been all the energy we were generating.
When class was over and we tried to leave, Monali immediately got on the microphone and told us to remain on our mats. You could feel the anxiety in the room build and I thought ‘oh shit we are doing a back to back’. Sure enough Bikram came waltzing into the room, “check check 1 2 3 4 check”. You should have seen how fast the teacher line cleared out at the back of the room, 20 teachers out 23 grabbed their mats and bolted, quite funny actually. Otto from New York and Wendy (one of the regular staff memebers) were the only two that I saw stay and stood in the middle of their mats, ready to begin. Bikram walked to the front of the room and told us to get up and class was starting, so we did just that, no other option. I was really cursing myself for having such a good class before that cause I thought I was going to pass out in the warm up breathing. Bikram only made us do one set of breathing because we looked so bad, like we were going to keel over, wobbling back and forth. I was at the back of the room and I could see the lack of enthusiasm. I did about two breaths and felt like I was going to fall over backwards. I felt like my legs were jelly and I was doing the motions but I was by no means doing the breathing excercise properly. As we continued through class people started to drop, one by one, actually some people didn’t even start.
I had about ten drops of water left in water jug so that was my biggest concern. The guy next me left to get some water. He came back and realized I wasn’t stopping and that I didn’t have any water so he grabbed my jug and gave me some water. Bikram made fun of us the entire time about how bad we looked, it was actually kind of funny because there was no energy in that room. At party time (after the warm up when we are allowed our first water break) there was a mad dash to the door with water jugs.
By the time we got to the balancing series I was like jello and my body felt so light. When I lifted my leg up in standing head to knee it felt so light, though my arms felt a little heavier. Bikram was by no means holding us for the full time but it was still a struggle at some points. I think I just got to a point where I was so blitzed out that I was like a robot just doing what I was told to do. I was way too tired to think about what I didn’t want to do or didn’t think I could do, so I just did everything. There was one staff teacher that was behind me through both classes and actually this morning too. She saw me in lecture after class and gave me a high five and said, “You are strong girl, way to push through it today, good triple".
At the end of class when I went to lie down in savasana I saw Zia (Auntie Shirley) walking down the stairs. I just got a huge smile on my face and thought, ‘that’s exactly what I need right now, awesome’. I started waving and she saw me. The guy next to me asked if it was my mom and I told him who she was. He smiled and said, "you are so lucky, it would be so nice right now, to see a friendly face", indeed it was.
After class, Zia and I went to the café and grabbed some supper than went back to our room to eat supper with Eleni. Well Zia made it here, but her luggage did not. When she arrived at the hotel they didn’t have a reservation for her either. She was wondering what kind of sign it was…no luggage, no reservation, hmmmm. Unless she gets her bags tonight or early in the morning she won’t be able to do class in the morning.
As we walked into lecture at 9:30pm there was chiaos amongst everyone in the lecture hall. It quickly spread that during evening class people’s rooms got broken into again and this time passports were stolen. All the safes in the other tower have electronic safes and apparently when the power went out it temporary unlocked them all. The safes in the main tower in our rooms have key locks, not that I feel any better. Everyone was running back to their rooms to get all their belongings out of their safes.
It was so frantic in there and the tension was so high. The teachers tried to address this as soon and best as they could. Monali and Lynn stood at the front of the lecture hall and tried to answer as many questions as they could. We started to hear about a bunch of other incidents that had happened over the last four or five weeks in regards to security. None of which we were aware of before tonight. There were stories about people getting knocks on their doors at 4am from guys that said they were maintenance workers, patio doors being left open by cleaning staff, people getting let into their rooms without ids, key cards being re-scanned without id, and other break ins. For the last couple weeks when the room break ins started happening Monali kept telling us that we are responsible for our own stuff and to take care of it. Just the other night she asked us to email a girl some photos from training because she lost her lap top, when in fact it was stolen from her room. A lot of the frustration tonight came from the fact that we have taken the best measures to do that and it is still happening, we can only do so much before it is out of our control. They told us this has never happened before in all of teacher training so they are as concerned as us. I understand the staff has to try and control 300 people and it takes a lot of energy, I just think it could have been handled better. The way some of the questions were being answered and directed made it feel like we were in the wrong and being attacked. That is not a good way to approach anything especially when defences are already up.
When Bikram arrived he arrived with the man who is the head of security for the hotel. He came to tell us what measures they are taking now to protect us. They have hired security guards to walk the grounds and the floors 24 hours to keep an eye out. He is going to talk to the cleaning staff and make sure patio doors are locked after cleaning. He also said the police are going to be involved and they wanted take finger prints. A friend of mine who got her room broken into four weeks ago was told that and it never happened, so I don’t know. Bikram asked the security manager some of his own questions about the safety in the rooms. They opened the floor to questions and the guy spoke very good English so he did his best to answer any concerns. In the end we were beating a dead horse so all I can say is that even though I don't feel safe anymore they say they are going to do their best in terms of safety until we leave.
After all that went down, Bikram began to lecture, but not before making fun of our warm up breathing and the way we looked in the third class. Seeing him imitate us was hilarious and was kind of déjà vu. He lectured more about the mind and the body tonight, kind of bringing it all together. When he finished his talk at 1am, he started a video. It was video tape about his guru and other yogi’s demonstrating how strong the mind really is. There was some footage of Bikram doing some morning shows in 1975 and 1978 too. As soon as the lights went out, people passed right out. Though it is hard to watch some of the crazy things that some of them can do with their bodies, I actually watched it all. We got dismissed at 2:30 for bed.
The pic is my dryer; chairs on the patio
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