Fall TT 08

Post training reflection

2008-11-20T12:53:00.007-06:00

Four days have come and gone since training has ended. I was lucky enough to have my parents and Aunt come down for my graduation. My Auntie Shirley did every single class with us since she arrived, fourteen classes in nine days. She did her first double ever here and knocked out every single posture, what a rock star. My parents did their very first Bikram class, they were lucky enough to have it with Bikram on our very last class of training, and they both lived to tell about it, talk about rock stars!
I went to the make up class by choice on Saturday with Nikki and Auntie Shirley. My body was loving doing the yoga every day so going four or five days with out it will be kind of weird. I know weird is a funny way to describe it but I think that sums it up. I don’t think my body will crave it, it has been sending me signals this week that it is ready for a break.
Sunday was the day the majority of students now teachers were checking out and going home, my room mate included. I spent Sunday lounging around and enjoying my family time, that’s hard to come by these days. After breakfast I shoved all my stuff into my suitcases and switched into Auntie Shirley's room. Eleni’s flight wasn’t until the afternoon so we took our time packing up and getting ready. We left all our unopened food, plastic containers, and cutlery for Maria, our maid who has made the stay as comfortable as possible for us during our stay. It felt so surreal to take one more glance at the room before saying good bye and closing the door behind me.
It was nice not have to think about getting laundry done, going to wal-mart or fitting in a nap. It was Damien’s last night here so we all went for supper. We also took some posture photo’s by the ocean because who knows when either of us will have that opportunity again. Damien also said good bye to his mat in style, releasing it into the ocean. Okay he didn’t leave it there but he tossed into the ocean, I bet that felt good.
Monday was sight seeing day. We hired Alejandro, a cabbie we met one night after eating at Costa Nostra. He took us (me, Mom, Dad, and Auntie Shirley) around Acapulco for the day. We saw the oldest church in Acapulco, the cliff divers, shopped at the mall, stopped at the church at the top of the hill where all the well to do people live and we ended the day with swimming with the dolphins. When we got back I cooked my last gourmet Italian pasta rice cooker meal in Acapulco. Tuesday became a day to enjoy the sun.
Now I sit here at the airport waiting to board the plane. I thought I would miss training more than I do right now. I think it will take a little time for it all to sink in once I get home. I think staying a couple days after training is exactly what a person should do. It gave me a little adjustment time to get used to not having a schedule or seeing a yogi around every corner. My last class was the make up class so that was a baby step into getting back into the room with a mere 40 people. I am actually excited to get into the hot room at home, the people there are so supportive.
The weekend before week nine I was getting a little sad thinking that it was coming to an end. We were told not to even worry about week nine, not to even think about it. When week nine started it sure wasn’t what I was expecting, especially after being told not to worry about it. There was a rumor going around that the chakra doctor had cancelled. One trainee asked the staff straight out if she was coming and once again we were given the run around, saying they didn’t know. The next day we were put into the hot room for an extra three hours to do three mock classes, granted the heat wasn’t on but regardless, we were all sweating and it drained us.
There were a lot of people that began to get irritated and to the point of anger by Tuesday night moving into Wednesday afternoon. I was a little more on the annoyed side, annoyed at being kept in the dark about everything, annoyed at the disorganization and annoyed that week ninewas so frusterating. The mood took a 360 degree angle turn Wednesday afternoon when Bikram walked in and introduced Craig. In a matter of minutes the man was able to relieve some of the anxiety that was created in the last two days. Some how he was also able to capture our attention for the entire three hours he lectured for that day and the following afternoon.

If I could have changed one thing in the last week I wish Craig would have been here for at least all of week nine. There is so much to learn from him and I felt like it was just the tip of the ice berg by only having him for a couple days. Having him here seemed to be the missing piece of the puzzle as he was able to connect all the dots for me.
By the end of the week I was no longer sad thinking about it all ending. I tried to enjoy every single breath and absorb everything I could in the last moments with my new Bikram family. I started to think about all the doors this opportunity has opened for me. I am also really glad that my parents came down to share this experience with me as well. When I told them I was going to training they didn’t try to stop me, they questioned why it had to be for two months and in Mexico. When I told them there was a graduation they asked when and booked their flights the following day.
At graduation and in the last class, Bikram talked dircectly to the families telling them how lucky we are, how they probably don’t even recognize us anymore. In the last couple days my parents started asking me questions about Bikram himself, teaching, and the yoga. By them asking me questions gives me the signal that they care, they are interested and want to know more, and that mean so much to me. I think having them come here for a couple days also helped me to better adjust to the coming out of the bubble.
I talked to some people about what they are going to miss when training is over. Some common answers have been:

'Getting my bed made every day’- I never really thought about this because I always felt bad for the maids. They came in, cleaned and did the same thing every single day. I felt bad because we would come back from class and mess up the neat way they arranged our stuff in the shower, dirty the cup they just cleaned, and use the towel they just folded. I was told to get used to it, it’s their job, but its hard to get used to when you are someone who does everything for yourself.

Practicing twice a day- I actually think that is something I can agree with. My body was very much enjoying and eating up the doubles. My body defintely needs a little break for a couple days but I know it will crave it daily.

Having a schedule- I am not usually one that likes to be told what to do, so having a schedule you would think would be hard for me. I actually liked having a schedule, it gave me a purpose and reason to be somewhere. On those days when we got an extra hour before lecture was nice, though I would sit in my room and think, ‘now what, so much extra time?’

Their room mate- As far as Eleni and I go; we didn’t ask to be put together but it worked out that way I believe for a reason. We come from the same studio and talked about room mates before we left but both decided to leave it up to the universe. We got put together and had the option of talking to the staff and seeing if we could switch rooms. We decided to leave it the way it was because who knows what would happen if we asked to be switched plus our schedules meshed so well together. We woke up in the morning at the same time, enough time to eat breakfast, change and get to class; perfect. After the yoga classes, Eleni would head straight up to the room to shower and get ready and I would head to the pool for my salt water swim. By the time I got back to the room, the shower was waiting for me. We went for lunch together (until the last week when Eleni got tired of the food). Supper was easy, whether we made pasta together or ordered room service, we normally ate together in the room, studied dialogue or played on our computers. We would also do our shuttle rides and shopping together on the weekends. The only thing we did not do together was our dialogue, which worked out perfectly okay. I still like to bug her about being a perfectionist, I gave up on that after by little cry at balancing stick.
We trusted each other and were able to vent to each other knowing it would stay between us. I don’t think there was a ever a moment when we completely lost it on each other either. We never yelled or threw things at each others, lol, which I heard can happen. I think we both learned from each other and I think it will continue as we head back to the same studio. If we got one thing out of this, a least we know we can travel together, we all need a good travel partner. Oh and I can’t forget to mention the kicker; neither of us snored so that was glorious.

Practicing with 300 people- I think whoever denies they are going to miss practicing with that many people is crazy. The energy is unbelievable, even on those days when you want to strangle the person next to you for lying down the entire class. One thing I have learnt from practicing with this many people is you never know what is going on with someone. You might be practicing beside someone who was up puking all night or has had diaherra for the last two weeks, but are still pushing through the poses. They aren’t stealing your energy like I used to think. I realized those were the days they needed me, those are the days I sent them my love because tomorrow it might be me, you never know. To sum it up, YES, I will absoletly miss practicing with 300 plus people.

Bikram- This is completely obvious, and he has told us since day one that for the first time in our lives we will miss someone and something; him. The guy can be a little in your face at times, but that is him, and I love it, bring it on. On the last night he lectured when he was just sitting there telling us stories, I leaned over to Eleni and said, “I could listen to him all night until class starts”. There was not one night I fell asleep when he was talking about his life and his stories (watching the Bollywood movies was a whole different story). I plan to return to future trainings and stay connected with Bikram, so the withdrawl shouldn’t last too long, but I know it’s never the same.

Now here is my list of things I will not miss:
10) Atlantis (lecture room) chairs
9) Not feeling safe in my home of two months (once the break-ins started)
8) Shopping at Wal-mart
7) Having to get a taxi/shuttle every time I want to go somewheres
6) Filling up the britta three times a day
5) Getting locked out of my room because the door battery died
4) Worrying about ants/being bitten in my bed
3) Mexico
2) Not knowing what will happen next
1) Chula Vista

I am not really out of the bubble yet so I can’t quite yet reflect on my entire experience, nor do I want to. I hope it takes years for me understand exactly what went on. I am excited to grow and see what the future holds as I have learnt a ton of things about myself. In these nine weeks I have begun to wake up all those sleepy, lazy brain cells, the ones I never knew I had, the ones Bikram talks about. I remember when I was 19 and I told a friend, “I know exactly who I am right now." HA, if only I had heard Bikram’s four pivotal words back them…"YOU HAVE NO IDEA!" (though I probably would have rolled my eyes). The two things I have learned throughout this entire experience is: Don’t anticipate anything and just smile.
With that I leave you with this Bikram quote:

‘When good comes in your life,
don’t get excited and jump up and down like monkey, because bad is coming very soon.
When bad comes in your life,
fight through it, be happy, put a smile on your face because good is coming.
That is life’

NAMASTE

Graduation Day

2008-11-16T16:13:00.004-06:00

I woke up this morning for the nine o’clock makeup class. I did not have a make up, nor have I had one all training; just had to throw that in there. Actually to add to that I didn't miss one sign in the entire training. I decided to go practice with Nikki and Zia one more time while in Mexico. This time we were able to practice beside each other so that was nice. Diane taught and it was a nice relaxed class with little heat and humidity. Diane made some corrections to Auntie Shirley which she said totally helped her practice and focus.
After class I met Mom, Dad and Zia for lunch at Chula Vista. After lunch I went and took a ten minute nap before Eleni walked in with her toes and hair done, ready for the night to begin. We got ready and made our way down to the Atlantis room where the Graduation ceremony was going to be held.
Senior teacher Jim Kallet opened the ceremony with a speech from Bishnu Ghosh, Bikram’s guru, recorded in his own voice before he passed away. Craig was the master of ceremonies and seemed at home up there. Rajashree came up and welcomed us all to the Bikram family. As did principal teacher of the college Emmy, said a few encouraging words to us as well. They gave out some special awards that were chosen by the staff; Bulldog determination, Bengal tiger strength, yogini, Yogi, best dialogue, best anatomy score and valedictorian. It was so neat to see Vincent from Brooklyn crying as he accepted his award for Bulldog determination.
My two month next door neighbour Sheila won the Bengal Tiger Strength award. This lady is one tough cookie; she told me she thinks she received 20 IV’s in the first six weeks here. She was constantly kept up all night puking or getting an IV. In week seven she decided to go home and take care of herself. When Bikram came back in week eight he requested that she return and finish with her class mates. She jumped on the next available flight and joined us for our last couple weeks, which she did with such grace. The entire time she was sick you couldn’t tell because she always had a little smile on her face, so humble. To this day they still don’t know what is wrong with her, but she’s Canadian so she’ll be in good hands when she gets home.
Rajashree with the help of her daughter acknowledged the staff and senior teachers who were here throughout training. Dr. Tom who is a part of our graduating class gave a little speech. He is a retired Oncologist, which is a doctor that specialized with cancer patients. He talked about his focus for the future and hope of combining Bikram yoga with the Medicine education. Ben was our valedictorian; he gave a little speech talking about his experience during the triple class day which summed up our whole experience here.
Bikram then came on stage and give us his graduation speech. He talked about his classy white suit and fancy hat that he is famous for. He said he got it made a couple weeks ago when he was in India just for us. He talked to our families about everything we were put through while we were here. He summed up how this experience will change our lives forever and that our family probably didn’t even recognize us when they arrived here. He talked about the yoga and how we all came to be there in that moment and why. After he finished his speech, the handing out of the certificates began. It was great to see everyone dressed up and looking so fine. I thoroughly enjoyed checking everyone out and sitting with my posture clinic group again.
After the certificates were handed out, there was dinner waiting for us, a buffet roast beef dinner served outside. The place where the dinner was being held was absolutely beautiful the way they had it set up. We are in a beautiful place so it didn’t need much help from the tables and chairs that were graced with white table linens. There were three buffet lines on the outside and the bar at the one end. After dinner everyone mingled for a bit than headed to lobby bar which we’ve seen in passing over the last 60 days. It was more of a social gathering to say our last good byes and congratulations one more time. Some people headed out to go dancing but not this yogini. It was a nice chill nice to end of a great training and a great experience.

The last day

2008-11-15T12:42:00.006-06:00

Rajashree taught the last morning class of training. It would have been Bikram’s Dad’s 100th birthday today so we did a moment of silence for him at the end of class. Monali was very sad today and said she couldn’t smile all day because she just thinks about him. The class was good and at a ‘normal’ Bikram room temperature. I had my strong New Mexico girl Noel beside me today, for some reason over the last two weeks we keep finding ourselves beside each other. So today we energized our way through the entire thing.
I met Mom, Dad, and Auntie Shirley for lunch. After lunch all the trainees made their way to the lecture hall. Today the afternoon lecture ended up being a free forum. Rajashree, Emmy, and Craig were on stage and we were allowed to ask them any questions we wanted. After about an hour of that Rajashree asked students to come up and tell their story. Over twenty students went on stage with these amazing inspirational stories of how Bikram yoga has saved or changed their life. I have mentioned before that I love to hear these stories, and when four o’clock rolled around I was not ready to leave yet. I could have sat there all day and listened to the stories.
It's so easy to judge someone and turn your nose up at someone; sooo easy, but you never know what someone has faced in their life. People who shouldn’t be alive, have one kidney, addicted, spinal problems, abuse, depression, multiple operations, etc surround us every day and you never know it. I use to be an expert at judging people, thinking I knew everything about them by the way they walked, talked or smiled. It is so easy to find things wrong with someone else when you can’t even look at your own eyes in mirror. If I have learnt one thing over this time here it is to let people be who they are, treat them like a human being. Though I am still a huge believer in first impressions.
After lecture we quickly made our way back to our rooms to get ready for our last class as a teacher trainee. Me, Damian and Eleni set up right in front of the podium, side by side. I walked to the back of the room to put my stuff away and there was Mom and Dad dressed in yoga gear, standing on a mat with a bottle of water. They were going to try their first ever Bikram yoga class. Wow, talk about an experience, the energy in there was unreal and the room was so loud with all the chit chat. I was so excited to see Mom and Dad, they looked so cute and excited.
“Check check 1 2 3 4 check, everyone on the line please”, Bikram walked in and it was go time. I felt like an elastic band in there tonight. Everyone was working together and I just did the yoga and it was amazing. I got my first correction ever from Bikram in balancing stick; “Miss Glasses. Miss glasses, head up. Yes, now you are T, loooook at thaaaat”.

At toe stand Bikram decided to go the washroom and told us all to hold the posture until he got back, yah that didn’t last. Then at stretching posture he started to walk around and stand on people’s backs. He was giving out numbers to people who could touch their head to their toes. He was enjoying it way to much as he did various poses; statue of liberty, flex, cowboy, world, etc, it was very entertaining to say the least. He stood on about ten backs which surpassed into the 800’s for head to feet touching. I think at the very first training over ten years ago was when he started countingm though it is much more common now but the counting still continues. To top it off Mom and Dad made it through their very first Bikram yoga class, how lucky are they to have Bikram teach it.
After class we rushed to shower and change beccause we were told to meet in the lecture hall at 7:30 for snacks provided by Bikram. We did just that and the snack turned out to be pizza, which was fabulous. At 8:30 our guests and teachers started to arrive for the talent show. The talent show started at 9:00 and everyone was just a buzzing, waiting in anticipation.
A little after 9:00, the lights went down and the show began. Abigaliah, JC, and Isaac were the mc’s for the evening. They made the entire show and I can’t even begin to explain how completely hilarious they were. They had inside jokes that only us trainee’s would understand and appreciate. They thanked the teachers in such a way that was funny yet totally sincere and appreciative at the same time. The performers were beyond amazing from poetry, dancing, singing, musical instruments, and skits. Having a talent show is such a great idea, it gives a little glimpse into people’s other world outside of the yoga. At the end, Bikram’s daughter came up and did a stomach muscle example with a few helpers (JC and Dominique). The end of the night was topped off with a slide show that Hillary and Cristine put together from pictures they had compiled throughout the nine weeks. They put it to music and just totally capped off the evening, it was great. At the end of the slideshow Todd built onto that by handing out the year books and thanking each of the pivotal staff one by one.

Rockstar

2008-11-14T11:18:00.005-06:00

Last night before I went to bed I took some more pepto bismal. Praise the pink liquid because it worked and I slept like a baby, oh my gosh I was out cold until the alarm went off. Without even thinking I had my usual routine of having cereal for breakfast. The girls next door who went through the same thing a couple weeks ago went to see the doctor when they were sick. The doctor told them not to eat dairy or fruit while their stomach hurt. I didn’t realize what I did until the milk was digested and it kind of hurt, not as bad as yesterday though.
This morning’s class was taught by Rajashree, that was a nice surprise. We were all anticipating who would teach this mornings class. We already know who will teach the remaining three classes. It was nice to see and have her, man she knows how to kick our butts, actaully I kicked my own ass but none the less it was a really great class.
After lunch we had to all meet in the yoga room. Some of the teachers, along with Bikram and Emmy demonstrated the advanced series for us. They did the demonstration in 80 minutes, a class which is usually a two hour class. After the demonstration we all met back in the lecture hall to go over some last minute graduation stuff.
Evening class was taught by Craig. I worked my butt off and it was awesome. I am feeling really strong today now that my energy is not being spent on trying to feel better.

After class, after savasana today Auntie Shirley was getting up and Diane, one of the senior teachers poked her head in the door. She shouted at her "You are a rock star!" to which Zia just said thanks. Diane told her she has been keeping her eye on her and she has been rocking it all out and is totally impressed. That's my Zia the rock star! The pic is me, Zia, and Nikki before class.
The routine with Auntie Shirley has been nice, she comes and does the AM class, then we meet for lunch at 11:30am. When lunch is finished she heads to the pool and I head to lecture. Then I see her again at the PM class. After class she comes to my room for supper around 7:30 to 8pm. After supper she usually comes to the lecture (last night she had a date with her book). She is a trooper though because she stayed up on Tuesday with us until 2am watching movies in the lecture hall, bless her.
Bikram lectured for the last time tonight, he talked about the warm up breathing exercise. After that he linked it all together with a bunch of breathing he learnt from his guru in India. After hislecture we did a deep breathing meditation that he said is his countries (India) gift to us through him. It was a form of deep breathing that we did for about seven minutes. When we were all finished you could feel the calming energy in the room, it was so neat. That lasted until one student asked Bikram if he would visit their studio next week when he is in town. You could feel the energy take a complete nose dive and feel everyone rolling their eyes as soon as the words came out. Well it was nice while it lasted.
We got dismissed at midnight. When I was leaving the lecture hall my parents were standing at the back with Auntie Shirley. It was so nice to see them and give them a big hug. They hadn’t even gone to their room yet, Auntie ushered them right to the Atlantis hall where we were.

Craig and Cramps

2008-11-13T11:24:00.003-06:00

Today’s entry will probably be very short; I don’t have the energy nor the brain power right now. I think I only got two hours of sleep on the whole last night. I mentioned yesterday that I had stomach pains during the movie and when I got back to the room they got worse. I lied in bed in the fetal position for about two hours because it hurt so much, it felt like someone was inside my stomach using a carrot grater on my insides. My stomach was constantly cramping, not the actual stomach muscles but it felt like my organs were cramping. At about 4am I went to the bathroom and puked my guts out, I was so tired that I actually fell asleep with my head on the toilet seat. I woke up around 6:30 to a cramp in my stomach again, I puked again and then I had to use the toilet the proper way. Sorry to be so graphic but this is what you get when you tune in. After that I made my way to my bed and shut my eyes for 45 minutes before the alarm went off.
My stomach was cramping so much I couldn’t even stand up straight. Eleni instantly knew something was wrong. Good thing the girl sleeps with ear plugs in and didn’t have to go the bathroom in the middle of the night when I was sleeping there. I got ready for class and I don’t know how I made it there, because I had to stop every 12 steps and crouch in pain. It hurt so much it actually brought me to tears by the time I got to the elevator. I have no idea what brought this on.
I was talking to another girl at lunch that felt the same way last week and she thinks she had a virus. She went to eat the week before and had pop with ice; it took her down all last week. She had to take some prescribed meds that she brought with her before it got better.
When I got to the yoga room, Eleni went told Auntie Shirley what was going on. As soon as I saw her I started to cry, I was in so much pain. She suggested I talk to the nurse so I went to find a spot in the back of the room first for my mat. When I was putting my mat down my cramps hit again and I crumbled to the ground on my knees and started shaking. Upkar who was right in front of me instantly grabbed me and helped me out of the room to talk to the nurse.
The nurse wanted me to go see the doctor, a visit that would have cost $200 US. Me being stubborn said no, let's see what happens. She then told me she wanted me to sit out class, to which I shook my head no. She was worried that I didn't have enough electrolytes to get through class. I asked her if I would have a make up class and she said more than likely but don’t think about that. There were rumors that the makeup is 6am on Friday; thanks but no thanks. I told her I would take it easy and do class.
I did every posture, not to the best of my ability but I attempted everything. Whenever I would do a forward bend my stomach would cramp and I would crumble to my knees. So I took it easy and did what I could but I did not push myself. Oh and by the way, Emmy taught class, she is baaaaaack.
Lunch took me about an hour to eat because it was a very slow process. My stomach was still going in and out of cramping but I made it through. After lunch it was back to the lecture hall. Bikram came down and he introduced us to Craig Valleni (?). Craig has been the teacher training on site coordinator for the past like 15 years, now he is travelling around the world doing lectures/seminars for Bikram. Bikram handed us over to him until the end of training, so cool, I have heard so much about him.
Craig lectured for the entire three hours about using the dialogue and mostly about being a teacher. He has such a neat way of explaining things, using these parallels and real like situations to explain what he is talking about and link it to teaching. He explained why the dialogue is written the way it is and why it works. I had a hard time sitting still throughout the lecture as I was still in and out of cramping but I hung onto every word as best I could.
After lecture we had class with Craig, I really enjoyed his class. He was very energetic and laid back. He said he was impressed with how we moved as a group. He also teased us a little bit about having to do a triple last week and the heat in the room throughout training, though it has been much cooler this week so that has been a very nice break. He used different voices and quoted movies during class which was fun. One thing I noticed was that every time we did postures that we were kneeling down he was right down there on his knees with us (on the podium of course). I know some teachers say not to move around and use a lot of body movement in class but I quite enjoyed it, making me feel like he was working hard with us in some weird way.
Before eating supper I took some peptobismal (Nikki’s suggestion) to see if that would help with my stomach. It helped a little, I was still getting the cramping just not as sevre or as often. We had evening lecture with Craig. He talked about the different postures and the way to adapt them for certain ailments and what to look for. He also showed us what habits most beginners will start with on their first couple classes. He related a lot of the stories back to his first couple classes and incorporated his own personal experience and thoughts at the time (when he started) into the lecture. I enjoyed this element as it made it very personable. Bikram came down around midnight to reintroduce Rajashree to us and tell us that we aren’t allowed to have a party on Friday night. Then he proceeded to tell us he is going to the discothèque to go dancing Friday night but we will have to watch a movie after the talent show. He also told Craig to keep us there until 2am so we could stay and watch a bollywood movie with him after. Thank goodness Craig was on our side, we got dismissed at 1am.

Deja vu....Esak

2008-11-12T11:12:00.005-06:00

The last Tuesday morning class was taught by Dave from Vancouver, also known as Fireman Dave. I have heard about Fireman Dave but never seen or met him before. This guy is stacked with nothing but muscle, and I heard its awesome ot see him to the advanced, can't wait. He seems really nice and taught the entire class with a smile on his face. His voice was very consistent but not to the point of being monotone which was refreshing. I lied down in savasana and I had a physically exhausting thought run through my head. It said to me “I am ready for a break and tired of taking these classes." First time I have had a thought like that since starting Bikram.
I sat with Auntie Shirley and two other trainees at lunch. We talked about that because the other girl at the table has the same thought. The guy figured our bodies have pushed as far as they want to during this training and now just wants to take a break, it totally makes sense. I don’t think I have pushed myself or gone any further in any of the posture in the last week. It might also be a mind thing, because I know we are nearing the end.
After class I made my way to the pool and ran into Nikki. For those of you who don’t know, Nikki is a teacher at my home studio. She was leaving the pool and I was heading there. I didn’t even recognize her because she had some big rock star sunglasses on. It was really good to see her and a surprise because I wasn’t expecting to see her until tomorrow.
After lunch everyone signed in at the lecture hall and got seated. After we were all sitting we were told to grab our stuff, go back to our rooms, get our yoga gear and meet in the yoga room. So we dressed in our yoga clothes and met in the room with anticipation wondering what was next. Lynn took the microphone and told us that me were going to do mini mock classes. Trainees got the opportunity to teach two or three postures in a row to all of us while we did them. So we were in that yoga room for three hours and went through all the postures three times. About an hour and half into it, and one full class later, Lynn let every other row rotate doing the postures, giving us a bit of a breather in between some postures. Thank god the heat was not on, not that that stopped us from sweating.
Evening class was taught by Esak. It was nice to have a teacher at training that I have had before in a normal class setting at home. Esak was at my home studio in July doing a demo/seminar and synergy for us so I had the opportunity to take his class there. I have always wondered if teachers adjust their classes to teach us trainees. I find Esak’s class very motivating and I worked very hard tonight. He seemed a lot more relaxed teaching in Edmonton, with good reason. Tonight he was giving corrections and calling people out on things. I really liked it and again learned a lot from him, he has such a calming energy as well. I think it makes a difference being on a podium as well because you can see a lot more I am guessing. He called us all out on bow, telling us it was not very pretty and made us do three sets.
After class on my way out I stopped to say thank you to Esak for a great class. I didn't think he would remember me because I know he meets alot of people in this business. He gave me a high five and said “yah, you work at the front desk at Pernille’s studio, I met you in the summer”. I just smiled and said “wow, good memory”, that was cool.
After supper we had movie night with Bikram starting with Diane answering any questions we had about anything. When Bikram arrived, Lisa from Las Vegas showed us a slide show she had constructed from when she visited India with Bikram last year. There were pictures of Bikram’s mothers house, his mom, Bishnu’s college (where Bikram was trained), Bikram’s family, streets, pets, food, family and the prayer centers. It was very neat to see and hear Lisa narrate for us, making it that much better. After that was finished we watched some DVD’s that had any shows or stories about Bikram over the last 25 years. After that was done we watched the last five episodes of the Lord Krishna movies that Bikram loves to torture us with. My Aunt the trooper actually stayed for the entire things until we got dismissed at 2am. I had to get up near the end of the movie because my stomach was cramping so bad, but hopefully a little sleep will help.

The picture is us four out for supper on Sunday

The last Monday

2008-11-11T11:07:00.009-06:00

Diane is back and that totally lifts everyone’s spirits here, well it lifted mine at least. Not that our spirits needed to be lifted anymore, I mean it is the last Monday but, you know, every little bit helps. I woke up this morning feeling like I was walking on air. I couldn’t figure out if it was because it is week nine and after morning class we are into the single digits in terms of number of classes left or if it was yesterday’s massage. It was probably a combination of the two. Regardless, class was awesome, lead by Diane, the bus driver is back, Welcome home Diane. Okay she is not a real bus driver but maybe I should explain the story so it makes sense.
Diane was here during weeks two and three, back when all the shit with the room was going on, and everyone was going down. At that time it was basically every man for himself and some people did their own thing in class, ahead of the teacher. Diane taught us a handful of classes and whenever she taught she called herself the bus driver. She made certain that we did postures together as a group, not before or after we were instructed to. She was driving the bus and we were being trained not to do anything until she instructed us to, again it was exactly what we needed at that time.
We impressed her today because after we did the sit up, she said, "ohhhh, someone’s been on you about the sit up, looks goooood." She is so aware of what is going on in her room when she is teaching, well I guess not only when she is teaching but also when she is taking class at the back of the room. She always has a little note pad where she writes down things to talk to us/ remind us about later, she's always learning and helping, I love it.
The room felt really cool today, but humid. Since we are in the final week we are allowed to put our mats anywhere in the room for classes. It was nice to practice by some people I have not been near since the beginning of training. It's also kind of funny to see the spots where people do not want to put their mats in their room.
Zia met Eleni and I for lunch at Chula Vista. After lunch it was back to the lecture hall for more posture clinic with Bikram. Bikram went off on some tangents today so we didn’t get through all the postures, only two left though.
Bikram taught evening class tonight. I was not feeling well at all, by the end of class I thought I was going to vomit on my mat. I had not eaten very much at lunch and then only had little snacks throughout the afternoon. Usually when we get back to the room before class I have some yogurt because I am a little hungry but today I decided to see what would happen without the yogurt. Well after that result I will never do that again, but you don’t know unless you try, right!?
After class they had the try outs for the on stage demonstration at graduation. One of the teachers had asked me to try out but I have heard that Bikram doesn't let anyone with tatoos demonstrate though. It didn’t take long for Bikram to dismiss those with body markings. It was fun to watch the weeding out process as Bikram personally chose who he wanted to demonstrate at grad. Bikram ended up picking 30 people when they only wanted him to choose 25, he kept saying how good everyone was. He said if they can only fit 25 on the stage then it is up to Rajashree to get rid of five people, lol, nice guy.
After supper we had more lecture with Bikram. He finished off the remaining postures and then opened the floor to questions about any of the postures. It took us over three hours to get through those final two postures. Bikram once again would go off telling us stories about fixing backs and spines and then forget where he was. I am not going to complain though because it was the last Monday, lol, and we didn’t have to stay up and watch a movie.

After class on Saturday, we wanted to take some pictures of us Edmonchucks (thats what we are called here) but Eleni bailed so Damien and I took some pictures.

I haven't been hungry in 8 weeks

2008-11-10T10:55:00.005-06:00

This morning I woke up around 8:30 and contemplated going to the make up class, just to go. Then I opted out and decided to sleep for a couple more hours. I woke up around 10:00am and went to the yoga room to meet Zia and Damian after it. We wanted to take pictures of me, Damien and Eleni together doing some postures. Eleni wasn’t to keen on the idea so she went to wal-mart instead, fine.
After taking some pictures we all went for lunch together and spent an hour down there just relaxing and talking. Talking about lunch brings me to the title of this blog. It actually makes me laugh out loud when I think about it. I think it’s one of the funniest things I heard all weekend, and it came from one of our own, Mr. Serious, aka Damian. Today at lunch Damian was onto his third plate of food when Zia asked, “Where the heck do you put it all?” Too which he replied, “I haven’t been hungry in eight weeks” with a straight face. Zia and I both instantly started laughing. He looked at us and said “it’s true” and continued to shove the fork into his mouth. Okay it probably doesn’t sound that funny when I explain it but if you knew what he has gone through during this training, you’d be laughing too.
I spent the afternoon just relaxing, eating chips and dip with Auntie Shirley. I finally got a hold of my parents after trying to talk to them for the last two days. At 4:30 we went down to the spa and went into the steam room for 20 minutes. After the steam room Zia had made appointments for us to get a 90 minute massage, so we did just that. Zia fell in love with the spa area so she booked a massage for next weekend.
After being pampered we met Eleni and Damian in the lobby. We had made a date with them to go to the local Italian restaurant for supper. The entire place was filled with yogis; it was really nice to see. The meal was good and I ate the most garlicky meal I have ever had. It made me think of Brittany, that’s one girl that loves garlic, but this was an extreme case.
It was nice to go out and relax with us four Edmontonians. It was the first time we have gone out as a group. It was like hanging out with family, making fun of each other and laughing about it, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I told Eleni and Damian they are going to miss me, having me around all the time to which they both responded, “We’ll see each other more.” I told them I would show how much I miss them when they are in my class, ha ha.
We talked about our experiences during training and some of our favorite memories while here, talking and joking about teaching each other and taking each other’s classes. It seems so surreal to talk about teaching each other and the teachers back home that trained us. We had a good laugh about all the inside jokes we have amongst each other and about training. I think Zia enjoyed sitting back and listening to us reminisce about our different stories.
We had the coolest taxi driver coming home. He had a little dvd player in his car and watching some old awards show or something. The show was in English and he was singing along to it with a huge smile on his face. When he thought we didn’t want to watch it, he pulled out his dvd collection and asked what we wanted to watch. The drive was only seven minutes but it was very entertaining. He was making fun of the Mexican culture and we told him about our experience here. He spoke English very well and he spoke Italian too so that was fun. I got his business card so he can take us around next weekend.

The week of the lasts

2008-11-09T10:09:00.004-06:00

By the end of the week you are going to be tired of hearing about all the ‘lasts’. Today was our last Saturday class. I honestly don’t even remember the teachers name or where she is from. She mentioned it at the beginning of class but my brain was still in bed. I like Saturday classes because they just seem more chillaxed as a whole. It takes me a little longer to get into the groove of things because I am still half asleep. Saturday classes have just seemed a little easier, maybe it’s because I know I can crawl into bed a couple hours later for a nap. I also believe the room is less hot than the rest of the weekly classes. There is also the fact that the rest of the day is ours and there are no expectations for the rest of the day. Saturdays mean no surprises, no second class and no anticipation of wondering how long Bikram will keep us up in the evening. Not that I get much accomplished on the weekends but it beats having to rush off to the lecture hall after lunch.
Today I ran into a girl that I have seen struggling all week. She has been walking with her head down and crying in class. It was the first time all training that I had seen these emotions come out of her. I just figured she is one of the lucky ones that get to move through things while she is here. I saw her today and she had this incredible new haircut and a huge smile on her face. She went from having bra length hair to not long enough to put in a pony tail hair. I just said to her, ‘wow, look at you, check it out’. She just smiled and said “it’s my break up hair cut” with a little spin so I could take it all in. It was those six words that started an hour conversation about our experiences here. I have not talked to her except in passing these entire two months. Two months ago she expected to go home from training, teach part time, plan her wedding and move into a new house. Now five days later she has a new haircut, a wider smile, a new outlook, and she’s packing up and moving away to put all her energy into teaching. Training was never really a thought for her until a visiting senior teacher was at her studio. When he found out she wasn't a teacher he asked her when she was going to teacher training, planting the seed in her head and she thought, ‘sure, why not?’ She never guessed in a million years that that seed would flourish into the most incredible experience of her life. Now she is living in the moment and allowing whatever is meant to happen, happen, one moment at a time.
I would like to say that it totally surprises me how people’s lives just shift, change and grow while they are here, but it doesn’t surprise me at all; I know what this yoga is capable of doing for people. I love being a witness to all the amazing changes and growth people make here. I think throughout the training I have written a lot about other people’s experiences and not really about my own. I haven’t had one of those totally break down moments that a lot of people have experienced, I think I have cried twice since I go here. The first was when I saw my kitty and hearing about how much he missed me and the second was in posture clinic when I was told to give it more heart. I know we aren’t supposed to have any expectations when we come here but I was totally expecting to have a total meltdown. It wasn’t because I thought I needed to but more because I heard it happens. When they first asked us to shut down our blogs they said it was because they didn’t want us to evaluate what was happening to us here. They also didn’t want future trainees reading about our experience and developing expectations for their upcoming adventure. I somewhat understand what they were getting at now. There is no comparing your experience to anyone else’s or thinking ‘well it happened to them’. Though I am journaling/blogging about my experience while I am here it is just the beginning. The physical presence of being at training might end next week but receiving that certificate is just the starting point.
I started this training with the thought of ‘I expect to… get sick, get diaherra, have a break down, get angry, get tired of the food, hear a lot of gossip, get tired of everyone, fight with my room mate, not see the people from my studio very much, stay up all hours studying dialogue, and get cabin fever’. I sure am glad that with all these expectations I was able to take it day by day and each moment one by one. I didn’t wake up every morning wondering when I was going to get sick, be angry, if today would be the day Eleni would piss me off, etc. It was more like, when the drama began I didn’t go looking for the latest dirt. When my roommate did get sick I would say to her, ‘don’t worry I know it will happen to me too’. I did have an angry week but I was able to recognize that and embrace it, it was all good. I thought and dreamed about the dialogue but I tried not to stress over it. Having the same food over and over got tiring, but I made the best of it and thought how lucky we are to get a buffet. I enjoyed my Melissa time and love the fact that I am able to be with and by myself. I never had urges to just get out, go home or go dancing to get away from it all. Don’t get me wrong I don’t walk around with a constant smile on my face. I think if I did that I would be hiding, hiding behind a smile, hiding from how I truly feel, and that ain't me.
I have made two new amazing friends that could not have happened with out this experience here together. Okay I have made more than two friends but these two are from my city so that is even more special. I didn’t want to get into all this sentimental stuff because the end of training is quickly approaching. The fact is my words always come from my heart; where there is no filter some times and can be a scary thought but I just put my hands on the key board and this is what comes out.
Eleni (my room mate) and I got along famously (Sunny from Boston said that the other day and I loved it so I stole it). I love that I can be sarcastic with her and she just tells me to shut up, lol. A comment from me like, “Come on little legs, speed it up” was always followed by a “ha ha, shut up”. I am going miss waking up from crazy dreams and having her laugh at me as I relived them over a bowl of cereal in the morning.
We have had so many awesome moments and memories together. I am glad that getting along with my roommate is one thing I never had to stress over while I was here. I haven’t heard too many roommate horror stories but I know there are some out there. Eleni and I were talking last night about how lucky and glad we are that we got to room together. We never planned it, Eleni especially wanted to take this opportunity to meet and stay with someone from somewhere else in the world. Coming to training we left it up to the universe, expecting to room with complete strangers but it just so happens that being roommates was exactly what we both needed, imagine that.
Some times I don’t even remember what I write about in my blog. There are times when I have something to say and I wonder if I have already mentioned it. My brother asked me last week, “Do you know how long your blogs are?” To which I responded, “yah just a couple pages”, to which he replied “exactly”. I think he was trying to give me a hint, lol. I told him it’s my way of telling a story with out him telling me I was boring him. I don’t know where I am going with this story but for about three seconds on Monday when I wrote my blog I thought about his comment. I tried to make it short but I really have an opinion and thought about everything I write about and is happening with me so it is impossible. If I just wrote about the day’s events and what we did that day, it would be boring and I become bored when that is all I have to write about sometimes. I have used this blog as my journal as well, that means no holds bar. OH, I remember my point; I was thinking about the fact that I can’t wait to go back and read my own blog in a couple weeks, months, years. I give a lot of examples about different experiences here. It will be interesting to go back and read what my take was on it all at this time in my life.

The pic is me and some of the girls from group 13

110% better

2008-11-08T12:17:00.005-06:00

Morning class was taught by Troy from New York. He seriously had the best and most incredible energy I have seen or heard in a class. In posture clinics we have been told over and over again about using too much body movement in class because we won’t be able to last the entire class like that. I don’t think whoever told us that has ever taken one of Troy’s classes. Seriously the guy was like the energizer bunny that didn’t stop, just when I didn’t think I had anything left to give he would give us the encouragement we needed. I felt it was exactly what we needed after yesterday.
During class I felt nutrient depleted like I needed more than just water. So after class for the first time since training started I had some pedialyte. It was exactly what I needed after doing a triple yesterday.
We were told after class that we didn’t have to sign in until 1:30pm that gave us an extra hour. I was not in the mood for Chula Vista buffet so I ate my left over sandwich and took an hour nap, just what I needed. Afternoon lecture was more posture clinic with Bikram. We moved onto the floor series which is pretty good for the number of stories Bikram told us throughout the afternoon.
Evening class was taught by Ren again. Zia received her luggage so she was able to take class. Class was good and I felt a lot better and I powered right through it. Again the teacher makes such a difference and Ren is the biggest breath of fresh air you can find in a teacher. Love how he teaches in the moment in every class.
Zia came over for supper, for a gourmet rice cooker Italian feast. After supper we made our way down to the lecture hall. Before Zia arrived I asked Monali if she is allowed to listen in on the lectures. Monali gave her full permission and said absolutely so she joined us last night and tonight.
The night first started with us talking about teachers opening their own studios. We were allowed to ask any questions we wanted to inquire about opening a studio. I never realized that Bikram had such a close hands on approach on studio’s opening. He personally goes through every studio proposal himself and looks at every floor plan with his own eyes. After everyone had filled their boots with as much studio information as they could handle it basically turned into open mike night. We were allowed to ask Bikram any questions we wanted to. I seriously could have sat their and listen to him talk openly like that until morning class started. I was hanging onto every word he was saying and couldn’t get enough. I was hoping people would keep asking him questions so we could hear his hour answer. I love the way he has a story for every answer and just when you wonder how that has anything to do with the question, he links it all together, unbelievable. But than again it doesn’t surprise me because apparently Shirley McLean told Bikram he could sell ice to Eskimos, lol.
I love how this process and training brings out people’s true personalities. There are some people which I or other students have seen right through since the beginning. Some try to keep a low profile as to not be noticed by the staff. I think no matter what though it all ends up coming out. For example, Bikram started talking about a girl he threw out of training just yesterday. I had heard numerous stories from other trainees about how this girl has treated them personally or talked to staff. I personally witnessed her interaction with Bikram the other night in the lobby after class, going after Bikram with her lips just a going. She was going off the hook so Bikram had hotel staff take her back to her room, pack her bag and she was gone within an hour. Bikram started talking about different personalities and the process of the training and how well this yoga works. That is how he got on the subject of this girl he kicked out. He clarified why she got kicked out and told us how patient he and the staff have been with her this entire time. He told us that Rajashree wanted to kick her out when she was here because she had an interaction with her as well. He felt bad because this yoga could not help her. At the same time is glad it happened because he doesn’t want someone like that to represent him and his name as a teacher.
After talking about her, he called out someone else in the training, ‘another bitch’, as he put it. This girl had an interaction with Monali during our third class on Thursday. When the girl left the room, Monali made sure she was okay (her job) and faced some resistance. Monali told Bikram about this interaction and Bikram called her out about it yesterday in front of everyone. Bikram brought her to the front and asked her a couple questions about her life and why she decided to come here. I wanted Bikram to talk to her one on one but he was fired up so he did it in front of the entire class.
At midnight Bikram asked us if we wanted to watch a movie, in which we all screamed NOOOOOOOOOOO. He immediately started laughing and talking about the movie we should watch. We all groaned and he laughed more. He asked what we wanted to do and everyone shouted ‘BEDDDDDDDD’. He found that even more funny and responded with a “fuck you, LOL”. He loves to get a reaction out of us because he knows how much we enjoy our sleep.
After that he started talking about us and this teacher training saying he likes everything about us except that we like to sleep so much. He said the teacher trainees get a little bit better every year, and this year we are 110% better than the last teacher training. The staff was blown away with how fast we went through our dialogue, finishing one week earlier than last year and two weeks earlier than other years. We were lucky in the sense that it gave us more time with Bikram. Every training there is a mid-term evaluation where the teachers get together and talk about the students who are having more difficulty. It is than that some students are given a report card of sorts and basically told to pull it together if they want to graduate. This year the teachers had a meeting about that and they didn’t have to give an evaluation to anyone. Bikram said everyone that was in that lecture hall tonight was graduating (unless they break one of his rules before that). Having every single person who is here graduate has never happened before. He told us that this is the last teacher training where he plans to spend so much time with the trainees and he doesn’t want to teach so many classes. He started to talk about how fast his kids grew up and how he wants time for himself now. I think knowing that having this much time with Bikram is so rare made it kind of sad. I don’t know how much more one on one time we are going to have with him before the end of training. This weekend a bunch of senior teachers and guests start showing up. To think that it is all coming to an end pretty soon makes it so surreal, I am actually going to miss the late night talks and him making fun of us. We are now moving onto our week of the lasts, and it all began tonight with ‘our last Friday night lecture with Bikram’. He let us go to bed just after 1am without a movie.
This is for you Brit: Teacher training is going to be Palm Springs. He is talking to three different hotels right now to figure out accommodations. None of the hotels want to include a meal in the fee right now so that is where they are at with negotiations. Bikram figures it will more than likely be at the JD Marriott though.

The picture is after our triple on Thursday. We are not allowed to leave the room before the teacher does. At the end of class Bikram played one of his songs from his cd. As he made his way to the back of the room the song was not over yet so he started to sing and dance inside the room. This picture shows all the people waiting for Bikram to leave the room so they could get the hell out of there.

Times three

2008-11-07T11:48:00.004-06:00

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.

The pic is my dryer; chairs on the patio

Spanish class

2008-11-06T12:03:00.005-06:00

Ulyssis from Mexico City taught the morning class. He asked us if we wanted to have a class in Spanish, to which the majority cheered. He agreed and said he would give us the Spanish dialogue if we worked together and shared energy. If we didn’t work together it wouldn’t work.
In the warm up the students have to interlock their fingers and put them underneath their chin. As soon as he started talking everyone put their hands up ready to start. He stopped us and started talking sternly about us not listening and to wait for him. Then he went to start again and he started laughing and said, ‘I wanted to get mad at you for not listening and I forgot you do not understand me, okay, I’ll give you the clue’. From there forward he would give us the visual clue of what to do in certain postures or say a sentence or two in English. It was neat to hear but I found it much more difficult because I was thinking more about the dialogue and what I had to do. There was a lady from Mexico City a couple rows in front of me so I found I spent a lot of energy trying to get clues form her on when to move and what he was saying. It’s not that I didn’t know what to do because we can all do this in our sleep backwards by now, I was more worried about when to start or go into a posture. By the second or third posture we all had caught onto what the word ‘change’ is in Spanish. It took a lot more energy to concentrate on myself today because I was thinking so much about the dialogue. It also wore on us because it was a two hour class; we haven’t had one of those since the first week.
After lunch we had lecture with Bikram. It was a mock posture clinic where he started to go through all the 26 postures one by one with us. He brought people on stage to show the difference between the perfectly executed posture and the not quite there yet posture. He also helped those who thought they needed a little extra push in some postures. It was neat to see what one’s true potential was with the a little helping hand from Bikram. I went on stage to get help with the eagle posture. Since the beginning of teacher training I have struggled to get my hands-palms together and under my nose in the posture. Bikram just grabbed my arms loosened them up then cranked them under each other. It didn’t hurt but I could totally feel the difference in my back from the twist.
Just to give you a little example of Bikram’s personality, I have the perfect story. Half way through lecture this afternoon Bikram stopped us to go to the washroom. After the break he came back and told us that he thought there was girl peeing beside him in the toilet because when he looked in the mirror and saw pink panties. He then proceeded to pull down his shorts and show us his pink underwear. He then went on to explain that he only wears white or black panties (he calls all underwear panties). I know I was wondering how he ended up with pink underwear. Then he started shouting at Monali for mixing up the panties and that he was wearing Rajashree’s (his wife) panties, we were howling.
Before evening class there were rumors of a double class tonight. Bikram had threatened us on Monday that we would have three classes in one day either Tuesday or Wednesday. I brought an extra water bottle with me just in case.
Bikram taught the evening class and he was in one hell of a mood again, in a good way. He was fired up because today he had a big bottle of coke instead of a little can like Monali gave him yesterday. He likes to taunt us with it while we are in the middle of a posture. He was in a good mood and it was a pretty mellow class, well as mellow as you can get when Bikram is teaching. During camel he came off his perch and stood on a couple people’s hips to show how far they come back. He tried to do a hand stand too but it was too humid to get any traction. Today was the first time since Bikram has been back that he played a song from his cd for us at the end of class. When the song started playing I am sure a few bodies relaxed knowing that was our last class of the night.
After supper we had lecture with Bikram. He talked about the spine, cars and told us a couple more stories about saving some movie stars lives.
At 11:45pm he opened the floor to us for any questions and then he wanted to take a 15 minute break to start a movie. Everyone started groaning and shouting noooooo, to which he laughed and started to talk about how much we like sleep. We all must have looked really out of it because after the question he said ‘go back to your coma, good night’.

This is not Disneyland

2008-11-05T11:12:00.004-06:00

Morning class was taught by Ren again. He is exactly who we needed this morning after last night’s ass kicking class. Some people, me included, were still trying to catch their breath from last nights class. I drank so much water and this morning I still felt I wasn’t hydrated enough for class. My body must have been ready because it didn’t seem that was the case. I was surrounded by a group of people I have not practiced beside before, it was great. Ren has such great energy and I love how he teaches for and in the moment. We have only had two classes with him and both of them have been completely different. I like how he allows the energy of the room to guide him through the type of class he gives us.
After lunch we had posture clinic but a different style this time, it was held in the lecture hall. On Friday after finishing the second last posture of the series, each group got to decide who they wanted to represent them. The selected person got to say the final posture in front of everyone on stage with the microphone. Exactly how we started training with half moon in front of Bikram. There are about 21 visiting teachers and they were all there to give feedback today. Each group got to go on stage and perform the posture while the selected person said the dialogue. It was a fun way to end posture clinic in the last posture.
Our group had picked two girls to represent us, we didn’t want to have to choose one or the other. Luckily we had Michael Harris as a lead that day and he came up with the brilliant idea of solving our dilemma. Jennifer and Tracy had to arm wrestle to decide who would get to say it. Tracy won, and today before she said the posture on stage she announced that she won via arm wrestling. She told everyone that the evidence is posted on facebook and you tube. What a great way to begin the posture.
Posture clinic finished about an hour before we could be dismissed. We spent the last hour asking questions to the senior teachers that are here, giving us a chance to ask any questions we had about teaching. It was a great opportunity to pick the brain of the different teachers. Each teacher had a little something to say about each question, building onto the reply of the previous teacher.
Bikram taught evening class again. Tonight was a ninety minute, no time to think, move your ass class, it was great. He was once again calling people out on postures, but it was more towards corrections than making fun of them tonight. He used many 'Bikramisms' tonight, but my favorite was "this is not an amusement park, this is not the place to be lazy, this is not Disneyland", lol. Oh I'm going to miss him. He told us at the end of class that tonight’s class was our best class yet. Last night someone asked Bikram if we could watch the American Presidental election tonight as the votes come in. He told us we would all gather in the lecture hall to watch it all go down. But tonight as he walked out of the hot room he said tonight was the best he has seen from us and then announced that we get the night off.
YIP-EEE

The picture is Lucy and I after tonights class, nice and juicy.

I missed you guys

2008-11-04T12:29:00.003-06:00

I woke up this morning with red marks all over my stomach. I think I got bit by something when I was sleeping, they are so itchy and they weren't there when I went ot bed. They are all in a cluster right around my belly button. Every week it seems we have have to deal with something in this stupid hotel. Anyways you might be able to see the lovely beauty marks in my picture. I got some sun this weekend so don't be alarmed by how dark my skin is, lol, (I am serious about the getting sun bit).

Monday morning week eights class was taught by Michael Harris. It was a good class and I actually was not stiff this morning, that was great. Michael was starting to call people out on things and making individual corrections. We have that on and off but he was really making a point of it this morning by coming off the podium and walking around amongst us.
Today I was beside a friend I have not practiced beside since the second week. The last time we practiced beside each other he had his big orange water jug filled with ice water, Gatorade, emergen C (electrolyte powder), and an extra towel to wipe. Throughout that class he mixed the emergen c into his water jug, than drank it all by half way through class. When there was only ice left he than took some ice out to chew on or lie on. Every couple postures he would pour some Gatorade into his orange jug with the ice and let it sit there and drain throughout the posture. When the posture was over he would take a drink. This happened after every floor pose and some standing ones. He was continuously wiping himself with the extra towel and shaking his legs during savasana. By the fourth last posture I finally said to him, “Stop with all the drama”. At the end of class he asked me for some water because he ran out.
I don’t think he liked my two comments and I probably should not have said anything, but enough was enough at that point. This is probably why we haven’t practiced by each other for the last month. Today the guy drank water only at party time and didn’t bring in any other things to fidget with throughout class. Today Michael Harris actually made a comment about the fact that we should only drink water in class. How fitting was it that I was beside the very person I told that to five weeks earlier. At the end of class today he smiled at me and said, “no drama, EH!?” That deserved a high five.
After lunch we had posture clinic with every group finishing the very last posture of the dialogue. Some people said it’s nice to be done. I agree with one aspect, it’s nice to be done the memorizing, but it’s just the beginning. Now it’s a matter of going back and making sure it’s still all there. I am totally going to miss my being with my awesome group every day though.
Bikram is back so he taught the evening class tonight. He has been gone for three weeks so he was fired up to see us. There was so much anticipation for his return. Would he yell at us and tell us we got worse? Would he be impressed with how we have improved!?
The first thing he said when he walked in was “Did you miss me?” I told Eleni he would ask that, he followed it up with an “I missed you”. He talked for about seven minutes before class about all the places he visited. He got to see his mother because he was in Calcutta, but only for 24 hours because he had to get back to us. He told us about all the interviews and news conferences he did. He also told us that he made an announcement that is no longer doing anymore seminars, he has his last one in February than that’s it. He wants to take more time to get back to his yoga and doing advanced classes, maybe teaching a couple. I guess we will see what happens in the next little while.
Class was just under two hours and man oh man did we get out butts kicked. He yelled at people, called people out on different postures, called people names, made fun of them, and swore at others. This is the Bikram I had heard so much about. I don’t think one person walked out of that room after with water still in their jug. It felt and looked like the first week the way people were lying down all over outside after class. A couple people puked during class and he tried to make a couple people leave by making fun of them, telling them to go home. It didn't work though, we are so strong now, working and sticking together to the end. In final savasana he told us it was our best class ever.
One of my friends here that Eleni and I sit with at lecture every night got sick from the class. We were looking for this person when we got to the lecture hall because usually we save seats for them or vice versa, depending on who gets there first. When they hadn’t showed up by 8:50 I went to check the sign in sheet to see if they had signed in, since it was not like them to be there that late. There was no signature on the sign in sheet so I tracked down their room mate. The room mate said they didn’t come back after class and figured we all just met for supper or something. I tracked down Molly, the nurse on staff, and asked her. She said had brought one person to the doctor for IV after class. When we told her who we were looking for, she confirmed that that is who she brought in. This person has been taking really good care of themselves for the entire training, especially after getting sick the first couple weeks. In class tonight they felt like puking the entire class, had a head ache, and really thought they should leave. Even though they felt like they were going to pass out at any moment, they did every single posture in that class and didn't leave. It wasn’t until after class when they got up to leave that they actually ended up passing out on the ground. This just goes to show how hard we all push ourselves when Bikram teaches. I’ve always said I will have to be blacked out on my back before I sit out a posture in any class. Hearing what happened to them tonight actually made we step back and think about how hard I do push myself sometimes.
I had a raging head ache throughout the entire class, and ended up drinking all my water by the end of class. I have not done this since the first week and the orange jug was my best friend. After class I couldn’t wait to get out and lie down outside of the room before my head exploded. I am so glad the energy was so good in there tonight and we were all supporting one another, we really needed that. After class everyone’s reaction was basically the same, ‘he kicked our butts’. He did in deed, and those moments when I thought I was going to keel over I just looked at myself in the mirror and smiled, I knew I could do it. It’s amazing how a little smile can give you a little burst of energy to keep you going long after you think you are done.
At the evening lecture, Bikram told us we are the strongest class ever in teacher training history. He told us he used every bad word he knows in English in class tonight. He said the meanest things to people and gave us the toughest class we have ever had, trying to break us, but we are too strong. He wanted to keep there us until someone left crying, shitting, puking, farting, fainting, or something coming out of one of our orifices. He said he tried everything he could but we were not going down. I have heard horror stories from past trainees about these types of classes from Bikram. He said some pretty mean things to some people but as a group we held strong, supporting each other and kept going. That’s why he loves and missed us!?
Tonight at lecture he talked about the mind, and the elements of the mind. He asked for an example from us students about how the mind influences us, like I said before I love hearing people’s stories. Monali made him some chicken rice curry for supper so he was feeling tired so he let us go just after 1am. That was pretty early considering he was threatening us in class with movies until 4am. The Americans want to watch the election coverage tomorrow night so us Canadians might have to endure a night of American politics. We’ll see what happens.
Oh and a side note for Shauna and Nikki; there are eight teachers here right now that were at training with you guys. They all planned to visit at the same time.

YES

2008-11-03T11:03:00.005-06:00

“All your life you are told the things you can not do.
You will be told you’re not good enough.
They’ll say you are the wrong height, the wrong weight, or the wrong type to play this or be this or achieve this.
They will tell you no a thousand times, until all the no’s become meaningless.
All your life they will tell you no, quite firmly and very quickly. They will tell you no and you will tell them YES!”

I wrote this quote as an inspiration from my friend Kaylee back home at the studio and Lucy who is here at TT with me. Before I left for training Kaylee gave me a package of letters labelled one for each of the nine weeks I am here. I have been reading them one by one after each Saturday’s class. Week seven’s letter had this quote written in it so I thought it was appropriate. My TT friend Lucy, also a blogger, posts quotes on her blog every now and again, so that’s where I got the idea.
When I read this quote my mind instantly went back to when I decided to go to training. I don’t think anyone ever told me they didn’t think I could do it. I know there were a couple people that probably wondered if I really would do it. They probably asked themselves if this was one of those whim things I got in my head like when I decided to take a break from college and live in Italy. When I make up my mind to do something it’s pretty hard to change it, I think my parents figured that out a long time ago, I blame it on the Italian in me. I also blame it on the fact that no matter what crazy thing I decide to do I am supported 127% by my parents. They might not like the idea but at the same time they don’t hold me back. I think I might have talked about this before; I’m having a déjà-vu moment. I am mentioning this today because the two times we had Joanie as a teacher this past week she always ended with a few inspirational words. She told us to think about the people we left behind and those who sacrificed their own lives to make it work for us.
I am one of the lucky ones that doesn’t have a lot of attachments and things ‘to take care of’ before I left. There are people here who left their kids, some very young, behind to take this opportunity for themselves. There are three women here that have their small children here with them. Two of them have nannies and the other one’s husband is here to look after the baby while they are in class. I just look at them and think that I could never do that. Then again I am not a mother and I think Mothers are the strongest people alive.
Other trainees have told me how they had to pre pay bills, get someone to look after their house, pets or family, quit their job or took a leave, sold their car, and of course took out a loan. It actually doesn’t surprise me the sacrifices people make to come here. I don’t really have a story to tell so I like to listen to everyone else’s.
Today was another day spent going to Wal-mart and McDonalds. We also found Eleni some shoes to go with the dress she bought yesterday, fun stuff I know you wanted to know about. I spent the afternoon lying by the pool, in the shade of the palm trees with some friends. We didn’t even talk or think about dialogue at all, it was so nice. I know I should be taking advantage of this time and going back and reviewing but it was nice not to think about it.
My posture clinic group decided to go out for supper tonight. It was really nice to get out, dress up a little and carry a purse; first time I have done that since I got here. We went to 100% natural, which is a local hot spot restaurant among yogis. We ended up staying there for three hours just talking and having a good time. I didn’t realize we were there that long until I got back to my room, the time flew by.
The pic is me studying dialogue by the pool, though you can't tell its by the pool.

Getting out

2008-11-02T11:02:00.002-06:00

Morning class was taught by Mike again, same thoughts as last time.
For lunch we got to switch restaurants and eat at a new restaurant that just opened in a new part of the hotel. They had the same food as Chula Vista, our regular lunch destination but it was a change of scenery so I really didn’t mind.
We sat with a couple other yogis’ today and it was interesting to hear their take on the different teachers. One of them told me that he didn’t enjoy a certain teacher the first time we had him. The next time we had him he made up his mind to really listen to everything he was saying. He said after doing that he had a different take on him. I think it is cool to hear how people deal with the different situations they are faced with and other peoples take on different classes or teachers. Some times when I have a view on someone and it’s not necessarily a good one, it’s good to hear someone else’s reason for loving them. Not that we are supposed to analyze the different teachers, reactions, classes or anything for that matter here. I think it is good sometimes to reflect on why someone had a certain impact/reaction on you. I like being able to bounce ideas and talk about different situations with the people here who are going through the same thing. Everyone reacts differently and that’s why we keep coming back. How boring would that be if everyone had the same reaction to teachers or situations? Being able to experience the different teachers and reactions has allowed me to grow so much in such a short time. Talking about it is also a good way to vent if everyone agrees with you, lol.
It seems Halloween is an entire weekend event here. Mexicans celebrate Halloween as the day of the deads. They believe that past ones visit them each year on Halloween. There is a day for children, adults and a day for them to return to the place of the dead. They prepare by making Mexican bread as an offering in preparation for the visit. We got to enjoy some of this tradition as they delivered some to each room for us to enjoy. I enjoy seeing and experiencing how different cultures celebrate their traditions.
After class I was on my computer and a girl from my floor came storming down the hallway with a laundry bag. I didn’t even have to ask her before she started telling me what happened. She had pulled a dress out of her closet that she was going to wear out tonight but to her surprise the dress had mold all over it. She proceeded to go through her entire closet and realized that anything she had not worn in awhile had mold on it. She packaged everything up and was on her way downstairs to deal with the situation. Immediately after that I proceeded to raid my closet looking for the same thing but it seemed my clothes were in good shape. I did however come across a pair of sandals I have worn once since being here. They were covered in mold and it totally freaked me out. I washed them with soap and water and sprayed them with tea tree, I'll have to see what happens when they dry. Eleni was not impressed when I told her about the closet situations, ‘aghhh, hasn’t there been enough things to deal with in this stupid hotel’. Can you tell we are about ready to go back to the comforts of home?
After taking our routine Saturday afternoon nap Eleni and I headed to the mall. She needed to find something for graduation. Just in case you care, she did find a dress that looks amazing on her, so the trip was worth it. We had to take a cab there, and he came back and picked us up two hours later. We saw about 50 other yogis in the mall, I guess they all had the same idea. This is the first time we have left the ‘compound’, other than our Wal-mart or mega trips. It felt great to get out, even for a few hours. I didn’t even touch my dialogue today and it felt great. I ran into some people and they tried to talk about studying but I nixed that right in the bud. I should be taking advantage of this time and going back to review, that’s what Saturday’s have been for the last 6 weeks. It felt great to not think about it; class, nap and shopping took up my entire day, and I ain’t complaining one iota.

The picture is of the Acapulco bay from the top of the hill on the way to the mall.

Wham!

2008-11-01T12:11:00.006-06:00

This morning’s class was taught by the same lady that taught a couple nights ago who I didn’t enjoy to much. Again, she had the same tone and the same energy; barely there. Damian told me that after last class she told us that she had pneumonia or some throat thing. If she did tell us I had totally blocked it out because I don’t remember hearing that. Regardless I was not motivated, but the room was a good temperature so it made it that much better. The one thing about her classes is the music she plays at the end. We get to lie there and listen to this calming music while she talks to us allowing us to just think, reflect and eventually completely relax.
Oh and I totally busted my classes in class. I went to put my head on my knee and my glasses rode up a little on my head, and WHAM, my glasses broke right in half with two postures left. All I thought was, ‘are you kidding me, what is this telling me, this happened for a reason?’ Maybe all my talk about getting laser eye surgery manifested my glasses to weaken and break, lol. Oya, good thing I brought my extra pair. They are not the right prescription because they are about 6 years old but they will do. Maybe I will try to find some crazy glue this weekend at Wal-Mart, see what I can concoct.
After lunch we had posture clinic with Michael Harris as our lead. My group was with Damian’s so I got see the master at work, he‘s really strong up there. Since I did my head to knee on Wednesday I got to sit back, relax and watch everyone else today. I was ready with spine twist but we didn’t get to it. Oh well now I have all weekend to make it perfect.
There was a teacher that was in there with Michael today that spoke Spanish. She asked a couple people whose first language was Spanish to deliver their dialogue in Spanish after they had done it in English. It’s neat to see how their personalities came out once they got to say it in their native language. Some of them haven’t even looked at the dialogue in Spanish and were able to deliver it with such fire.
Evening class was taught by Ren from head quarters in California. He is fricken hilarious and I don’t think he could hurt a mouse. The majority of the trainees wore orange and black outfits for our Halloween class. There were the odd few that came with masks, cat tails, and horns on. Seeing everyone dressed up reminds me that I must be just over a year since I took my first Bikram Yoga class. The day after Halloween was only my third or fourth class. While I was waiting for class people were talking about an instructor that dressed up the day before, I think in a cape or something. I just remember thinking that it was cool to hear that the instructors could bring an element of fun to the class.
Ren learnt one guys name today during posture clinic so he used it constantly during class. It was actually quite funny when we would be in a posture and he would start saying, ‘hold it Mark, you can do it Mark, kick Mark, a couple more seconds Mark’ or ‘higher Mark, straight legs Mark, elbows straight Mark, looking good Mark’. He would get on him for a whole posture than leave him alone for awhile then go back to him. Someone finally asked him who Mark was and his answer was ‘you are all Mark, so when I say Mark, I mean everybody’. The immediate next posture he was on Mark again, so funny He than remembered "Mr. South Africa's" name and found out someone else’s name and got on them a couple times too. He also told all the guys they were a cute bunch, love it. I guess what I am trying to get at is that it was a fairly laid back but tough class. The tough part was because you work your ass off and push yourself more in the postures, he just demands it. It was laid back in the sense that everyone was smiling and having a good time. He teaches from the bottom of his heart with such compassion that you end up busting your butt a little extra hard.
Everyone was hoping we would have the night off since it is Halloween, but no such luck. We had a lecture tonight, a talk from Lynn Whitlow. She talked about expectations about leaving our bubble and going back to a studio to teach. As much as we didn’t want a lecture, I am glad we had it. It was very helpful and answered a lot of questions that have been lurking in the back of our minds.
My stomach had been hurting all day so I went straight to bed after lecture. I am hoping a couple hours of sleep will help.

Fascia

2008-10-31T11:06:00.005-06:00

Mark taught morning class and it was beyond awesome, if there is such a thing. It was fun and laid back, well once we got to the floor series for sure. When we came to full locust (fly like an airplane), someone in the room made a cawing noise like a bird, that was a first. So once we got into the posture Mark told us to make bird sounds. I was having so much fun he could have held me there for a minute and I wouldn’t have noticed. When something like that happens in class it totally loosens everyone up, not that we were tense to begin with. Once we started the sit ups, he had us practice the wave. He wants to blow away Bikram's mind when he gets back and thinks it would be funny if we did the sit up in a wave like fashion. We tried a couple different ways and I think he found one that would set Bikram off. Too bad he isn’t going to be here when Bikram gets back to check it out.
After lunch we had more lecture with Jon, the fascia guy. He talked about fascia; which is like saran wrap around our bones, muscles and tissues in the body. He also went into the heart, bones, muscles, tissues; the different elements in the body that contain and retain energy. He keeps us all interested by using a lot of props, stories and examples. He brought volunteers up on stage and wrapped them in saran wrap to give us a visual idea of what he was talking about. He made another volunteer dress in a wet suit to describe another element. He uses pictures, and passes pictures to explain something else. He also tells us real life stories and encounters to better explain his theories and thought process. He’s very good at breaking things up into small parts so we understand and then bringing it all back together to get the whole picture.
He got challenged on some of the things he was saying, and he said he embraces and encourages that. He had an answer for everything and usually incorporated examples or stories to back it up. It was funny to listen to some peoples questions as a lot of the same questions were being asked just using different scenarios. Not everyone is going to understand or grasp everything he says, and that’s a good thing, that’s what makes us all uniquely different. It is cool to sit back and be the observer of people who such a resistance against learning new things though. Not just with this but it’s a perfect example of how it comes up or out.
Evening class was taught by Mike again. The class sounded exactly like the one he gave us earlier this week. He told us the exact same stuff and lines about medical benefits in the same postures. The first time he said it I remembered it because sometimes the way he says things or the words he uses I’ve never heard it put that way before. Therefore when he repeated all the same stuff again tonight I was a little bored and it made me want to tune out. It felt a little hotter in there tonight but it was a little warmer when we first walked in the room so I think the room was heated before class started again.
We had more evening lecture with Jon. He answered any and all questions anyone had about everything he has talked about. It had been a couple hours since our last lecture with him so people had some time to let the info sink in and let the mind process it, therefore more challenging questions. He ended the night talking about disease. That was like opening up pandora’s box, the hands started shooting up like crazy. He told us some more stories to back up his beliefs and had an answer for everything. I don't necasarly believe everything he says but I really listen to everything he had to say. It's interesting seeing how different people react to having their belief system challenged. Its always scary to hear about something you don’t know too much about, challenges you and what you have always thought to be true and believed in. Eleni and I stayed up past 1am talking about this interesting lecture. Very fascinating.

The picture is of me and Lucy before evening class. She is the famour Lucy that I have a link to her blog my main page. Luv ya!

The big surprise

2008-10-30T11:07:00.005-06:00

I woke up excited for class today, well not excited for class in particular but for the announcement before class. We were told on Monday that there will be a surprise for us this week, mainly Wednesday. I was anxious to know what it was and mostly to find out if we had posture clinic this afternoon. I got excited for nothing because Monali told us before class that we would have posture clinic this afternoon. Then she proceeded to tell us that we would have lecture tonight if the special guest arrives. Everyone was joking that the staff probably don’t even know what is going on so they can’t tell us. With all this anticipation growing it better be a good one, lol. I don’t care, after tonight’s class we will be half way through week 7.
Morning class was taught by Mike from California. He was here a couple weeks ago and now he is back for the rest of the week. He is a bit older so I remember the first class I had total expectations that he would be really slow and boring. I let go that first class and it turned out okay. When I saw him step up to the podium this morning I went back to that and remembered his last class wasn’t so bad. With that thought in my head I just let go. It was neat too because I talked about Carol in my blog yesterday and today we ended up practicing mat by mat, great energy.
Our leads in posture clinic today were Jellena, Katie and Esther. We never had Katie before and I thought she was great. She was really good at figuring people out and what was going on with them. She could really tell what they were working on to get better without cheating and looking at the books to see their homework. All three girls gave great feedback and examples to relate to what they were talking about so we knew exactly what we needed to work on.
Last night I stayed up for twenty minutes to nail down stretching posture. Man am I ever glad I did. I was one of two people in my group that knew it and was ready to present today when we finished Rabbit with lots of time left. I went up there and started a little shaky, cause I just walked up and starting talking, not giving myself any time to get grounded. After one line, Esther stopped me, made me take a deep breath and get grounded. It totally worked and I nailed it and was als looking for corrections and watching the bodies. I didn’t see any so I didn’t have to make any, but I’m confident I was ready for them. When I was demonstrating there was some really strong presenters in the other group so we got to make mistakes while they taught the dialogue. I truly had way too much fun doing it and could barely keep my composure sometimes. It was actually kind of hard to think about what I wanted my body to do wrong. Some of the things I was doing I would think, ‘how the heck would I correct someone if I was the instructor’. I told Esther that and she said that’s good and that’s being a teacher. Now all I have to do it remember all the dialogue to get them there the correct way.
They started calling names for people to go up to present their dialogue because the volunteers were falling short today. It worked out good though because it wasn’t a tense environment at all. Well I had already delivered my dialogue so I can say that but I was in the room though and it didn’t feel tense by any means. So again, the leads and their energy makes a difference of how they deal with a situation. Even after people were called to go up the feedback after was nice and not critical which makes a huge difference.
Talk about getting over the Wednesday night hump, I found the teacher for the evening class to be the most un-motivating teacher we have had for awhile. First off, all week they have been talking to us and implamenting the 'wear what you would to teach a class' to posture clinic cliché. They have been giving a lot of grief to people who have chosen to wear pants or full tanks, exactly what the teacher wore tonight. I let that go because I have seen various teachers wear pants to teach throughout the training, usually with sports bras on but I noted it and moved on.
Her voice was the same tone and speed throughout the entire class, not motivating me at all today. I really felt like doing nothing, but I didn't want to allow a teacher to take away my class from me. The class was ninety minutes though it felt like three hours long, but of course I am still here to talk about it, lol.
Our big surprise lecturer tonight was John Burras, the facia guy. Ang told me before I left that this lecture was her absolute favorite at training. I made her give me a little run down about it, and needless to say I got excited and couldn’t wait, so the day has arrived. We didn’t get into the whole facia thing tonight, that’s tomorrow so stay tuned tomorrow for me to explain it to the best of my ability on tomorrows blog. Tonight he talked about the mind and how powerful it is. I once again ate this lecture up, I absolutely loved it. He also talked about issues in our tissues, to give the short version it is basically what I blogged about on the weekend. I talked about how past events that have happened, whether physical or mental, our body remembers it and stores it. How our body reacts all depends on how we deal with something as we move through life. John said that every ailment in the body is a result of some past event that we couldn’t deal with at the time and it ends up getting stored in our body.

Vomit Launch

2008-10-29T10:52:00.006-06:00

The morning class was taught by the lady from Virginia again. I like her classes because she makes specific corrections on people when she sees them. It’s hard sometimes to know if your alignment is correct without a mirror in front of you. I've mentioned before how interesting it is to see how out of whack your body can get from not being in front of mirror for four or five classes.
Lunch wasn’t much better than yesterday and I am finding it more and more difficult to find protein to eat everyday. Today there was pasta salad with pesto, which is good, but I am not a big fan of cold pasta. I convinced the guy at the quesadilla station to throw the pasta on the grill for me to warm it up. He kind of looked at me funny when I explained what I wanted but he did it. I even got him to throw some hamburger meat on that they use for the quesadillas. They don’t have the pasta salad everyday so I will not make a habit out of this. It was a nice switch though, even if they think I am crazy.
After lunch we had posture clinic, onto camel. There is a lady in our group, Carol (she is the oldest one here at 63), and she teaches rock climbing. She attends Michael Harris’ studio in Bent, actually I think she is the only one here from his studio. One of the climbs she does is called vomit launch. Every year she brings some rock climbing kids to the studio to do some kids yoga. Michael told us that the kids have renamed camel (backward bend) vomit launch, lol. I just bring this up because Michael was our lead today and Carol had to perform her posture in front of her studio owner. How suiting that we had him today for this posture. The first time Michael introduced himself to the entire tt group he made Carol stand up because she was from his studio. He told us that she was the reason he was still teaching today, how cool is that to hear from a senior teacher and studio owner?
When he told us about the kids renaming the posture it made me relate back to myself in this posture a couple times too. This is also the only posture ever that I actually felt and got sick in. There was a class I had after my challenge and I actually puked in my mouth when I came out. That sounds revolting but it was the first time I actually came out early and had to take a minute to regroup. I sat there and I remember thinking, ‘wow this is what people feel like when they get sick in this posture’. I had never experienced anything like that in a posture before so I really embraced it, and at the same time I hoped it wouldn’t happen again, lol.
The first time I ever did this posture I got up on my knees, dropped my head back and felt nauseous, which is totally normal for the first time. I sat down than got back up and tried again, finishing the set. For the second set I stood on my knees and didn’t attempt it. I had Ricky and he said straight to me, “Melissa (I was one of two first timers so he remembered my name) you can do this, just try, start with putting your head back”. In my head I was thinking, ‘how does this guy know what I can and can’t do’, I looked at him and he smiled. Then my thought changed to ‘FINE’. Without thinking about it I did it, and have done it every single time since. Just a little self reflection for you today.
Posture clinic was good, its amazing how a lead with a smile can create such awesome energy. Michael told me that my voice, delivery, and dialogue was perfect today. Now my homework is to use names, see corrections and make them if I feel I won’t lose my dialogue. I have not had a very good habit of practicing with bodies until I get to the posture clinic room and do it the couple minutes before it starts. Therefore this will be a little more challenging and out of my comfort zone, I’m excited to see what happens. Today I got up there and tried not to think about breathing and my voice so much, and it obviously worked.
Evening class was taught by Patricia from California. She leaves tomorrow and I think she planned it to be here before the election takes place. Every time we have her in class or posture clinic she reminds the Americans about absentee votes or something. Patricia said that every teacher should ask for feed back after each class they teach if there is another teacher in the room. She said the feed back she got after the last class she taught us was that she didn’t hold us long enough in the standing postures. At first we all grunted and groaned like we would be held for eons. Seriously a couple extra seconds never killed anyone and it turned out okay. I like her pace, she keeps you going steady all class without giving you time to think about yourself or what is next.
After supper we had more posture clinic with Victoria that taught us class yesterday and Dale from Vancouver (one of the regular staff members) as our leads. At first the night started out with a weird energy because we weren’t allowed to clap or cheer. Every time someone is finished with their dialogue or goes up to say it usually the groups clap and cheer for the person. The hotel received a complaint yesterday from some other hotel guests. Apparently last night one on the posture clinics woke up a sleeping baby with the cheering. At first there was no real energy because there wasn’t that excitement from cheering and encouraging each other. At first we started to cheer for people by holding our hands in the air and waving our fingers, the sign language way. Our group was getting anxious from all the silence so we started snapping for everyone. That totally changed the energy around and was much better.

I delivered my rabbit posture and was told to speed up, lol. Slow down, speed up, slow down, speed up, I think I was worried about where to use names and corrections (my homework) that I was thinking to much. The good thing about that is that I was really remembering to breathe this time. Two more postures to work out the kinks. We have heard that next week we might get the opportunity to start linking postures together, so that will be helpful.
Oh and there was another earth quake last nigh in the middle of the night, it was a long one that was still going once it woke me up.

The picture is me with Eleni, Damian and Kellie (a teacher from my home studio) that visited us this week. She leaves us tomorrow. I know you are all laughing at my snow white legs compared to her dark native looking skin. I'm the native, shouldn't it be the other way around, !?

Week 7 begins

2008-10-28T10:50:00.002-06:00

Morning class was taught by Michael Harris again. It was a ninety minute straight flowing, get it done Monday morning class. There was no pain in my knee so that was a bonus. My body felt stiff but that’s to be expected on a Monday morning after a day off. Like I said last Monday though, I don’t stress over it because I don’t have any expectations on Monday mornings.
Okay I have gotten to the point where it is getting hard to eat the same food every day. I never eat anything off the breakfast buffet line so that eliminates a lot of options. The other options are eggs (which I don’t eat), quesadillas, Mexican food (which I don’t even open the lids to anymore), and the three lunch items which are always Asian dishes. I am quite lucky though because I know a lot of people who were tired of this food by the second week. I am thanking the stars it took me this long. Eleni gets so tired of the same thing that she doesn’t even go downstairs and eat lunch sometimes, she makes something in the room. Don’t get me wrong there is only three more weeks so I will survive, but food is a huge thing when you are working out as hard and as much as we are here. I haven’t gotten the nerve or desire to try the fish yet either. I think I can survive three more weeks without trying seafood. This weekend we are planning to get off ‘the compound’ as Michael calls it, so that should help.
After lunch we had posture clinic. It was alright, though I wasn’t a big fan of the other groups dynamic. The lead was cool but she started making the girls teach in their sports bras to get out of their comfort zone a little. The other group was making comments and it just didn’t feel like an overly comfortable environment and for that reason I chose not to present in the afternoon.
Evening class was taught by Victoria from San Diego. I had my best class in a long time. The temperature actually felt half decent, similar to a class at home as they didn’t turn the heat on until the class started. It was somewhat cooler at the beginning and not instant sweat dripping when you walked in to put your mat down. The fans didn’t come on until about half an hour into class and then I felt this cool kind breeze because they all turned on at the same time. It is similar to when the air vent is open more than normal at home and you can feel that fresh cool breeze come in. Then Victoria requested that the doors be open at triangle (half way through class) and I was at the back the room so that was a bonus. It by no means was cool but it might have been just me because I wasn’t focused on the heat during class. I talked to some people and they said it got really hot and stuffy where they were.
Before class I was not feeling well and I thought I was going to struggle tonight. I tried not to get inside my head and to just listen to the teacher and it totally worked, imagine that. I pushed myself 127% and my body ate it up. It helped that she was funny but tough at the same time. Every time she said the word "and" people would come out of the posture because they thought it would be followed by an ‘and change’, but it never was. In triangle it was "and twist your body more", in half tortoise she said "and keep your arms together whether you are going into, coming out, or in the posture." In the last posture, spine twisting, it was "and look at the glass windows." It made for some light hearted moments when she would call us on it and got a smile out of everyone when they realized what had happened. I truly felt like a million bucks after class so I rewarded myself with a cannon ball into the big pool. We turned our clocks back on Saturday night so it was weird to walk outside and have it be dark walking to the pool after class. It is still really warm out in the evening though so it’s just a little light adjustment.
After supper we had more posture clinic. We had Dominique who is one of the full time staff members here and graduated spring 07. Our other lead was a lady from Devi and Ed’s studio in Victoria, she graduated fall of 05, it was a great night with a lot of positive energy going. Dominique had not seen us or our posture deliveries since the first postures together as a group in posture clinic. Of course he was blown away with how far we’ve grown, I should hope so after four weeks. After I did mine he told me I talk like Wendy and Kellie and wondered if that was an Alberta thing, the other lead said she didn’t think so. I took as a compliment because I like both their voices, lol. Everyone in our group finished half tortoise so we are now onto the last four postures and dialogue we have to remember, awesome.

Issues in our tissues

2008-10-27T10:55:00.005-06:00

It’s so funny because I always make jokes that I grew up in a bubble. For example it wasn’t until I started working at the studio that I found out what a vegan was. I had no idea what planet organic was until I went with Melissa to get some soup there one day. I also didn’t know what chakras were until I started the yoga. I guess growing up in the country makes you a little naïve sometimes, hence the bubble. I am definitely not going to complain because I love being a country girl and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. Not even an hour drive into work stops me from leaving my little bubble. I bring this up because it is so funny how things like that are a mirror image when we are brought into an environment like teacher training. I have heard and expected that after living with the same 300 people for two months that there would be drama. The funny thing is that I have stayed in my own little world, not gotten involved, and never realized how much drama there is here until last night at the bbq. It was so funny to stand there and just listen to it all. I thought I would take a couple minutes to reflect on that because I found it quite amusing.
Last week when Michael was lecturing us, he told us his story and what brought him to and kept him doing Bikram yoga. I will maybe save that story for another day. After he had us riled up about his story he brought another teacher up on the stage as earlier that day she has opened up to him and told him her story.
She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer years back, before she discovered Bikram yoga. I don’t remember who exactly got her started on the yoga but none the less she tried it. She was in and out of doing it for awhile, not sure what to make of it. She eventually had to get her ovaries removed and after that she made the decision to commit to the yoga. Six months before she was supposed to go to teacher training her doctor called her. He told her to come in because they found something on the last test they did. She had been cancer free for some time now but still getting regular check ups. Before she went into the doctor’s office she made a testament to the universe asking God to give her the strength to deal with anything that was thrown at her that day. In the doctors office she was shown an x-ray of her insides and he pointed to a spot above her uterus. The doctor said to her, “I don’t know how this happened but one of your ovaries has started to grow back”. She sat on the stage telling us her story with tears streaming down her face, probably similar to the way she cried in the doctor’s office that day. You NEVER know someone’s story.
I feel blessed that I am in a position where I am able to hear these stories. I feel sorry for the people here that don’t understand English and totally miss out on the amazing stuff we get to hear. That teacher ended with the best line I heard all week, "I don’t know if it was the yoga, but there is no reason for me NOT to believe in it with my entire soul".
Last night when I was sleeping I got woken up with a cramp in my left calf. At first it felt more uncomfortable than a painful hurting feeling. I was too tired to deal with it so I gave my leg a shake and went back to sleep. I don’t know how much later but I woke up again with the same cramp and my entire lower leg was throbbing. I actually started to laugh because I have not had a cramp since forever ago, I don’t think it helped that I was half asleep. I flexed my foot a couple times, stretched it out and went back to sleep. This morning I woke up and my calf muscle was sore. I told Eleni about it and I was actually laughing about the way it happened. I think it’s entertaining that I was so out of it, that a leg cramp that gave me a sore muscle the next day barely woke me up. Okay it’s not that funny but little things like that amuse me these days.
That night when Michael lectured he talked about issues in our tissues. I am a true believer of this and am starting to really understand how it is all related. This past week I am just starting to personally feel some past issues come up in my body. I have said a couple times how good my body has been to me and how lucky I am. Besides my hip ailment that I had to work through a couple weeks ago, I haven’t had to push through too much pain or stiffness. At the end of this week I started to feel pain in my left knee. At first I thought maybe it was from the way I twist my body around when I come out of savasana. I have become a little more aware of that movement and it did help. By Saturday morning though, it was tough to lock my knee for the full sets of anything. I knew standing there and doing nothing wouldn’t help it so I continued to work through it posture by posture.
Later that day I was thinking about my knee a little bit, trying to figure out what was up with it. Earlier this year, I think in Feburary I twisted my knee in a soccer game. That night I couldn’t put pressure on it because it hurt so bad. The next day I couldn’t even bend or fully straighten my knee but I had to work so I grabbed an ice pack and iced it on the drive in. I decided that the best thing to do was to get in that hot room, so I went in at noon. I couldn’t lock my knee for the warm up or for the first posture. The second posture is one where you have to bend your knees and sit in an imaginary chair. I was able to do the first two parts of the posture. On the third part when you have to go all the way down, ha, I couldn’t even bring my knees together to touch. By the time we came to the balancing series (half hour in), I was able to completely straighten my leg and lock my knee. It hurt and I was in and out of the posture because of the pain but it was all good. After the class I couldn’t even tell my knee was hurt a couple hours ago. I felt a little twinge of pain for the next week but nothing compared to the morning after I hurt it. I even ended up playing soccer that weekend.After remembering about that injury I was able to relate the two pains. The pain at the time of the injury was exactly the same as I am feeling right now.
I talked to a couple people that have said in the last two weeks they are starting to feel old injuries resurface too. I am glad that my body is able to bring this up and deal with it in a non painful manner so far. At the same time I am kind up upset that is has taken me this long to bring up something from only six months ago. Patience is a virtue.
I was talking with Damian about ailments that come up and how different people deal with them. We have seen many examples of people who have a lot of anger and rage inside. They don’t have any clue how to be with themselves let alone deal with what is going on inside them. Any emotions that come up turns into what I call drama in the yoga room; moving, drinking, wiping, closing the eyes, and running out of the room. One of my biggest challenges here is to not let those people affect me and what I am doing. It is so easy to get caught up in the drama people create for themselves so we don’t have to focus on ourself, it is hard to look at yourself in that mirror some days. That’s why there are days when I say my yoga for the day is trying not to focus on and get caught up in that energy/drama. Don’t get me wrong, the first week here I was all caught up in the drama and anxiety of the room. I was lucky enough to realize it, reflect and come back to myself.
I told Damian the reason I don’t have anything come up is because I dealt with it when I was little; that’s what brothers are for, haha. I make a joke out of it but I think that having a sibling close to your age makes a huge difference. I really think it helped me learn to deal with and channel my emotions, sometimes not in the most civilized manner. At the time there might have been better ways to deal with it but looking back now I think its better then holding it all in. Who would have thought that all that yelling, screaming, pushing and crying would flourish into one of my most secure relationships as an adult.
I spent much of this blog reflecting, it seems to be my Sunday routine these past few weeks. I end up doing this on Sundays because it is our day off from everything yoga, well except for studying dialogue. I think this weekend should the last one for worrying about memorizing dialogue.

Be nice to me please

2008-10-26T10:41:00.004-06:00

Michael Harris taught the 8am class this morning. He taught a nice easy class with lots of breaks in between postures and the doors open the entire class. It was a 110 minute class but no one seemed to mind. In postures such as second part of awkward, standing head to knee, and standing bow, he let the peeps in the posture hold it until they fell out. The guy who held it the longest in awkward is one of the oldest guys here. I think he is in his late 50’s and he is from Brooklyn. At the end of the posture Michael labelled him the old young guy.
My body did not want to do anything for me today. As I stood on my mat my body said to me ‘I’ve been good to you, be nice please’. My entire body felt tired, I think it knew it was Saturday, time for a little rest. I pushed through it and promised myself that at the end of class I would jump in the big pool and sit under the waterfall.

Today in class Michael was trying to inspire us to give it all we got while we are here for the next three weeks. He told those who have been hiding in the shadows that now is the time to step up. He told us that everyone here has a story. I know this is true for every Bikram Yoga student whether at training or at any studio. Any one who has taken a Bikram class has a story about how it has helped them or why they began it. He said among us trainees was a snow boarding champ. She has all the bumps, bruises and ailments all over her body from that sport. Her knees became very week where she could only be on her board for a couple hours a day. To compete she needed to be on the board constantly, but her body wasn't holding up as good as it once did. She found Bikram yoga, and hasn’t looked back since. She is now in our teacher training so she can help people fix their bodies and lives. As for the snow boarding part I know she still does it but not sure about the competing part.

At the end ofclass I enjoyed a twenty minute savasana and then kept the promise to myself as I jumped into the big pool with Robert from my group. It felt so nice to cool down in there after.
After lunch I did some laundry and then took a nap. I only woke up because my stomach was eating itself, besides the maid needed to clean the room anyways. I went to the lounge area by myself and nailed down another posture. After that, Eleni and I went down stairs for some ice cream, then walked down by the ocean for a bit but decided to come back when we kept getting harassed to buy things. It was worse than being in Rome.
There was a bbq tonight being hosted by the hotel for all us Bikramites. It was $20 for the meal, and I was not impressed. My hamburger was not cooked, and I absolutely refuse to eat meat when it is still red. I don’t eat seafood so the fish was out. There were hot dogs but I haven’t eaten those since I was in elementary school. I guess I am just spoiled with our Alberta beef, and I kind of like it. I can’t wait to get home and eat one of Mom’s home made burgers, mmm.
After being disappointed with the meat choices our table decided that we would fill up on dessert. That idea kind of crashed when we went up and there were only three options. There was rice pudding, some flan cake thing that had corn in it, and some other cake. We were totally disappointed to see no chocolate.
Next item on the menu after the dinner was a bon fire. They had it set up so we could roast marshmallows on bamboo sticks around a fire pit, totally neat. I was really excited because we were told we could make smores. I don’t know about here, but when I go camping we make smores with graham crackers and chunks of chocolate. On the buffet they had graham crumbs that didn’t taste like anything near graham flavoring. They also had chocolate sauce and chocolate chips. I found it to be a really weird choice of toppings to choose from. Oh well, all in all, the hotel tried and it’s the thought that counts and it was nice to see everyone dressed up. It’s funny to see the other side of people when you see what they wear when they get dressed up.

The picture is of me and my room mate Eleni waiting for the bbq.

Thats the way we do the pose

2008-10-25T11:11:00.005-05:00

Rajashree taught the morning class. After lunch she leaves for two weeks to do some seminars. She will be back week nine with her daughter for our graduation.
Last night I called Eleni out about sitting out poses and the way to work through them. It was actually good because we ended up having a good talk about it. I guess the universe knew she was ready to be pushed because we ended up beside each other today. This is the first time ever (training or at home) that we have practiced side by side. She got into every posture and really pushed herself today, I was proud of her. She has been having on and off days so it was good to see her walking out with smile after.
Oh and Jules and Melissa; a girl from Vancouver passed on the hug and ‘keep going you’re doing great’ today. She got one of the students from her studio to track us down so she could meet us. She said she was at the studio last week and met you guys, so thanks that was neat.
After lunch we had posture clinic with Esther as a lead, she is great. I think once again a power greater than me knew my group needed her today after two tense posture clinics with Jeff people were really on edge. When I got up to do my posture I started to do it the way they told me to do in for my homework after explaining to Esther what my homework was. She stopped me after two sentences and told me to take a deep breath. She said, ‘I understand your homework and you obviously did to but its not you, please start again and do it how Melissa would do it’, so I took a deep breath and started over. It has been about seven postures since I have been able to relax and just concentrate on the students and bodies while saying the dialogue. When I finished I felt great and had a huge smile on my face. Ester just beamed at me, and said ‘I don’t know why you ever changed what you were doing, that was great, WOW, you are one strong girl and you made me want to lie down and do bow, and I HATE bow’. I told her I have been getting so much feedback about slowing down and speaking in different ways that I wasn’t enjoying posture clinic anymore. She told me my biggest thing is my nerves, but right now I just have to keep working on being me and calming down. That is truly what and who I needed today.
The last couple nights I have not been able to sleep. Two nights ago I really started to doubt myself and question why I was here. I was so frustrated with the feedback I was getting in posture clinic (from one person in particular) that I started to doubt myself. It was first time since starting Bikram Yoga that I wondered if this was the right decision, and wondered if I was really capable of teaching. Wednesday night, after the evening posture clinic I was really angry and tossed and turned all night with a million thoughts spinning in my head. Yesterday I went from being angry and wanting to leave to just letting go and figuring out a way to work through it. I decided to try the feed back I was given, work with it and see what happens. Well I did just that and the next feedback I got was that it wasn’t the right fit for me.
I talked to some people in my group today during the break and told them how I felt. All six girls I was talking with have all had the same feelings as me at one time or another during training. Its funny how when you just put yourself out there what you can get back. I think it was a relief for everyone just to talk about it.
The funny thing is I never ever let it get to me during yoga class. The only time I thought about it was when I was doing my dialogue or in posture clinic, which makes sense. I am glad my ill feelings only lasted two days.
In bow one of the lines is ‘wrists straight, pointed toes’. One of my group members Tracy was told to come out of her shell and not be nervous while saying her dialogue in posture clinic. She got up there and when she came to that line she said, “wrists straight, pointed toes, that’s the way we do the pose", as she did a little hip shake. I fell off my chair I was laughing so hard. Esther was still laughing at the end of the posture that she couldn’t even catch her breath to give her a comment. She just gave her two thumbs up and told her to rock it out again next time, it was awesome.
Before evening class I found Esther because I wanted to give her a hug and say thank you. I told her about how I was feeling the last couple days and nights and what she did for me today. I told her I didn’t know what I needed today but someone knew, and it was her. She gave me a huge hug and told me that everyone goes through it during training. I know that and I understand it’s a part of growing. What doesn’t knock you down makes you stronger, look out.
Evening class was taught by some lady from New York I think. She is a studio owner and the wife of one of our trainees here. I have heard before that a class is determined right from half moon (first posture). That is basically when people decide what kind of class they are going to have, or not have. Well, this one was not off to a good start. She held us in half moon for exactly 60 seconds, the longest we have ever been held there all training. After the first full set of half moon people literally started dropping and made of their minds they weren’t having it tonight. I was not going to let her get into my head so I actually had a fun class (as much as is allowed in a Bikram class) with the help of the people around me. We didn’t let each other sit down but we had smiles and laughs the entire time. It is Friday night and I think exactly what we needed to get through it.
After supper we had more posture clinic with one more posture to rehearse. I didn’t mind, I had memorized this one over the weekend so I couldn’t wait to get up there and do it. We had two awesome leads tonight and the energy in the room was fabulous. Tara from my group was told to find the bitch within and deliver with a different voice range then her sweet tone. She walked up there and the sound that came out of her was unbelivable, I was dieing. My stomach hurt so bad from laughing throughout the entire posture. The lead described it perfectly, she sounded like Captain Jack Black (Johnny Depp) in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, it was so freaking awesome. The leads loved it and her performance started a domino effect. Everyone after her had to take on a character to deliver their dialogue. We had a couple more pirates go up, a stoned out surfer dude, a valley girl, a sweet little granny, and Reba McIntyre. Anyone who knows me can guess which one I was. Shauna you are going to love this; “Hello my naaames Re-ba and I’ll be your instructor tonight”. Lol, I was a sweet ol country singer, your favorite. I felt uncomfortable at first because I am not one for acting or getting out of my comfort zone. Once i let go it turned out to be so much fun and again what I needed to get out of my shell a little bit. I was concentrating so much on getting the accent right that the dialogue just spewed out of my mouth. So this Friday nights posture clinic was a lot more enjoyable and relaxed compared to last week. It feels nice to end the week off like that.

Connecting it all together

2008-10-24T08:04:00.004-05:00

I did not sleep well last night and had a tough time falling asleep. It was a combination of a tense posture clinic and not being able to breathe, my nose was so stuffed up. I really contemplated getting up and going for a walk around the hotel. I wanted to be able to breathe through my nose and not be so restless. The only thing that stopped me was that Eleni had her eye mask and ear plugs in and I figured if I left and the door slammed she would hear it and wonder what the hell was going on. So I took an allergy pill and tossed and turned for an hour. I think the pill helped but it didn’t kick in for awhile and I still woke up a bunch through out the night with a plugged nose. Anyways, none of that matters, the day has begun.
Morning class was taught by a lady from California. I had not heard good things about her previous to this class, I guess she had stepped on some toes in posture clinic last night. I put that aside and once again decided to make my own conclusions. I liked her and I remembered to breathe properly, so all in all it was a good class, lol. I went right smack in the middle of the room in front of the podium today, man I have been missing out all this time on the good air flow. I knew and heard there was fresh air that blew on the podium, but I was enjoying the constant fresh breeze today. No wonder there are people who come early and claim their real estate. I do not like depending on elements such as fresh air all the time so I will venture away from there for the evening class.
Kellie joined Eleni and I for lunch, it was nice to sit down and chill with her. After lunch we had more lecture with Rajashree. She finished up talking about the benefits of each posture. She also brought a girl up on stage (Zephia?) to show us the proper and improper ways of doing the postures.
Evening class was taught by Rajashree. Rajashree told she was going to be looking for people that could be the demonstrators on stage for grad. They should tell us that for the next two weeks, because people who have been lying down daily were by some miracle able to do the entire class tonight, how coincidental.
Kellie came to our room for supper tonight, she got spoiled with some cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce, lol. After supper we had more lecture with Rajashree. Before lecture started all the visiting teachers got to introduce themselves. Kel got up there and told them about herself and where she resides right now. Tonight we got to hear from Devi, she is a doctor, Bikram yoga instructor and studio owner in Victoria. I could have listened to her for hours. She started to talk about spirituality and connecting with how the mind works, breaking it down for us, and explaining her beliefs and told us that by no means did we have to accept anything she said. She talked about things that I am just beginning to understand and learn about myself in terms of spirituality and beliefs. She also gave the western way of thinking about it and the medical terms and solutions how the medical field deals with the associated processes, relating diseases and sickness to the mind. It’s so cool because it totally reiterated everything I have begun to stand behind or trying to understand in terms of spirituality. I don’t want to get to much into it because not everyone understands, believes, or wants to know about it. She has only just started to connect and grow with this over the last couple years since graduating from teacher training. It got me so excited because I only started to connect with this stuff once I started to work at the studio.
I am sure my day to day events are boring you guys. Grandma already said it sounds like the same thing but just a different day, I told you before, ground hog day. She might not know what that means, I had to explain it to Eleni the other day. The saying is based on a movie where the guy does the same thing every day. That is why people were calling training ground hog day by week two.
I was trying to think if there was a story I could tell you so you aren’t so bored. The only story we heard today was that six years a girl had hurt her lumber/lower spine, making her unable to do any sports. Her only physical activity was walking her dog which never lasted long because she was in so much pain she had to stop. Her doctor told her the only answer was surgery and after she would have to wear a neck brace until it healed, there was a chance of side effects with anestia too. One day her neighbour, who is a Bikram yoga instructor saw her and told her to try a Bikram class. She talked to her doctor and he told her she could do what she could until the surgery in three months. She started classes, seeing improvement after her third class so continued to go five days a week. She went back to her doctor six WEEKS later and told him to cancel the surgery. Her doctor couldn't believe that she had healed so quickly without surgery.
Have I mentioned before that I love this yoga.

Catching your breath

2008-10-23T07:57:00.004-05:00

Rajashree taught the AM class again, Kellie took it and she survived (at the back of the room by the door), he he. She doesn’t have much choice; that is where all the teachers have to go unless they are invited to the front by the instructor. They barely cracked the doors an inch (at the very end of class) so I am sure it was not the most pleasant back there. It was a bit of a tough class for me. Again I didn’t feel like I was getting any air and it felt as if I couldn’t catch my breath, or get a full breath in. I started thinking I was in a dead spot after looking around and seeing the four people around me lying on their backs on their mats. It took me until about a half an hour after class to feel like I actually got my breath back again. After class I kidnapped Kellie and Damian and I took them to my secret after class get away; the salt water pool. They were loving it, now we just need to convince P to get one of these at the studio.
After lunch we had lecture with Rajashree. We went through the postures, up to triangle and talked about the medical benefits. She also brought people up to the stage to correct their posture, or show us ways to correct a posture without touching them. It was neat to see where people can go with their bodies with the right word encouragement. Sometimes Rajashree assisted them to show them/us the full extent of where they could go in a posture. She also measured some spines to show us the compression and extension length of spines in certain postures. Everyone was wide awake for this lecture. I love learning the hands on stuff that we can apply ourselves to our students or to our own practices.
Evening class was taught by Devi from Victoria, I love love loved her class. I pushed myself 127% and felt like a million bucks after. I went into class feeling like a pile of crap, thinking it would be a tough class. I was standing there in between sets of standing head to knee trying to catch my breath thinking to myself, “get yourself together you can do this, mind over matter, just breathe." As I took a deep breath, it clicked, I had been breathing wrong this entire class so far and probably the last couple days. I was doing deep breathing through my nose, no fricken wonder I thought my body was over heating. I don’t know why it hit me at that moment or why I had changed it in the first place in the last couple days but I am glad I noticed. I thought about it after and I think I was just doing this the last two days when my mind took over and I lost my concentration and focus. Don’t worry, I got my shit together for the remainder of class.
After supper we had more posture clinic. We had Jeff again and you could feel the tension rise as he walked in the room. The other group had not had him yet so they didn’t know what to expect. We already knew his behavioral expectations of how to behave in the room. By that I mean we weren’t allowed to clap or take pictures because it wasted and disrupted to much time. The feed back was all the same from last time and the tension never left the room until we were dismissed. I don’t think there was one person who didn’t have to repeat it and fix their voice tone the second, third or fourth round. Oh well, no blood lost right!?

Kellie's here

2008-10-22T10:55:00.005-05:00

This morning’s class was taught by Rajashree. I was at the back of the room and it didn’t feel too stuffy. She let them crack the doors open a little in the middle of class. I think the teachers were having a hard time breathing because they ended up cranking them all the way open for a couple postures until Rajashree made them close them. After that they opened them just a tad with the help of the little puke buckets. I mention the puke buckets because right after Rajashree asked them to close the doors again, one of the teachers husbands (not sure if he is a teacher) ran to the door and ended up puking in the bucket holding the door open. Sorry I just had to mention that because it actually made me laugh. We had only two postures left so the trooper went back to his mat and finished the class. Rajashree saw him do it and made a comment about them getting on the plane later but he will be fine by then.
After lunch we had posture clinic. It is actually nice to have one to get one more posture out of the way. This one posture has been sitting in my head for three days waiting to get out. We had Jeff today and after I delivered my dialogue he wanted to see how I could use the range of my voice and belly. After asking me a bunch of questions about my family and such he got some cushions from the next room. He told me to sit on them and I say my dialogue again, he wanted more from me so he gave me the task of delivering my dialogue seductively. The other lead gave me an example because apparently she was told to do the same thing in her posture clinic and even after she started teaching. The whole class was laughing and cheering by the end and it was actually kind of fun and I learned how to change my voice using my belly. That is what they want you to do though, come out of your shell, some teachers just have different approaches than others.
We had posture clinic until 1:45 than it was straight to the lecture hall, where Rajashree was waiting for us and she lectured again. She talked about the benefits of the heat in Bikram yoga, chakras, cancer and reasons cancer patients like yoga. She is so well organized with her power point presentation and hand outs for us to follow along with.
A girl in my group told me that her and her room mate got moved rooms to our floor today. Everyone on their floor in their building (not the main one which we are in) has had their rooms broken into. Another girl had told me this morning that hers was broken into last night during evening class. I didn’t realize there was more than one occurance. Apparently there is a roof that is about a foot below their balconies, and they can get up using the fire escape latter. When the maids go in and clean they leave the balcony doors open (they do in ours too), so that is how they are getting in. Once in the room, the thieves dead bolt the door so the girls couldn’t get into their room after class. They hit every room on that floor during class last night getting their i-pods, cell phones, wallet, money, and even gum stolen. The girls were just glad they didn't take their computers. All of them had smartly put their credit cards and passports in the safety deposit box (which requires an electonic code) so they never got away with those, scary stuff.
Evening class was taught by a lady from Virginia (?). She definitely wasn’t my favorite but I think I was annoyed from the first breath (literally in the warm-up) but she did grow on me. In the warm-up for the first breathing exercise she counted to six really fast. Any other teacher would noly be at the count of three or four by the time she was already at six. It also felt like she made us do about 16 in each set, I really thought my arms were going to fall off my body, not a good start. She talked fairly quick so that was cool, especially when she said the full dialogue for triangle. She also told us to get off the towels when turning to the side, which is cool. In Bikrams class, every time we tried to stand on the carpet he would say, “stand on the towels, quit ruining my carpet, stand on the towel!” We were also told not to use certain phrases in certain postures and she used every phrase we were told not to use, that part actually made me smile.
I am being very nit picky and I don’t why, I am or was not struggling and I had a good class. There was a girl that was in front of me that really worked over my patience and the two girls beside me. I don’t want to get into what was happening but there was absolutely no way I could not notice what was going on. For that reason I did not have a good flow to my class and came in and out of listening and focusing on what the teacher was saying.
After class I went down stairs to the café to get some supper. As I was walking back I saw Dale walking through the lobby with suitcases. I looked behind him and there was Kellie, I literally ran over there and gave her the biggest hug. I couldn’t stop smiling, it was great to see her.
After supper we had more posture clinic. Kellie was with Eleni’s group which Eleni was stoked for when we got back to the room. My group had Wendy, three teachers from California and Devi from Victoria (Ed who was here week two’s wife). She is a doctor too and will be lecturing us some time this week with Rajashree on the medical benefits of the postures. I really enjoyed our leads tonight, it was nice and relaxed and we got well into the next posture.

The picture is our hotel room as you walk in from the hallway. To the right where I took the picture is the walk in closet. The first bed by the fridges is Eleni's and the one by the balcony is mine. There is the wall unit which has the tv and all our food in it. Beside that, next to the patio door is the table with my lap top and rice cooker, and the chair with my towel and yoga mat drying on the back. On the other side of the wall unit (to the right) is the dresser, we each have three drawers. The patio is where those big white shutters are on the back wall. The bath room is to the left where I am standing to take the picture, and the walk-in closet is to the right.

Rajashree is back

2008-10-21T10:56:00.005-05:00

This morning’s class was taught by Rajashree. Yep she is back for this week, and is going to be teaching every morning class this week. The room seemed a little hotter today but still manageable. They have been opening the doors at the end of the floor series to bring more air in. I am not sure if they did that today, I actually didn’t think about it until right now. Rajashree gave us the exciting announcement before class that we don’t have posture clinic today.
After lunch we headed to the lecture hall. The visiting teachers were introduced and then Mark brought three demonstrators up on stage. We did a little mini posture clinic while we waited for Rajashree to arrive. He had one person from each group come up to say their next posture in front of the whole group on the stage. Mark wanted us to be relaxed and have some fun so he made people say their dialogue with accents, sing, or hand gestures. The one who got the biggest applause was a lady who took on a southern accent. Oh my word, we were hollowing the way she pronounced some of the words; “come up ya’ll”, lol.
Another girl imitated Bikram and at the line ‘747 taking off’, she followed it up with, ‘I have my own private jet and the stories I have about that thing’. Even Mark nearly fell off his chair when she said that. She wasn’t insulting him by any means but it was a pretty damn good impersonation of him.
Rajashree started lecturing at 2pm, starting with a power point presentation. She gave us an introduction to the yoga connecting it with spirituality, cancer, and science. I never heard anything really new but it never fails to hear it again, especially when Rajashree is talking about it. She wanted to give us just a little intro into it so we were warmed up for tonight when Dr.Choudray lectures.
Evening class was taught by a lady from Florida. The norm has now been for teachers to pull students (aka future teachers) onto the podium to say a posture. She did this tonight for two students for triangle; it is such an adrenaline rush to hear one of us up there again. It was another tougher class but I still made it through. I think they have turned up the heat, (which we were warned of) and are not opening the doors anymore. Oh well, all is fair at teacher training right!?

After supper we had more lecture from Rajashree. Tonight she brought Dr. Choudrey with her. He is a gynaecologist who also takes Bikram yoga. He admitted he tries to hide in the back away from Bikram by the door but Bikram always finds him. He told some jokes that were actually really funny, I enjoyed him as a speaker. We had the chance to write down questions and he answered them all. He had an answer for everything and it was always a medical answer but he was able to explain it in laymen’s terms so we could understand. Some of the answers included drawings on the white board but none the less easy to understand. We got let go just past 11pm.

Week 6 begins

2008-10-20T10:50:00.003-05:00

I woke up saying ‘for fuck sakes’, that is because my throat hurts once again and my nose is stuffed. I wonder if it is possible to be allergic to air conditioning, because I feel like this is an allergic reaction to something. It feels the same way it did when it I got it a couple weeks ago. Last time I took Benelyn and it didn’t seem to help though it did eventually go away. I felt very low energy today so I was very glad that I studied five postures yesterday.
We went for lunch than took our weekly trip to the store, hitting up Mega for some tortellini. I tried to study when we got back but my exhaustion took over so I took an hour nap. I woke up and felt completely exhausted with little energy. I decided to go down stairs and have a chicken ceasar salad and study some more dialogue. When I went upstairs I decided to try taking a reactine to see what happens.
I was so happy to see the Tupperware ladies leaving today. I never mentioned they were here this week, but let me tell you, that was my yoga this week. On Thursday morning we were waiting for the elevator to head downstairs for class. Out of no where seven or eight huge Mexican women pushed by us and tried to fit into the already full elevator that opened. Three more elevators stopped and they were all full with Tupperware women on there way downstairs. All nine of us yogis waiting for the elevator on our floor ran out of patience so we took the stairs. We were not willing to let these pushy sales women make us late for sign in.
After class we were waiting for the elevator and who comes up behind us? About 50 Tupperware women. They proceeded to push their way through us and try to get on the elevator. If they saw any small space they tried to fit their way through it. One lady tapped me on the shoulder and started yelling at me in Spanish, pointing at her friends by the elevator. When we wouldn’t move she elbowed me and the girl beside me. I turned around and said to her in English “quite pushing, you aren’t going anywhere, there is no where to go, we are all waiting for the elevator and you can wait your turn like the rest of us.” I knew she didn’t know what I was saying and it showed on her face. I really didn’t care, that was the fourth elbow I had received in two minutes. She actually calmed down and quite pushing after that.
We were standing there waiting and an elevator door opened. A lady tried to push by us and as she did she knocked someones yoga mat out of her hand and it landed in the door of the elevator. As the girl bent down to pick it up, one of the Tupperware ladies kicked it out of the elevator with her foot and started to laugh. My mouth dropped, I couldn’t believe what I just saw. We stood and waited for the elevator and we just went with the flow as we got pushed into one when the doors opened.
That night I was going down stairs, myself and another girl were on the elevator. When we hit the main floor five Tupperware ladies pushed their way onto the elevator. They didn’t even give us time or room to get off. We were pinned on the back wall of the elevator. The other girl raised her voice and started yelling at them to let us out. I was able to squeeze and push my way to the door and held it open with my foot. The tupperwarw women were getting mad because the door wouldn’t shut. I just pointed at the girl pinned on the back wall. Realizing they weren’t going anywhere until she got out, they shifted around to give her room to squeeze out. As the girl got off the elevator one lady said in broken English to us, ‘white bitches’. I just shook my head and started to laugh. That was just two of five rude interactions I had with them in three days. Like I said before that was my yoga for the week and I was glad when I saw them packed up waiting for their buses.
I decided I needed to get some sun, besides I really haven’t been out of the hotel all that much, I don’t think grocery shopping counts. After supper, I went to the ocean with Damien to practice some dialogue in the ocean. It really felt great to stand in the water and shout dialogue. Damien said yesterday when he was down there they released about 500 baby turtles into the ocean, that would have been neat to see. He said it was funny to watch because the turtles would get into the water than a wave would bring them back to shore. They would try again and get half way to the water then a wave would come again. The turtles learned they had to be as quick as possible to get there before the wave got them. They must have finally made it the water, that would have been a sight to watch, lol. Kinda like watching a bunch of yogi's go through training, what a parellel.
In the evening I went down stairs to meet some girls for some ice cream and chill time. It was nice to have some girl time to just sit and relax. My brain didn’t want to focus tonight so I read some trash magazines and hit the hay in preparation for week six, 43 classes left.

Just breathe

2008-10-19T13:02:00.005-05:00

This weekend is all about the dialogue. We don’t have much further to go in terms of postures, just under ten and they are short ones too so they will go by super quick. Everyone is trying to estimate where we will get to by Friday. If I have learned one thing it is too not have any expectations.
This morning’s class was taught by Mark again. The class was relaxed and it felt like a Saturday, if that makes any sense. He started the class by having us sing ‘lean on me’. Instead of those words we changed them to ‘lock the knee, lock the knee, lock the knee’, which is basically the mantra in Bikram Yoga. It was a good start to the class since everyone was excited for it to be Saturday; we were free after the class. I think only 37 beads of sweat left my body during that class as the room wasn’t very hot, it’s like they forgot to turn on the heat. I won’t complain though, maybe next time that happen on like Wednesday though, he he. I really pushed myself today to get my internal heat going so I could get the sweat on, it was a little challenging because my body was stiffer without the heat. At the end of class Mark led us in a chant, he would say the line then we would repeat it. It was the coolest thing to hear 350 people chanting like that.
After class I had a lunch date with Michelle. We have been so busy with dialogue and such that I haven’t talked to her much. It was good to go for lunch and catch up.
After lunch I met with a couple people from my group to do dialogue. We rented a cabana and went down to the beach. Don’t worry I had on the 65 SPF, sunglasses and a hat. I ordered a virgin strawberry smoothie and the others ordered coconut water straight from a freshly cracked coconut. We also treated ourselves to some nachos and salsa. It might not sound like it but we actually accomplished a lot this afternoon.
Yesterday in posture clinic a girl in my group thanked me for what I did for her in last Fridays class. I bring this up now because I saw and talked to her today as I was coming up from the beach after studying.

Okay so now I have to rewind because I don’t think I told this story last week. In last Thursdays evening class this girl was in front of me in class and lied down most of the class. I asked her that night in posture clinic if she was okay because I saw her talking to one of the staff after. She said that for the last two weeks she has been blacking out in class and collapsing. She thinks that she must get herself to the floor in a civilized manner because no one ever notices that she just falls down. The last thing she ever remembers is standing up doing a posture than she will wake up on the ground.

Last Friday’s evening class was the class Bikram challenged us for no one to go down to get the night off. ‘Sally’ ended up being in front of me, in the front row. After Bikram made that challenge she started to cry. I just rubbed her shoulder and said do what you can, don’t get sick over it. So she powered through until we got to triangle. This is the posture where she usually goes down (I didn't know this at the time). She just stood there with this look on her face that said, ‘I can’t do this’. I looked at her in the mirror and told her to ‘just breathe’. She went into triangle, did both sides and came out with tears in her eyes. She did it but there was still one more set to do. I gave her a little squeeze on her shoulder and said, ‘do what you can, remember to breathe, and just listen to Bikrams voice’. The girl was like a robot, she completed the rest of the standing series with tears rolling down her face. When we turned around to lie on the floor I gave her a thumbs up. At the end of class we gave each other a high five and hadn’t talked about it since.
She told me that I made her have a break through last Friday. I told her she did it herself as she broke through the scariest barrier she has faced since being here on her own. If I was in her shoes I would have wanted to just stand there and do nothing during that class, scared of what could happen. This week she focused on just breathing in class and doing what she can. She did every single posture this week and didn’t black out, so strong.
She didn’t realize how two simple words. ‘Just breathe’, could give someone the strength to believe in themself. She said when I told her to just listen to Bikram’s voice, that she went into a trance of just letting him lead her. She didn’t think about anything but what his voice told her to do. She told me that my words allowed her to over come her biggest fear in that room as she has felt helpless for the last couple weeks, not knowing what is going on with her. I thought it was really cool for her to come thank me but I didn’t think it was a big deal. I was so proud of her that day for believing in herself and pushing through it. I love this yoga.
Anyways the rest of the day was spent going over dialogue with a little supper thrown in there. I went to bed early because I feel like I am getting sick again. I think I am getting the same thing I had here a couple weeks ago. I am starting to think maybe I am allergic to the air conditioning or something, or maybe I am allergic to the dialogue, he he.

Trust the process

2008-10-18T10:41:00.005-05:00

This morning’s class was taught by Kylee from Melbourne, Australia. She teaches a very easy flowing just keep going class with a voice that is very easy to listen to. Her voice is like taking class at home being taught by one of my home teachers.
After lunch we had more posture clinic, surprise surprise. I practiced my dialogue with Sunny, a lady in my group who is an auditory learner. It works out good for both of us because I can say the dialogue over and over to her and she learns it by me talking to her. We make a good pair because she makes me slow down when I say the dialogue, breathe and speak from my diaphragm. I took everything I worked on with her and applied it to my dialogue when I did my next posture. The feedback was so positive. Its funny, it felt like I was saying it really really slow and felt bad when I took a deep breath because it felt like a long pause. But what was painfully slow for me was absolutely perfect for class and received the best response. There is a handful of us from my group getting together this weekend. Each of us has a quality that someone else has to work on.
I talk fast so I am helping another girl speed up. There is a guy that speaks from his diaphragm so he can help me and someone else. I am still going to work on slowing down and breathing so someone else helps me with that. Others have to be more serious, have more fun, be meaner, be softer, don’t fidget, or just learn the dialogue. Its like putting together a puzzle to find what works. You’d think by week five we would have it figured it out, but we are all still learning and growing.

Evening class was taught by Jeff. I had a really good class. Before class there was a girl on the elevator that was going off about her dislike for Jeff after having him in posture clinic. When she told us he was teaching class I wasn’t sure what to expect. Before I left for class I decided to go into class with no expectations. I didn't want to let someone else pre influence my thought on someone I didn’t even know. So I did exactly that and went in and just let go. There wasn’t a whole lot of dialogue going on but I actually learnt a lot in that class about my own body. Every day I am learning something new about different postures just from letting go and listening, I love it.
After supper we had more posture clinic, and another posture. I would love to rip apart what happened in posture clinic tonight and give my feedback and the word on the street but I am not going to. Tonights posture clinic was the most tense one I have been in since we started them. It is amazing how leads can affect energy that much.
When I got home (the hotel room is now my home) after tonights posture clinic, I just started to write and write and write, and vent. I was so worked up after class that I had to get it out. In the morning before I posted this I decided to not post what I said. We are told to trust the process while we are here and up until last night I have done exactly that. I have not gotten caught up in other peoples drama or questioned why things are happening the way they are. I have seen grave examples of people getting worked up, questioning, and getting angry about what exactly is going on here. I would rather re-direct my energy into trying to memorize this dialogue and staying healthy. Friday nights posture clinic was the first time I actually thought, ‘what exactly is the point of this, wow’, among other words that I have censored for this posting. I don’t want to confuse you as I am not going to talk about the specific events that unfolded. Nothing was said to me directly, I was just a witness of the energy and tension in the room tonight. If it was not for the support amongst the two groups and trainees in the room I think there would have been some major break downs. After class there was a lot of anger and hostility coming out. It was not directed or caused by fellow students though. This is why I decided to vent to myself and direct the energy in other ways. With that said it was nice to go to bed and not have to stress about dialogue tonight.

Taking it all in

2008-10-17T10:40:00.004-05:00

The morning class was taught by Lisa from Texas. Don’t have much to say about it, she threw in some yee haws in there to give a throw out to where she comes from, it was a good class. I was at the front today so I was able to see myself in the mirror. I can tell things are out of alignment when looking at myself in the mirror though it doesn’t feel that way. I think I was right about the protein thing yesterday because I am feeling like I have more energy today after making sure I had some.
The after noon posture clinic was lead by Mark from everywhere (he taught last nights class). I say everywhere because he travels a lot. He used to own seven studios and ended up selling them or giving them to people. He now owns one in Buffalo and is only there in the summer because he hates cold weather. He owns another one some where hot, over seas I think, and is there in the winter. He also travels a lot visiting different studios and teacher training of course. You can tell he just loves interacting with people and has such a big heart for the Bikram family.
I really enjoyed him as a lead and it was a lot of fun today. When I first got here I didn’t think posture clinic was supposed to be fun. It wasn’t until all the more experienced/senior teachers arrived that posture clinic has become a little less formal. Don’t get me wrong there are only two or three senior teachers that have fun with us. It seems I learn so much more in those posture clinics as well. Everyone is more relaxed, and you also end up absorbing more, in regards to the posture, dialogue and about class in general. I like when they interact withus, sharing stories and experiences with us. There is so much going on and so much information flying at us that a little fun takes a little stress off our shoulders. It’s nice when we can actually just sit back and take it all in.
Evening class was taught by Michael Harris again, this class was a little less key than the first one he taught. He said he had the best and most fun class ever teaching last class. He didn’t have on his bangle tiger shorts on this time. He still brought two people up to the podium to say two different postures. It was cute because he brought Robert up from Amsterdam who is on my posture clinic group and English is his second language to say balancing stick. After class when I asked him how it was he started criticizing himself. He was mad at himself because he forgot to tell us that it was a ten second posture and he forgot to clap when we went down. He said he didn’t have time to think about anything cause it just happened and we did whatever came out of his mouth. Its so cool to see some of our fellow students go up there and be teachers, thinking we will doing that in a month, holy crap.
Supper time was spent getting cobra done and making some yummy pasta preparing for a lecture tonight. There are 13 new visiting teachers here right now, that doesn’t even include the other 10 or more that already introduced themselves this week. Michael told us his life story in a nut shell and how he ended up being a Bikram teacher and on that stage last night. He has a pretty inspirational story and it reinstates everything I believe in and love about this yoga. Jeff another studio owner gave us a run down of his life too. The guy has had everything wrong or done to his body and is here because of this yoga, I love hearing those stories. Ester another visiting teacher told us how Bikram yoga saved her life and what it brought back to her life. She was balling like a baby telling us her story, pretty strong incredible things to listen to here. Everyone has a story of how and why they started Bikram yoga or why they became a teacher. I wish we had time to listen to them all.
Michael continued to lecture by answering some questions we had about anything. Then Monali did some meditation with us cause she said we are all still holding onto our emotional baggage. You could just feel the calm energy from everyone after we got dismissed, very mellow, and much needed.

Living on a prayer

2008-10-16T11:01:00.004-05:00

This morning’s class was taught by Latisha again, she leaves right after class to go back home to New Mexico. I think I am in my angry phase because all she did was annoy me today. Anything she said outside of the dialogue annoyed me. I actually found myself mumbling under my breath, “shut up”, “seriously what are you talking about”. She kept talking about the mind and how it’s so weak and we are so weak, I wasn’t in the mood. I don’t think it helps that my body felt very tired today. Finishing morning class was the half way point of training. I didn’t even think about that, but my body was telling me that. Don’t tell my dad I said this, but maybe I am getting too much sleep. This week we have been getting to bed earlier than every other week, around midnight. I think I was doing better physically when we were only getting only five or four hours of sleep a night. Maybe there actually is a method to the madness, than again it’s probably all in my head, lol. I truly felt exhausted today though. My body has been holding up pretty damn well so I thought about it and I realized I didn’t eat any protein yesterday. There was nothing good on the buffet and for supper I had pasta with sauce, no meat. So I am chalking the weakness up to that. Today at lunch I made an extra effort to get some protein in me.
After lunch we had more posture clinic, finishing off the standing series today. We were told at the end that we have posture clinic again tonight. People are really starting to stress now, with such little time to cram it into our heads. I am feeling that way but I am trying not to think about. People are actually making themselves sick with vomiting and diaherria just thinking about it. I am really feeling bad for the people who have English as their second language, it is hard enough for me to get in, I can’t even imagine.
Evening class was taught by Mark, he owns three studios, the only one I remember is in Buffalo. When we first met him (when he introduced himself to the group) I thought he seemed kind of arrogant. You are always told to never judge a book by its cover but he had these mannerisms about him that demanded respect, which isn't necassarily a bad thing. I am sure his look of being tall, with a clean shaven head and broad shoulders doesn’t help the matter. I really enjoyed his class as he was so easy to listen to. I didn’t think about anything that class, I seriously let go, his mind and my body, it was awesome. I had a great class that complimented what a great teacher he is. He ended the class with playing ‘living on a prayer’. Every student at teacher training got a little lift singing as we lied on our mats holding hands with our arms pumping in the air singing “WE'RE HALF WAY THERE!”
There was a girl beside that decided to sit down after the third posture and study her dialogue on her mat, that annoyed me but I just let it go. In evening posture clinic my group was with this girls group, she jumped up ready to say her posture. She completely blanked and got so mad at herself when she finished. She told the leads that that is the first time she has ever done that for a posture and she was completely embarrassed. You can tell the stress is building when people are sitting out classes to get extra study time in.
We got half way through the groups but I didn’t say mine, there were a lot of people who just wanted to get it over with tonight so I wasn’t in a big hurry to jump up there. We got dismissed at a little after 11 for bed. I decided to take advantage of the early night. I took my dialogue paper and went into a lounge area on our floor to study the next posture. Once memorized, I tucked myself into bed at 12:30am, knowing the next posture verbatim. Bring on the dialogue dreams; it has been a couple months since I have studied dialogue before going to bed.

Standing series complete

2008-10-15T10:52:00.004-05:00

This mornings class was taught by a guy from Northern California. It was the most boring, unmotivated, monotone class I have had since I got here. It was very hard to understand him when he talked and he was a very slow talker. He started the class with a seven minute explanation of what the yoga did for us, what it involved, how we will feel and what the breathing exercises do. I could just feel the energy level go down and the eyes rolling when he did that, not a good way to start a class. It would have been perfect at home explaining the class to beginner but not here when we know it all already and at this point I just want in and out of the hot room.
During class it took so much effort to listen to him that I actually tuned him out after party time (between third and fourth posture). I took that sip of water and then my mind took a trip back home. I was back at my home studio and all I heard was my teachers teaching me class at home. I came out of head to knee stretching (second last posture), looked at the podium and I remember thinking, ‘oh wow, I totally forgot what was going on up there. I haven’t looked up there since the beginning of class’. That’s not exactly what you want to do in class but it was necessary for this one. I was just doing the motions and it was the second time since I got here that I thought about sitting down the entire time because I was bored. Next thing I know I hear Latisha’s words that she told us yesterday come into my head. ‘This is week five, you are over the hump. You are teachers now, be a leader’. So I sucked it up, went inside my head and got through it. I don’t think it helped I performed about 21 triangles yesterday in preparation for or in posture clinic. For those of you who don’t know, triangle used every muscle, joint, organ and gland in the body, yah a little exhausting after a while.
After lunch we had posture clinic, onto the last of the standing postures. It is so crazy to think that we know the dialogue for 50 minutes of class already, it blows my mind when I think about it like that. We had Michael Harris today as our lead, he owns a studio in Bent, Orgeon. It was by far the most relaxed and fun posture clinic we had had so far. He was in people’s faces, making people do posture mistakes so they would have to be corrected. He was also demonstrating the postures, corrected our postures and made break throughs with students.
We have one student in our group who has English as a second language. He has been struggling to get the dialogue out this entire time, he knows it, it just doesn’t come out. Michael did some things with him and asked him if he was ready to have a break through. Michael worked with him, in the class, in front of everyone, he was ready and it worked, he did it. It was unbelievable and so cool to witness, everyone in our group was hootin and hollering when he finished. I think he just broke through his barrier, this is just the beginning for him now. It was also nice to see a smile on his face when he finished…so cool.
Michael also taught evening class tonight which started off with a bang. He walked in with a robe, sunglasses, hat on, and escorted by two female staff members to ‘Eye of a Tiger’. It was quite funny and a great start to the class. He started teaching with his sunglasses on but ended up taking them off because they were fogging up on him. At eagle he pulled 63 year old teacher trainee Carol from his studio up to the podium. He gave her the head set, took her place on her mat and she recited Eagle for us. It was so cool to see one of us trainees up there teaching the class. At balancing stick, he pulled another girl up that locked her knee in standing bow to say balancing stick to us. They both received big cheers and applause after, they rocked it out. There was some light hearted moments in the class but most of all everyone rocked it out with smiles on their faces. At the end of class he asked Dale if anyone had left class, to which Dale yelled ‘NOOOOOOOOOO’! What a difference a teacher with a little fun will do for 300 students. The class still ended in just over 90 minutes which I wasn’t expecting it to. In Savasansa Michael got them to play ‘Cel-e-brate good times, c’mon’, as he was walking out. The class seemed so easy because everyone was so loose and really enjoying the class, what a shift from the AM class.
Tonight we have more posture clinic and Michael announced in class that once we are finished the standing postures they are going to give us a bit of break. They are going to take some time and talk about different yoga things with us and give us a breather because we have been cruising so quickly. Now its time to study tree and toe stand, last standing postures so I can relax a bit.
Our group was half a posture behind others because it took us so long to get through the them this afternoon with Michael. They ended up switching us with another group that was all ready to perform tree and toe. I really didn’t think we were going to get to it tonight, but you could tell the other group was happy to stall for a bit longer because we still had the previous posture to finish up with. I decided to perform my tree and toe postures tonight. I am at the point where I am tired of worrying and thinking about presenting each posture. I still get a bit nervous when I get up there but its something I’ve had to deal with. I even wake up in the middle of the night saying the posture I just presented. I just give my head a shake and say, think about the next one, usually that works and then my mind warfs into crazy dreams.
Let me tell you, the dreams have been crazy. They have involved my family and friends and involved anything from killing people, to casing people, locking doors, driving cars, playing games and visiting people. I looked them all up and they all have to with training, new experinces, learning new things, new doors opening and being in a new strange environment. So cool how the mind talks to you sometimes.

No expectations

2008-10-14T10:43:00.006-05:00

This morning’s class was taught by Latisha, studio owner from New Mexico. I didn’t find she brought a lot of energy to class but I didn’t let it affect me much though, it is only Monday morning after all. I don’t know how or why but I found myself coming out of my head and just listening to her. I wasn’t thinking about how long we had to hold the posture for or if a body part was tired. I don’t know if it was her voice or if it was the fact that is was Monday and I went in there with no expectations. Monday mornings are not necessarily tough, I am just a little bit stiffer after a day off. Therefore I don’t go there expecting my body to be at the same place it was in Saturday mornings class. I think it’s a good take on it because I can see the frustration on peoples face after a day off. Its only yoga right!?
After class I rode the elevator with another yogini. She was saying how she hates Mondays because she is so stiff and she is always angry in Monday AM class. I told her my view on Mondays. She smiled and said, “I never thought of it that way, I need to let it go. I am going to promise myself that next Monday I am going to focus on smiling and remind myself not to have any expectations.” I told her there is no point in getting worked up about it, its done, she did it, if anything be proud and focus on that.
We did Triangle posture this afternoon in posture clinic. Our group decided on Friday (between ourselves) that the ones who usually go last were going to go first this time and vice versa. The people who usually go last liked that idea because they had all weekend to study so it was still fresh in their heads. Everyone in my group rocked this posture out. Of course there are still corrections and homework (things to work on), here and there, but we got it done. I was nervous going up because I kept mixing up two lines, switching their spot where they are supposed to be said, therefore throwing me off. I went up there, and I didn’t miss a word, I slowed it down like they told me to last time, I didn’t cry, and I got them in and I got them out. When I was finished Lynn said to me, “I would hire you in a second. That was absolutely perfect. You command respect. Keep doing what you are doing”. Okay, so I hope that doesn’t mean it’s downhill from here, oh gosh, lol.
Lynn told me after that I am so comfortable with the dialogue that next time she wants me to say it so painfully slow that it makes me feel uncomfortable, this could be interesting. My homework for myself is remembering to breathe. I get so excited when I say it sometimes that I forget to breathe at the beginning of the sentence and then I run out of air.
In posture clinic people were talking about the people who got really sick during Friday evenings class. Apparently there was a girl who actually puked into her towel, two times, folded up the towel she puked in and put it at the front of her mat. The girl next to her gave her an extra towel to have just in case she needed it. The girl just put the extra towel on top of the puked in one so it wouldn’t start to smell. After she took care of the towel she stood up and carried on with the standing series.
Another girl had her body cramp up so bad by the end of class that she had to be carried out by Dale and put on IV. I heard she was taken by ambulance to the hospital but she might have just went to the hotel doctor. Her neck was cramped up so bad that her head was glued sideways to her shoulder. Both her one leg and arm was cramped in the bent position with her foot in the pointed ballerina position. Dale had to carry her out in that position, scary stuff man. I can’t say anything cause I would probably push myself to that point too, which is even scarier. It's amazing what people put their bodies through for a night off, for themselves, for us, for Bikram.
Tonihgt's evening class was taught by Bikram. a good steady class. I was struggling for air in the standing series but I paced myself and was able to hold myself up and together to finish strong. A lot of people in my row were going down, not sure there much air flow going on in the middle of the room tonight. None the less I did it, and so did the other 315 trainees there.
Bikram lectured us tonight, I really enjoyed his lecture tonight. He told us stories about how Bikram yoga has saved so many lives. He told us the story about the one time he ever felt the most guilty in his life, he said he was so depressed he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He stayed in his house for one full day without talking to anyone. People kind of laughed when he said that but it was pretty major to him. When you think about someone being depressed you think they want to be alone for more than 24 hours, especially in the state he explained. He told us stories about people who have been in his class that have died when they stopped doing the yoga, people who had life long ailments. He talked about how yoga helped prolong their life and then they died when they stopped doing the yoga. He mentioned how Quincy Jones was told he would never walk again by the same doctor that told Emmy that. Emmy and Quincy did the yoga and are still alive but the doctor is dead, lol. I love the way he tells stories.
I feel kind of jipped because at the beginning of training we were told Bikram would be with us for the entire nine weeks. Last night he told us that he leaves tomorrow morning for 13 days for some seminars. He also told us his flight schedule and it is beyond ridiculous. He is on the plane every day flying all over the world…Bombay, California, Florida, Europe, thirteen flights all together.
Bikram let us go to bed at midnight because his stomach was growling from some tacos, lucky us. I was actually disappointed to be let go that early, his stories were so entertaining. Before he dismissed us he re-minded us of his rules about no smoking, drinking, touching, kissing, and fucking. He told us that he has already let seven trainees go home because they broke the rules. It doesn’t surprise me that people did this but at the same time it does because it is such a waste. Why bother coming here in the first place if you are going to fuck it up like that in the first two weeks. He also told us that he was talking with the staff and visiting teachers about how this training and how efficient, smart and fast we all are. Bikram said he is amazed how fast we are learning and growing at this training. He said we have had some physical battles with the stupid room but we are the fastest learning and most efficient teacher training. He is excited about that because when he comes back he can take all our extra time to talk to us about the yoga because we are way ahead of any other training in the past. I am very excited for that as well. Rajashree (Bikrams wife) and Kellie (from my studio) arrive next week so that gives a little something extra to look forward too after this five week hump.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-10-13T11:00:00.004-05:00

So those of you who like feet, this picture is just for you, I have been nursing some bites on my foot. I thought I would take a picture so you know exactly what I am talking about. At first I thought they were bed bug bites but I did some investigating and I think they were ant bites. I went to the pool one day and remember shoeing ants off my leg, that night the bites appeared. The next day when I went to the pool I noticed ants on my sandals when I got out, so I am assuming that is where I got my bites from.
Some people really did get bed bug bites, on their feet, necks and arms in the last two weeks. One trainee had to switch rooms in the middle of the night because they bit her all over the back. Another girl I know took a nap after posture clinic and when she got to evening class her foot was red and swollen. I counted the red spots on her foot and there were 23 bites on her foot. The nurse told her they were mosquito bites, but there is no way, she had not been outside for a couple days. Every night before I go to bed I rip the covers off my bed and check for bugs. Eleni thinks I am totally nuts when I am crawling all over my bed looking intensely for those creepy crawlers, but I am not taking any risks. I even considered spraying bug spray all over my sheets before I get in , but that’s just another level of insanity, good thing that thought only lasted three seconds.
Today, as every other Sunday is a day off. We did our run to Wal-mart on Friday so the day was ours to abuse how we felt. Eleni had a lunch date with someone from her group, so I went with her for lunch. After lunch the three of us went and found a quiet place to do dialogue. We practiced two postures to prepare for the first couple days of the week. We did that for about an hour than Eleni and I headed back to our room to chill and study some more.
Later I went and met Damien down stairs by the pool to review some more dialogue. I am not a big fan of the sun so I didn’t last long out there. The afternoon was spent trying to reinforce the dialogue into my head. For supper we ordered pizza from down stairs and spent the rest of the night studying some more and then watching a little bachelor for some comic relief. I like our little Sunday night tradition of curling up in bed for a little bachelor Rome before getting some shut eye.
So my extent of Thanksgiving dinner this year was having a pesto covered turkey breast for lunch, take what you can get I guess. Oh I forgot to mention that I saw the president again. We were trying to leave the restaurant after lunch today and they had it blocked off to the hallway so we couldn’t leave. There was a guy in a suit standing there and told us we had to wait for five minutes. Less than two minutes later the president walked by and actually waved at us, wooooooh. I said to the suited man, “oh we were waiting for the president, cool”. He just shook his head yes and told us we could go now.
Over the weekend they were supposed to drill a hole into the wall of the hot room to bring in more fresh air. The room is still really stuffy with no fresh air, especially the standing series. The fans are better than nothing but it does not help with bringing the fresh air in. They are still opening the doors at the back before class is even half way finished.

If I remember correctly I think my group is in the middle lines (4-6) tomorrow. I don’t know if I have mentioned before, but we rotate lines every day, with 16 lines in the room. The back three lines are left for teachers, staff and visiting hotel guests (they get to practice for free). Every group is assigned a different set of lines every day that you must practice on, the lines are offered in groups of three (1-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-13). They rotate the lines back every day so every group has the opportunity to be in front of the mirror and at the back of the room. Line 10 has three pillars on it, so they opened up line 13 to us to, so everyone can fit. There are usually four groups sharing the three lines at a time. If you are caught on the wrong line, you get two make up class, so it’s essential to pay attention, though they clearly haven't enforced it. Just a little tid bit for you so you understand when I talk about where my group is or I am practicing in the room during a class.
Other then that, Happy Thanksgiving!

Week four finished

2008-10-12T13:06:00.004-05:00

It’s Saturday and I don’t have much to say in terms of what happened today. I am spending the weekend memorizing dialogue, preparing for this week. We went to Wal-Mart last night so I don’t have to think about that cutting into my day. Class this morning was taught by Marlyn, who leaves today. She had brought her son who looks like he is in his early teens with her for the week. If she wasn’t teaching she was taking a class, and on occasion that meant doubles. Her son also joined the class on the floor series, so the last half hour of class. During class she was taking pictures of us in different postures, sometimes it meant holding a posture a little longer than normal but no biggie, anything for a good picture right?
I thought since I don’t have much to talk about today I would talk about how I am holding up physically. Not that that will give me a lot to talk about, I am actually holding up really well in terms of muscles. I am waiting for the week to come when my legs feels tight and I can’t touch my toes, I’ve heard it happens. I have not had any soreness really anywhere yet. The only thing I have felt, and it has only been this week since my massage, is my hip. I knew before I left that it was out of alignment and I think the massage therapist put it back or something because it was playing tricks this week. I didn’t let that stop me though, I worked through it, but it also helped that it wasn’t an intense pain, just a discomforting feeling.
The one body part I have felt the most has been my arms though. Some mornings they feel so weak I don’t even want to hold them up for awkward (straight out in front of your body). After eagle (after awkward, third posture which brings fresh blood to the arms), I always feel better. Other than that, like I said before my body is loving this yoga. I am going to give credit to my after class swims in the salt pool. I think the swim has really helped me stay loose, and allows the salt to soak into my body after sweating it all out.
As far as sleep goes, I have learnt to accept things just as they come. I am not taking sleep for granted because it is hard to come by these days. I don’t think about that night or moment when we are there until 2am. When I go to bed I am just thankful that we got to bed that early because it could always be worse and could always be later. I remind myself that the weekend is just around the corner, whether it is one day or five days away. I know that on Saturdays we have class then lunch and then I can have a nap. Let me tell you I was out cold today during my nap. Eleni left the room and I didn’t even hear her when the door slammed shut. When I woke up I was so groggy I just thought to myself, “I could totally sleep for another couple hours”. Then I wondered if I sleep that much if I will be able to sleep tonight, so I opted to get up and procrastinated into studying.
Emmy told us the first week of training that the people who have a little extra ‘cushion’ on their bodies will do better during training. She said that the body only holds enough energy to allow a body to work out at the same rate consistently for sixty minutes. After sixty minutes the body uses the reserves (fat) and converts it to energy to use for the rest of the time. The people who came here with the muscled out or really skinny bodies seem to be the ones that have struggled the most over the last couple weeks. Bikram has even made comments to people in class about eating more food. He said one day, ‘I thought the hotel was making better food, why does it look like you stand under the x-ray machine. I see your bones, this is not healthy. It is not possible to live the healthy life if you are just the bones walking around’.
I have also talked to two people who came here as vegetarians. It was suggested to us the first week to drop all eating habits and eat what you can, they directed this straight to the vegetarians. Rajasgree wanted them to consider eating meat while here to ensure they are getting the proper amount of protein for the amount of exercise we are doing. Eating was not my biggest concern coming here, getting sick from the food weighed a little on my mind though. A buffet is included in our stay so it can’t be avoided and I am not going to complain because it is one meal I don’t have to worry about. I am trying some of the new food they put out on the buffet. It seems I have always been able to find something to eat though. If all else fails and the Asian cuisine Bikram has convinced them to cook doesn’t work there is always the old favorites to choose from.
At the time we eat, the buffet is actually considered the breakfast buffet. Every day there is always cereal, toast, bagels, eggs, oatmeal, bacon, sausage, pancakes, and French toast to choose from. There is also the omelette/egg bar where they make you eggs the way you want them. Since I find eggs so yummy, I have stayed far clear of that counter. They also have a quesadilla bar where they make little mini quesadilla’s with your choice of filling. I make my way here usually once a week. They have ground beef, mushrooms, potatoes, green peppers, and corn as fillers to choose from. The buffet also has some lunch items too. It usually consists of three or four Asian dishes that change daily. Consistently there is a meat (chicken, beef or pork), seafood, veggies, and rice or noodle dish to choose from. The buffet also has some Mexican dishes to choose from, I don’t even look what is under those lids anymore. Usually it is beans, or Samos’s (?), tacos, beans or lentil something. There is also a salad bar with fresh green salad, fresh fruit yogurt, tomatoes, and prunes. The daily salads change every day too, anywhere from pasta, rice, lentil to potato salad. And I can not forget to mention the chocolate milk they have every day and the fresh juice. They have cantaloupe, grapefruit, orange, and mango juice daily that tastes like you put a straw directly into the fruit. In between the juice and milk fountains there is the biscuit section. They have an assortment of coffee cakes, cinnamon buns, muffins, buns, struddles, and biscotti’s.
Lol, well I didn’t expect to get into that much detail about the silly buffet but since I have to endure it every day I thought I could mention it. So now you know all about it, and more than you wanted to.
My evening was spent reviewing dialogue and watching for the president. They set up metal detectors all around the compound at every entrance. There is also army looking guys walking around with machine guns and photographers walking around just waiting to take a picture of him. The Olympic committee is also here so I think it has something to do with that. I met a guy from Toronto in the elevator and he said Mexico is trying to get the Olympics that is why he is here. He is from Toronto and saw me after class one day with my yoga mat, he stopped and asked about the classes and all the yogi’s walking around. His face lit up when he found out there are over 300 of us here. He said I always see all these young people walking around with smiles on their faces all the time and it is so cool to see. He told me he wasn’t going to come to a class but he was going to stop by and peek in to see what it is all about and that it would neat to see 300 people practicing at the same time.

The picture is of all the trainees doing camel posture. How cool is this picture?!

Promises Promises

2008-10-11T11:00:00.005-05:00

This morning’s class was taught by Merlyn, the same teacher as Wednesday night. Miss high energy, graduated in 1986, pre dialogue. She said we have inspired her to go home and learn the dialogue, because we are so good with it. I was in the front so I could actually get a good view in the mirror and check out my alignment. I noticed in some postures I was favoring my hip therefore turning it or not having it aligned properly. That is where most of concentration went for this class, but like I said before I like her so I pushed hard.
After lunch we had more posture clinic. Mine and Damian's groups were together today, so it was cool to get to see each other deliver a posture. It is funny because this is the first posture we haven’t worked together to learn. We had one of the same ladies today that we had yesterday so I was a bit nervous about what she would say after yesterday’s performance. Of course anything was better then yesterday but they gave me some good feed back. I was lucky enough to have Lynn, one of the senior teachers in there when I delivered mine. She said that I am like a bullet when I talk, really fast and strong. She said, “I can tell you have lots to say and you get so excited to get it out, not just the dialogue but in life.” My homework is to take more deep breaths, accept the silence and let my students suffer a bit, he he he, bring it on.
Evening class was taught by Bikram. He started the class by stopping us in the middle of the breathing exercise (warm up) and started yelling at two girls calling them lazy. That took about six minutes before we started again. After the breathing exercise was over, Bikram made a deal with us. If no one lies down we can have the night off. I looked around and Sunny from my group was on my front left, she has been sick all week and going down. Behind me were two girls that lied down all morning class. In front of me was a girl that has blacked out a couple times in some classes. No problem, we took the challenge.
Throughout the standing series, myself and another lady from my floor(Kim, aka David's Mom) who was in front of me kept giving reassurance and you can do its to everyone around us. Just remembering to breathe was the key to getting through those tough moments.

The class made it to the floor and then a guy walked out, everyone was screaming for him to come back. Monali came in and told us he had a doctor’s appointment, phew, onto the floor series. All 316 made up our minds and we did it, not one person went down the entire class. The energy was incredible and having everyone work together made it so easy to get it done tonight. Bikram kept his promise and gave us the night off. He did offer that that he would be in the lecture hall later to watch a movie if anyone wanted to join him, ha yah, sign me up.
Eleni and I got back to our room and Eleni noticed that our fridges were unplugged. Both fridge cords were lying there in the floor and the fridge was dripping water from the once frozen ice in the freezer. For F*#@ sakes, so we had to toss away everything in the fridge; yogurt, tortellini, milk, meat, cheese, chicken, salad, aghhh. So we decided to take a taxi to McDonalds than walmart to stock up again. There were about 20 other trainees at McDonalds, so that was quite the sight. We stocked up at Walmart for the next week so now we can concentrate on dialogue for the rest of the weekend.
I think the Mexican President is still at the hotel. There is press and a lot of professional people with name tags on still hanging around. Also when we went to Walmart, there were armed guards set up at the end of the driveway. We had to show our Bikram key cards to prove we were staying the hotel in order to get back to the hotel. Seeing the guards standing there with machine guns was kind of intimidating, but comforting at the same time.
I don’t think I mentioned before that I actually saw the president on Thursday night. I was practicing dialogue in the lobby and all of a sudden we saw and heard a bunch of flashes and cameras going off. I looked up and saw an older guy walking through the lobby with four body guards walking with him. Everyone with a camera swarmed around them as he walked straight into an elevator.
When we got back to our room there was a note under the door from the staff. It was a letter informing all the guests about Hurricane Odile. They said that it seems it has taken a turn towards the water but they are still keeping an eye on it. They warned us to expect heavy rains and strong winds tonight by 8pm so stay in the hotel. They said they are going to give us daily updates on the storm, so I will keep you posted.
Now its time to study some triangle and then get some shut eye for 8am class.

The picture is Bikram Yoga Edmonton in the hooooouse!

Speed bump #1

2008-10-10T11:01:00.004-05:00

This mornings class was taught by Diane. She leaves today after lunch so it was good to get her one more time before we gave her standing ovation good bye cheer. I am really going to miss her, I have learnt so much from her in the last two weeks. She is nothing but here for the students at all times and always with a smile on her face. Monali (Bikrams assistant) told us she is going to try and bring her back before the end of training because she knows how much we all fell in love with her.
After lunch we had posture clinic, my group is now on balancing stick which is the last posture in the balancing series. I hit my road bump today and had a little cry in class. I am not enjoying this posture very much at training. In this posture, you are standing on one leg with the other one up in the air behind you and your arms over your head in front of you (picture above). You are supposed to bring your hips down so they are parallel to the floor. I have been struggling with my hip so much and it actually starts to hurt in this posture if I bring my hip down like we are supposed to. Also, on Monday our lead told us not to worry about memorizing the entire dialogue for this posture because it’s to much to say in the time the students are supposed to be in it. Tuesday we were told to memorize the entire thing like every other posture no matter how long it takes to say it. Yesterday we were told to know the majority of it but drop one of the last paragraphs. Today when we got in there we were told we had to say the entire posture, not missing any lines. I know this posture verbatum but was so stressed out about everything we were told; know this, know that, drop this, drop that, connect here, louder here.
I stood up to do my posture and got half way through and the lead Stacy stopped me and told me to ‘teach’ the posture not just reherse it. So I started again, and she stopped me at the same spot and said, ‘Melissa you are so strong I think you scare yourself and are afraid to take the control, you are the teacher, tell them what you want them to do, now start over.’ By this point I was shaking, having hot flashes, and a lump was forming in my throat. Everyone in the room started cheering and telling me I could do it, they jumped right on the ban wagon to get me going. I took off my sweater, took a deep breath and started again. She stopped me again and asked if I knew every single word on the page for that posture, and I said yes. She said forget about it and now yell at them to make them really listen to you. The tears formed, but I took a deep breath and was so shaky I stopped myself. I told her, “I can’t do this right now, I’m too shaky” as the tears welled in my eyes. It was the type of tears you get when someone hurts your feelings, she told me I was strong, figure that one out.
She let me sit down and I tried to pull myself together as I was in and out of having the tears roll down my face. Two other strong dialogue girls in my group also hit little road bumps on this posture, sat by me and gave me huge hugs when I sat down. Oh my gosh, why balancing stick? It is the shortest one, I don’t get it, anyways they were super supportive and gave me hugs and encouragement. A couple of people later, Stacy called me up to do it again and I was still shaking, everyone started cheering for me again. The lump was so big in my throat I couldn’t get the words out. Stacy made me come to the front of the room and I had to say and perform the posture at the same time so I could deliver it with heart. I did it and I did with fire in my pants. Stacy gave me a huge high five and hug after because not only did I say the entire posture that time with heart, but I stayed in it for the entire 45 seconds it took me to get it all out, lol. The posture is supposed to be only 10 seconds but the dialogue is obviously longer than that. The tears were bound to happen and now I feel stronger.
At break and before class, majority of the people in my group found me and gave me ahug or an ‘its okay’ and just being all over supportive, I love my group. I know there were a couple people that were glad to see us ‘strong’ dialoguers break but I think now we are all stronger than every. The three of us are getting together tonight to work together for the next posture, no where to go but up right!? I guess we’ll see.
Evening class was taught by Bikram. He called the guys out on balancing stick tonight, what irony. There were nine guys already lying on their mats so he made every single guy get up and told the girls to sit down on their mats and have some water. He waited for all the guys to stand on their feet and then he made them do another set of balancing stick. There are around 50 guys here and Bikram could only find one guy in the entire class (he’s actually a yoga competitor too) who had their body in a perfect T. Even with the guys performing three sets of balancing stick class was 90 minutes.
They added three more fans to the pillars in the middle of the room (row nine). In class I could feel the air on my body from one of the fans but I was not getting any fresh air, they did open the doors again though. There were six or seven people that had to be helped out of the room again because they were cramping up. The guy right beside me had his calf start cramping, it was pulsating like crazy. He lied there on his mat with it like that for about two postures than I noticed he was starting to clench and grind his teeth because he was in pain. We were near the back of the room so I signalled to Greg, one of the staff members over to help him. It took two of them but they eventually got him standing and he was able to stretch it out. They were going to help him out of the room but he opted to stay on his mat for the rest of class (last seven minutes). Some people have such amazing strength and determination. After I saw that I gave myself a big bear hug and thanked my body for being so good to me, lol, maybe I’ll reward it with ice cream later.
Lecture started at 9 like usual except it started out by us being told that Bikram had a little movie he wanted us to watch. It would explain everything he has talked about for the last week. Little movie MY ASS…the movie was four hours long. By about the third hour I was getting restless but none the less I did not move from my seat. I made up my mind when that movie started that I wanted to sit and watch the whole thing and get out of my mind. It helped that I didn’t have to go to the bathroom and had snacks to keep me entertained, but I did it. I actually watched the whole movie and read all the subtitles. Those Indian movies make me laugh sometimes, they are so corny but I understand why Bikram likes them. Bikram actually sat at the back of the room the entire time and watched the movie with us. When it was over he asked us if we wanted to watch part two, to which everyone yelled NOOOO. He started laughing and told us we looked like we were drunk and to go to bed. Good night!

Breathing normal

2008-10-09T11:10:00.003-05:00

This mornings class was taught by some old man from I don’t even remember. That’s how enthralled I was with his class. He just had a monotone voice but maybe it was just me. I wasn’t feeling very motivated this morning though I wasn’t tired, sick or bored of the yoga. I just simply didn’t feel like trying that hard and I didn’t hear it in the teachers voice to either so I didn’t. I think it was the slackest class I had, and it was all me taking it like that and only working to about 62%. They installed four more fans at the back of the room now, not that it is helping much it’s still really humid. I’m not going to complain because I’ll take 65% humidity over 97% any day.
More posture clinic today., I got to perform my standing bow pulling pose in front of Lynn, one of the senior teachers. She just gave me a thumbs up and told me to keep doing what I am doing, it’s working. Our group moved onto balancing stick (last posture in the balancing series), groups are moving so quickly now. It is so awesome to see people grow and start to find their learning method. People who were struggling to get the first couple sentences out before or totally blanking when they go up there are busting out the dialogue now. My group is awesome too; we are all so supportive of each other. We were with a group earlier in the week, and you could feel the tension in that room between them. It felt like there was some competition amongst them, and they were trying to impress us and each other, and they never clapped for each other either. Some of them got called out on it by the leads but they stood there with their arms crossed with the wall up, not taking any of it.
This evening’s class was taught by Marlyn who teaches at head quarters. She took the first ever teacher training in 1986 before the dialogue was even created. She was a teacher before they had teacher training. Bikram and Rajashree were convinced to have a teacher training, so the people who were already teaching the yoga had to go to it. They had three Bikram classes a day, for three months, and they all lived, slept, ate and stayed at Bikrams studio the entire time, lol, could you imagine!? I think there was only eight maybe ten of them at the time.
I really really liked her class and actually worked the hardest I have ever worked this week, maybe I was just making up for this mornings class. They say your postures are going to suffer while you are here but I felt really strong, like I was going deeper into postures this evening. I had great energy around me to, my strong girl Hillary whose knee is swollen and throbbing pushed through it today. People were still lying down today, it’s almost like there is no air at the front of the room now. It felt like they have turned off the fresh air intake fans on the roof. The teacher asked the staff to open the doors at the back of the room to let more air in so people could get off their backs.
After supper we had lecture. We were told that the Mexican president is going to be at the hotel tomorrow so to be on our best behaviour. We were told to carry around our special Bikram key cards; it’s basically a get out of jail free card.
The lecture started out by us watching the DVD’s with all the shows Bikram has been on, a bunch of the late night shows, including Johnny Carson. We saw the video of him being run over by a motorcycle while he is lying on a bed of nails. It is so neat to see those shows and see that he has never changed like on the late night show Bikram stripped down to his speedo to teach the yoga. He also made Johnny Carson take his shirt off so he could try some of the postures, I was laughing my head off, some things never change.
Bikram lectured about food, age, sleep and told some more stories. There is one cute little Chinese lady in our training that Bikram calls ‘mama’. He was talking about how there are 60 year olds and 20 year olds at the training. Then ‘mama’ said to him in mandarin that she is not 60 she is 59, Bikram started laughing so hard he nearly fell off his chair, it was so funny. He continued talking about food and told us he ate tacos today and felt sick and needed coke to make him feel better. He said he can live off of half a sandwich in three days. Mama told him that if we had more time to sleep we wouldn’t eat so much so we could eat half a sandwich like him. He thought that was so funny and asked us if we were ready to watch more movies with him until 6am. Everyone screamed noooooooooo, he thought that was even funnier that we answered him back. He asked Mama if she would feel better with sleep and she said oh yes, he laughed and said “good night everybody”. We got to bed around 12:30.

Mind over the matter

2008-10-08T10:57:00.004-05:00

This mornings class was taught by the Dallas, Texas studio owner, I don’t remember his name. That is bad because I had him for posture clinic in the afternoon too. This mornings class felt a bit cooler but more humid. It might have felt cooler because I was sweating so much more, I am feeling a little more hydrated in the mornings. I have been waking up at 6:30 in the morning to go to the bathroom. So I go and then before I lie back down I chug half a liter of water, seems to be working. It might be working almost too well because I had to go to the bathroom soooooo bad during the AM class I couldn’t think about anything else, maybe that’s why it was such a good class. Before class the instructor talked to us and assured us that they are working to get the room fixed. They are trying to bring more fresh air into the room so it is efficient enough for 400 people. He also assured us that Bikram storming out of class was not part of the “script”. In all the years teachers have been coming to training they have never seen Bikram leave in the middle of a class, they were as shocked and scared as us about the lecture last night. He also asked us to dedicate our class to Bikram, so with that said we all worked together and rocked it out.
The teacher also told us that last night people were so determined to stay in the room when Bikram was on his rant that they did things they normally wouldn’t do. One person actually peed on their mat because they didn’t want to leave. Another person went to the back of the room to puke and when he realized the buckets were outside, he actually swallowed the puke that was in his hand. I was so grossed out when I heard that but it goes to show the measures we go to.
Now that anatomy is finished we have posture clinic all afternoon. My group and the one we were with today started on the next posture. Some groups who have a couple people with English as their second language are going a little slower, none the less we are clipping along at a fairly rapid pace.
Evening class was taught by Bikram again. Before class he said that the heat guy came to fix the problem, Bikram was told that the humidity was pumping in at 97%. “No wonder you lie there like dead meat”, he said before starting class. Today they had a couple fans in the room blowing fresh air and they still propped the doors open in the middle of the standing series. When we were leaving the room, the heat guy had a gang of about ten workers ready to get in the room and on the roof once we vacated. Bikram told us he was much more impressed with us today, and it showed, we did a 92 minute class.
Before class a guy that is actually in my posture clinic group came up to me and said he had to tell me something. He said, “I want you to know three things, one you are smart, two you are beautiful and three you have are strong”. I said thank you with this look on my face that was like, ‘what are you smoking?’ He said he was serious, he’s not hitting on me or trying to make me feel uncomfortable. It came to him twice since Monday he has heard someone mention me and they are always smiling and saying good things. He finished with “don’t settle for anything less than you want, you don’t deserve it.” I told him to walk away before my eyes started to water. So it was kind of neat to be singled out like that, and I don’t think he says it to everyone, and its not like he said it in an uncomfortable way, lol, it was totally sincere.
Bikram lectured tonight until midnight. He could tell everyone was tired and a lot of people were falling asleep. He was very entertaining tonight telling stories to do with life and comparing men to women. He even serenaded us with some singing while we went on a five minute bathroom break.

The picture is me, Eleni and my strong little Group 13er Jennifer from New York.

Class is over, I'm not finishing class

2008-10-07T11:09:00.003-05:00

This mornings class was taught by Mike from Chicago. The microphone kept going out so Mike had to teach off and on with out the microphone. I was at the front today but it seemed he projects well. I didn’t find him that motivating but it seemed to be a good class but I had my strong little smiling Jennifer beside me again so that always helps. She is feeling better so we just fed off each other and it was a great class. After class I jumped into the pool with the waterfall. I stood under the waterfall for a good five minutes and received a hard free massage.
After lunch we had our anatomy test. Before the anatomy test we got introduced to more visiting teachers. We got to meet Jenn Steff, who has become famous to all up and coming trainees for her blog she wrote while at Spring Training here. She was a god send for a lot of students preparing to come to training this fall. I actually printed off her packing list she had posted and went through it to get an idea of what to bring with me. Totally helpful.
So the anatomy test started out with total disorganization. They handed out the tests then realized they didn’t have enough so we had to hand them back in. Diane entertained us with answering posture questions while they went and photocopied some more. It was a ten minute delay then we did our last and final anatomy test, YAAAY!
After the test we were back into our anatomy groups. I preformed both eagle and standing head to knee. For eagle, I had no corrections, ‘just keep doing what you are doing, its working, and you are rocking the dialogue”. I had not practiced standing head to knee yet with bodies. Damien and I semi did it last night but only the one time so I wasn’t feeling to confident, but I did it anyways. They told me I had great speed in that posture and Lyndsey asked if I liked this posture in class. I told her the truth which is…I love is at home, but I am not loving it here. I still do it but I am not loving it like I used to. She said that she could tell in voice at what parts I was enjoying because it came out in my disconnect with the students in one or two sentences. She said it will get better because things are changing and shifting all the time here so its going to happen.
Evening class was taught by Bikram. Before it started I spotted Jenn Steff on her mat beside her training buddy Todd. I went over and introduced myself to them and we started talking about training and exchanging stories. I was bugging Todd because he had brought back his big orange water jug to use. Jenn has down graded to a smaller red one, oh the memories they have with those water jugs, lol. Todd has lost 45 pounds since starting training in the spring, I guess that gave him the right to practice with his shirt on today.
Bikram’s boil has popped and now he is back with a vengeance. The class started out with some jokes, smiles and a gun (muscle) show. Throughout class he was telling us how lazy we were, how everyone had excuses for not doing postures, which equals lazy people in life. The class was brought to an abrupt stop after half tortoise (5th last posture). Bikram told us that we were pissing him off and wasting his time, and that none of us are capable of being teachers. He then threw down his microphone head set and stormed out of class, telling us he wasn't finishing class.
There were major break downs going on after he walked out. There were five people around me just sobbing on their mats. People stopped to comfort them but the staff came in and told them to leave them by themselves. Walking out of the building and looking around, people didn’t know whether it was appropriate to smile and laugh or not. Personally I’m glad it happened and I'm surprised it took until week four. At the pool, some people were talking about how it was nice to be let out early, it was already a 110 minute class and there was still four postures to go. Are you kidding me, I feel jipped I never got to do all the postures. Bikram gave up on us in that room exactly how people give up on themselves in life. The hardest thing to do sometimes is to look at yourself in the mirror. My mind gives me a thousand reasons to say no and quit, but my heart won’t let me stop.
I remember when I was on the last day of my challenge, day 101 and Ricky was teaching. Before class I made a comment that I was going to do the first breathing exercise and then lie down the rest of class. I didn’t have it in me to do that and he called me on it half way through class, he knew I was too stubborn to just sit there. I don’t know why this story came to my finger tips but it made me think about all the times I have wanted to just sit out at posture at this training, but didn’t. Even when I had the option to, and my mind was made up I couldn’t stop. I know Bikram sees the potential in us and I think this is his way of giving us a kick in the ass. I can’t wait to see what he has in store for us tonight at lecture.
Back from evening lecture……
When we were in the lecture hall waiting for Bikram the staff told us to be absolutely quiet and still while we wait for Bikram. Bikram arrived with a smile on his face and his hair still in a little bun above his head. He said he had a nice filling dinner of cauliflower and potatoes and was so angry he forgot to take his hair bun down from class. He told us why he got so mad in class, 65% of the class was lying doing nothing on their mats by triangle (half way point of class). After class he went upstairs and did his own yoga by thinking and talking the other teachers about this. He started to think and realize that something wasn’t right and it wasn’t just the students.

He then proceeded to tell us that he called the guy who did the heating system for the room and told him “to get his Mexican ass on the plane and get down to the torture chamber NOW”. So needless to say the guy was on the plane tonight on his way to the Fairmont to look at the room. Bikram went on to tell us that never in all the teacher trainings has he seen so many dead bodies on the ground in week 4, hence pissing him off. He realized that there wasn’t enough fresh air coming into the room, therefore we were all breathing in carbon dioxide the entire time in the room. The last couple days the only way they have been getting fresh air into the room is by opening the two back doors near the end of class. He also went on to say that is one of most extreme conditions in terms of humidity that they have ever had at teacher training, and they can’t control it in the room. He still blamed us though, saying we were killing each other by working so hard and giving each other the carbon dioxide to breathe, it’s a lose lose situation, lol.
After he explained that to us, Bikram lectured again for a couple hours about karma yoga. He told us some stories too, the most interesting one being the time he met Elvis Presley two weeks before he died. I was very intrigued by this story, the guy has met everybody. When he finished lecturing we got to watch three 45 minute movies to do with Yogananda. We are only on episode three so maybe by episode 80 we will start to understand exactly what those sub titles are talking about. Bed time was 2am tonight, I’m sure I will craving the yoga in the AM after only five hours of sleep.

65 classes to go

2008-10-06T10:47:00.005-05:00

In the morning Eleni and I had a lunch date with Damian. Eleni told him to call when he gets up to eat in the morning. His room mate usually wakes up every morning at 6am so we threatened him with his life if he dared to call that early. We received the wake up call around 11, we were both still out cold but managed to pull our selves together and make it down before the buffet closed. After lunch, the three of us hopped on the shuttle and got dropped off at Wal-Mart. From Wal-Mart we walked to Costco, which was about a seven minute walk. There I found some more tortellini and ravioli, so I am set for the week. I had half the staff working there looking for some alfredo sauce for me. I asked a couple people and they spoke little English. When I finally found someone who kind of understood what I was looking for the hunt was on. I was following him all through the aisles looking for it as Eleni and Damian followed behind me with their big Costco carts. It was quite the scene, as he stopped to ask 17 different people in Spanish if they knew. He showed me ranch dressing, ceasar dressing, tomato sauce, some white cheese sauce, clam chowder, basically anything with white sauce as I shook my head no every time. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall watching that unfold. In the end, we didn’t end up finding any, so I am going to have to suffer until next weekend. Don’t worry I bought some tomato sauce and veggies to make a good pasta dinner this week. I also loaded up on animal crackers, milk, cereal, almonds, apple juice, and chocolate covered raisins.
So the trip to Costco was about the most entertainment I have had all weekend. I am not going to complain though, cause it seems boring is working for me. After we got back from Costco I had a massage appointment booked. Too put it into words, that place is a little piece of heaven. They have fluffy robes to warm you up when you first get undressed. As you walk through to the waiting area they have a steam room, sauna, and hot tub to help you unwind before or after you go in. The waiting area has these big comfy seats by a water fall where you can sit and have tea, water, juice, muffins and cookies while you wait.
The massage was awesome to say the least, duh. She stretched, cracked, and massaged me. For the last couple months my right hip has been out. My massage therapist at home told me I was out of alignment and was surprised I didn’t have chronic head aches. The massage lady here stretched out my hip and cracked it a little. At one point my hip popped and it kind of just felt like someone pinched me, but I got an instant headache. I just thought, ‘oh fuck’. The lady just said, “don’t worry, don’t worry, I make you straight”. I was scared for about 1 minute until she moved my leg around again than massaged around it and my headache was gone. She is lucky because I would have made up Spanish swear words to say to her. No, I was really just hoping she knew what she was doing.
After my massage, they gave me a little glass of juice they call jamaca juice, it tasted like raspberry iced tea. I then chilled in the waiting area, had a cookie, and took advantage of the sauna for about six or seven minutes. Then I proceeded to the shower to wash off. They have shower attendants there that give you a shower cap, razor, scrub pad, and towels. The showers are outfitted with shampoo, conditioner, exfoliating body scrub, and the yummiest smelling body wash. Each shower has its own little mini changing room with these cool little frosted glass doors. Oh my, I just talked about showers for four sentences, can you tell I have been cooped up for three weeks? The littlest things bring a smile to my face right now. When I stepped into the elevator to leave the spa I just thought, “Ah, I want to go back to heaven.” I know, it sounds like I have never been to a spa before, I have, but this one was over the top. You just walk through those front doors and your shoulders untense. I can not wait to spend the afternoon there with Auntie Shirley when she comes.
When I was in the waiting area at the spa, I started talking to a couple that are here from Florida (for the training). We were talking about teachers visiting and they said they had a teacher here this week. Their teacher told them that the temperature in the room has been between 115 and 120 degrees Fahrenheit since we arrived. That’s between 46 to 49 degrees Celsius to us Canadians. The humidity has been at an average of 74%. At home, I am not sure exactly what our studio is kept at but the recommended temperature for a Bikram studio is 40º Celsius (105ºF) with 40% humidity. Eleni got mad when I told her that, I guess that’s why they don’t tell students what the temperature is in the room. I told her to look on the bright side, when we get home the room will feel like it is air conditioned, lol. Wishful thinking but it made her smile at least.
When I got back I called and talked to Grandma. It is her birthday this weekend and the family threw her a birthday celebration. She sounded pretty excited when I talked her, to see all her friends and people she had not seen for awhile. I tried to talk to Grandpa too but he gave the phone to dad because he couldn’t hear anything. I asked dad what was going on and he said Grandpa was holding the blackberry like a microphone; it wasn’t even on his ear. See, I told you he makes me laugh, so cute.
Eleni and I have started to watch ‘the bachelor rome’ on Sunday nights to really relax and have a good laugh. Damian ruined our fun by calling to see if we wanted to go over anatomy, I threw out an s–bomb. I TOTALLY forgot about the test tomorrow, so the evening was spent reviewing standing head to knee pose and anatomy. After this exam, anatomy will be finished then we will be having posture clinics all afternoon from 12:30 to 4pm. That means we are going to start rolling through these postures this week.
Time for bed, onto week 4. Did I mention we are 1/3 way done?

Some reflection

2008-10-05T10:51:00.005-05:00

Saturday started off with a class at 8am with Diane. She didn’t have to yell at anyone, everyone worked together, you could tell it was Saturday. After class I went to the pool for about half an hour to soak and veg, it felt nice. Eleni wasn’t feeling well so she went straight to bed until she had to leave for her massage. This has been a continuation all week, hopefully a little rest this weekend will help.
As I was walking to lunch a man stopped me and asked me if I spoke English. When he realized I did he started asking questions about all the people walking around with yoga mats. He is a doctor from Montreal and is here for a conference until tomorrow. He said he has heard of this type of yoga before but doesn’t know much about it. He was very excited to know that we learn anatomy and take first aid and everything while we are here. He told me about his body problems and how he hurt himself, it was quite funny, he just opened right up. It was a little introduction into the types of things I will have to talk about once I am teacher. I gave him the briefest run down I could and by the end he was convinced to check if there is studio near him back home.
I went to lunch today by myself and ended up being seated with two other singles taking the training. I’ve of course seen them around but I had never met them before. English was the second language for both of them but we were still able to hold up a great conversation about the training. One of them was talking about how he can’t believe that this training is so intense and doesn’t understand what the point of keeping us awake until all hours of the night is. He got really worked up when he started talking about the silly Bollywood movies and what the point of them was. I asked them both if they were planning to teach full time when they got home. One said they didn’t know because there are lots of teachers at their studio so she doesn’t know if she will get any classes. The other one said, 'I don’t know yet, but first hopefully I finish this training then I will teach'. We started talking about why he thinks he might not finish training. He started comparing the training to a marathon. His biggest argument was he said that people can train months or years for a marathon then the day arrives and they get sick or something and they can’t finish. They have wasted all that time preparing and now they are a failure because they can’t finish. He told me I should have a more realistic view that something could come up that would cause me not to graduate. He has been sick the entire time, he has never felt like this, getting sick wasn’t supposed to happen and why is there a crazy 80 year old that talks about non sense teaching us anatomy. He even started talking about how Bikram should run the training. There is always someone who thinks they can do it better. It evolved to talking about our expectations before coming and now being here. In the end I just ended up telling him that I understand where he is coming from but I just don’t agree with what he is saying. I think all his misinterpreted expectations and not feeling well have just built up into frustration.
I guess I am really lucky because I received a ton of advice from teachers at my studio on what to expect, how to prepare (not that you really can), dialogue, getting sick, and taking care of myself in preparation for training. I was told on a couple of occasions that I was over prepared, puh. Looking at my packing pile I second guessed myself too. Before I came I didn’t need just training advice though, I had over whelming support from friends and especially my family. Even some of moms friends have logged onto my blog wondering how I doing and I am sure intrigued by the whole process as well. I guess all in all I didn’t come here blind, I knew it wasn’t going to be a walk in the park. It’s going to be the toughest, but best thing I do in my life. I came here expecting that I am going to get sick, have a break down, have a break through, be tired, stressed, overwhelmed, feel angry and get little sleep. I might even feel them all at the same time, lol.
See what happens when I get a little spare time on the weekends. Eleni is sitting on her bed watching tv shows on her laptop and I am reflecting, I think. This must be a reflection of some sort, because I started talking about my day and my enlightening lunch, and I ended up writing for half an hour, lol.
SO ANYWAYS… after lunch I lied down for half an hour than I had first aid/cpr. I really enjoyed the first aid class actually. A couple of the teachers and the nurse (who is also a Bikram teacher) talked about different situations and events that can arise at a yoga studio. I liked hearing the different stories and experiences and how they were dealt with, always good stuff to know. After the first aid class we had our anatomy review, which was fast, I liked that even more, lol.
Eleni and I ordered room service again and then Damian came up and we worked on memorizing standing head to knee. We are going to try and make a run to Costco tomorrow and see what they have there.

The picture is of Me, ELeni and Damian representing E-town outside of the lecture hall

No bullshit

2008-10-04T11:07:00.003-05:00

This morning’s class was taught by Ed, from Victoria. Him and his wife, Devi own a studio there. His wife will be coming week 7 because they have a three year old, so travelling together is very difficult. I really enjoyed his class, and that seemed to be the concensus from everyone I talked to. He is a very animated teacher, he stands on the podium the entire time, uses his hands, legs, body to get us in and out of postures, it was awesome. It was a ninety minute class and I felt great after. Our group was at the back of the room today (we rotate everyday now according our posture clinic group). We were the line right in front of the teachers and it is funny to see some of the senior teachers sitting out on some postures. Some people get really mad at the fact that the teachers give us shit for not staying in the room but then they don’t even do anything. I just laugh and think, “whats your problem, can’t handle it?” lol. Is it wrong to think like that? Ed told us stories about himself between postures but still kept the flow of the class going.
Of course after class was lunch than anatomy, than more posture clinic. Today was our last anatomyclass with Dr. T, with our next and last anatomy test on Monday. Dr. T told us that since we have done both these tests without our anatomy books, our passing grade only needs to be 65, instead of 75. That means I only have to get 27 correct on the next test.
After posture clinic, evening class was with Lori from Memphis. She owns a studio there, and I think she graduated five years ago. Bikram gave her the nickname shot gun at her training, and it must have stuck, class was 85 minutes. It was by far my best class all week. I think it makes a difference when you can get in and get out. It was exactly like a class at home, jokes in between some postures, smooth flow to the class, made us listen but not a nazi. She also teaches her class VERBATIUM. As close as the teachers try to stick to the dialogue here, no one has taught it word for word yet. Enough said. She leaves Sunday so that is kind of disappointing, I which we could have her one more time.
We had more posture clinic tonight, finishing off awkward and moving onto eagle. We had Diane and Dominique today as our leads. They are a great pair and so funny when they get going. I remember the first time I saw and heard Diane I thought, ‘oh this is going to be one tough teacher, she seems like a bitch’. I tried to put that aside during the first class she taught us. She has taught a number of times since then and I have grown to really like her. She teaches a very disciplined class, with no bull shut. She calls you on it if and when she catches you trying to pull one over on her, and is always smiling when she does it, I love it. She is the one staff member that hangs out at the back of the class after each and every class to help and answer any questions people have with postures. When I am finished class I always see her with a line up people just waiting to ask her a posture question. Today in posture clinic she was giving advice to the demonstrators after the dialogue was finished about the posture they just preformed. She answered all questions we had about the first two postures we had done before moving onto eagle. She is the first staff to take the time to do that with us. I love just listening to what she has to say because she knows exactly how to say it to each individual so they aren’t just hearing I, but they are actually listening to her and using it.

The picture is me and Noel, my power partner

Sniffling my way through Thursday

2008-10-03T11:02:00.007-05:00

Thursday Thursday Thursday! Morning class was with Diane; great energy, great people, great humidity, great class. It hasn’t rained here fpr four or five days so the humidity in the room has been a little more tolerable for people, its only at 72% now. People are still dehydrating though, one girl had to be carried out and wheeled to the doctor today. They told us after that she was more worried about memorizing her dialogue that she didn't drink as much water as usual. Can you tell the dialogue heat is on in full force?!
Last night we had posture clinic until 11 then got let go to bed. Eleni and I stayed up and talked until about midnight. Weird eh, we just weren’t tired and haven’t had much time to catch up this week.
My nose is a little less stuffed but still had to fall asleep sitting up so I could breathe through my nose. During the night my congestion moved to my throat. I woke myself up a couple times coughing my lungs out. Morning class seemed to clean everything out, throat and nose, it was a beautiful sight, those Kleenexes, lol, still reading!?!
After class, we had lunch, still loving the chocolate milk. After lunch we had more anatomy, then more posture clinic. Because I already performed awkward and its pretty much ingrained into my head now, I have been helping the people who haven’t quite got it down yet. Some people got the dialogue the day they arrived so I was quite lucky to have the support I did in getting started with it. Today in posture clinic the guys that were leading the group got one girl to perform the posture in her native language, Hungarian. It was so cool to hear her rip right through start to finish in a foreign language.
We are at the point where people are no longer volunteering to go up for their postures because they don't feel ready. The leads we had today didn't want to push to hard, we only had five or six minutes left before getting let go to prepare for class by the time this happened. They took that opportunity to talk to us about actually teaching a class and the different circimstances with students and such. It was good to get the different feedback.
Evening class was with Jim, he is leaving tomorrow for the next couple weeks. He will be back in week nine for Graduation. I talked to him after class and he said he can't wait to see how we have grown in the next four weeks. He has been back to every graduation since he graduated in the 90's. He loves to see everyones happy faces, glowing skin, and parents here looking so proud, he looked pretty excited even talking about it.
Eleni and I found these cute little mini cans of coke on the weekend at Mega. I have not had a can of coke in like four years, but all bets are off when you come to training. I have had a little mini coke every night for supper. I must be doing something right cause things are still working for me.
For supper I made tortellini, which by the way I screamed in the store when I found them. They are perfect little Melissa sized tortellini packages, enough for two servings, looooove it. My awesome wonderful caring mother bought me a little mini rice cooker before I left to bring with me. She even helped me pack my suitcase so I could fit that and the awesome posture clinic chair in my suitcase, along with my ten pounds of snack bars. Thought I would mention that in case you are wondering how I am managing to make these hot yummy meals at night. It was the best idea. I went on the internet before I left and looked up recipes and foods you can make in a rice cooker. Hence the pastas I have been making, we don’t want an Italian girl to go through pasta withdrawal while she’s here, the thought makes me cringe. Chicken tortellini with alfredo sauce and fresh grated parmesan cheese and a coke, yum, I know you probably all want to come over for supper now…or maybe not.
After supper we had lecture with Bikram. Before Bikram started they introduced seven or eight teachers who are here visiting for the next week. Half of them didn’t even want to be teachers when they decided to come to training, but by half way through they had changed their minds. It is cool to hear their stories abut how they got started or the panic of their first class. Bikram lectured until 12, the poor guy had to sit on a little donut the whole time cause his boil was still hurting him. He leaves Friday morning for Philly and is back Sunday. He is hoping his butt is better by then so he will be able to teach a class.

The picture is of our home for two months, our hotel room

Awkward anyone

2008-10-02T11:04:00.004-05:00

Wednesday morning class was with Diane again, she said the energy was so strong in there today. We were all working together as a group thus creating the most incredible energy. Monday when she taught we kept getting shit for not moving together and doing things before she told us to. She said it’s a good sign we had a good class because she only swore once, lol. I had the best class I had all week. Not that the others have been tough drag outs but this one just happened, and I love when it does that. It was one of those classes when you are in final savasana (resting) and it feels like you just did half moon (first posture), it feels that quick.
At lunch Eleni and I got seated with Jim and Bikrams childhood friend Sam. We just talked about the yoga and different peoples reactions to everything and the experience. Oh and Zia, I told Jim about your 30 day challenge and your incredible inches lost, (now everyone else knows too, he he), his mouth dropped and he can’t wait to meet you. I asked him if you would be allowed to sit in on some of Bikrams lectures and he didn’t think it would be problem. He is going to check with Bikram just to make sure its cool with him, YAY!
After lunch was more anatomy than posture clinics, finished off the back bending and moved onto awkward.
Class at 5 was with Jim, it was supposed to be with Bikram. Apparently Bikram’s butt is still sore and he can’t sit on it so he couldn’t teach the class or lecture tonight. After supper we had more posture clinic, some groups still had to finish off back bending with hands to feet. My group (#13) started awkward tonight, it has three parts and we had the choice to do only the first one, or all three. A lot of the keeners went up and did their postures first than people who kinda knew it started doing only first set so they would have more time to go over the other two parts. When they ran out of volunteers they started to pick people to go. I was sitting there so casual and Lyndsey remembered me from back bending so she told me to go. I went and did all three parts, when I was finished Wendy who was the other lead said that I fooled her. I gave the impression that I didn’t know it when I was sitting there not volunteering, she was not only expecting just first set, but I didn’t miss a word on all three. It had been over two months since I said that posture in front of bodies that is why I hestitated a bit about getting up there.
Not much happened today so not to much to write about. I signed up for the first aid/cpr course the nurse is going to teach next weekend and I also booked a massage for Saturday.

The picture is the door to our room with our room number

Energy fence

2008-10-01T11:00:00.006-05:00

So last night I woke up every hour because my damn nose was stuffed up. I can tell my body is fighting something because it feels so weak today, using my energy to try and fight whatever is trying to take over. Maybe I am just bringing stuff up and this is my bodies way of dealing with it. I went through the same thing during my hundred day challenge, it happened about day 30, sick, stiff and sore. This is about the same feeling. This morning I practiced beside a little tiny girl who is in my posture clinic group. To put it into perspective she is exactly the same size as little Jean at home. They actually are very similar too, always smiling and very very strong practices. My friend has a rough weekend after having to do a double for forgetting to sign in. It hit her like a ton of bricks and she went to sleep Saturday after class around 1 and didn’t wake up untilv Monday morning for class. She powered through her class, taking it easy and pacing herself, she also had not eaten since Saturday.
This morning we decided to practice beside each other. This girl has such strong energy it doesn’t matter how she is feeling. At triangle she took a knee, so I asked her if she was okay. She shook her head yes with a smile, took a breath and got up, and continued through class doing every single posture with me. After class she gave me a huge hug and said “thank you for getting me through that class”. I told her it wasn’t me, she was the controlling her own body. She said when I asked her if she was okay that the smile on my face told her that I believed in her, therefore making up her mind to finish the standing series with me, see, strong girl. She told me that she had it in her head that she couldn’t do it, and the hardest thing to do is over come that. I think its pretty amazing when a hand reaches down, and pulls you up because they believe in you more than you do in your self at that moment. That’s what yoga is about, over coming that, I LOVE IT!
You know what else I love? The look in someone’s eye when they accomplish something beyond what they thought was possible. Okay kind of along the same lines. I forgot to mention this little story about my friend Lucille yesterday. I ran into her after the evening class last night and she was glowing. You know that look pregnant woman get, glowing, that’s the look she had. Her blue eyes were as bright as the ocean water, her smile was from ear to ear, and she her feet were not touching the ground when she walked. Got the picture? I stopped her and asked, “Lucille what’s up?” And she was vibrating with so much pride she barley got out, “I had the best class of my life, I did every single posture, I haven’t done that since day one, I love Jim’s class, I loved that class, I did it!” I gave her a big high five, I was so damn proud of her, she kicked the shit out of that class.
Back to today, after class was lunch than anatomy, than more posture clinic. We got through some more back bending and hands to feet. It’s my turn just to listen now, since I did it last night.
So now I can get to the reason for my blog title, I was going to name it the cemetary. This evenings class was the lowest energy class I have ever been to yet. By standing bow pulling pose, (5th posture) there were 12 people on the ground around me. Some weren’t even on their mats, they had run out of the room for various reason. The people on their mats were either sleeping, chewing ice, drinking water, playing with their towel, etc. By the time we got to triangle, four postures later, there were 16 people on the ground. Not one person around my circumference was still standing except for one girl two rows ahead of me, we were the lone rangers. When we came out of triangle I decided to put up an invisible energy fence around me. You are going to think I am crazy but it worked, I tuned everyone else out and just listened to the teacher, my body his mind. My energy fence didn’t allow anyone to take my energy, I kept it all to my self. Selfish? So be it, at that point I didn’t care. I was having a hard time breathing in the standing series though, it was like I just couldn't catch my breath. It took alot of energy just to look up into the mirror, but I got through it.
Once we got to the floor I couldn’t decided whether to be mad or feel deserted and alone. Then I turned it around, smiled and thought, why am I thinking about this, I have my energy fence up. Explaining this sounds like I have gone completely nuts, but seriously, it got me through. Don’t ask me where it came from, the imagination is a wonderful thing. I was so in tuned with my energy fence and focusing on the teacher I didn’t drink water for the rest of the class. People were coming in and out of poses on the floor but for the most part I had the mirror to myself.
After class I got in the shower to wash down. As I was about to get out my body just started shivering. I turned the water on as hot as it could go, so hot my skin was turning red, nearly scolding myself while standing there shivering. I just stood there letting the hot water hit my body like a warm blanket. I finally warmed up and got out, but just a little insight to what goes on with the body. Jim talked about it yesterday how our bodies will start shaking and shivering for no reason as we work through things.
After supper we had lecture. Jim started, talking about how Bikram came to be where he right now and how this yoga came here. Everything he told us I had read in Bikrams book, but I never get bored of hearing it. After about an hour of Jim talking, Bikram came in and started talking about how he wasn’t lecturing because his butt hurt, he had two huge boils on his right cheek. He couldn’t even sit on both butt cheeks because one had popped. He had been threatening us for a week that he was going to show them to us. His threat turned into reality tonight with the Bikram butt show. He pulled down his pants (don’t worry he had his 'panties' on), hiked up the back of them and proceeded to show us his boils. After he enlightened us with that he proceeded to show us the proper way to tighten your butt muscles. He disappeared as fast as he had appeared in a matter of 20 minutes, bringing life back to everyone in the room. He didn’t want to stay because his butt hurt to much to sit there. It was 11:15 and Jim started to take questions from us. It took two questions and 15 minutes each of explanations for us to realize not to ask him a simple question. So the questions stopped and we got let go at 11:45 for bed, I have a feeling we will have to watch a movie tomorrow night.

Posture clinic groups begin

2008-09-30T11:10:00.004-05:00

So Monday started off pretty, well, I don’t know the word to describe it, exhausting already. I tried to go to bed early last night (Sunday) around 9 but I had a soar throat which got progressively worse throughout the day. I couldn’t even swallow without clenching my teeth because it hurt so much. I also had a little ear ache, I am used to getting these, as I usually get them when the seasons change. This one is not nearly as bad as the ones I get a home but still, its an ear ache, and I didn’t bring anything to cure it. Every time I got up to go to the bathroom last night I gargled my throat with salt and water, it actually helps a little. By 11, I had still not fallen asleep so I decided to break open the pack of Benelyn all in one, that mom had insisted I bring…big hug. I took one of those and was out until the alarm went off this morning. My throat still hurt a little but I didn’t need to clench my teeth when I swallowed anymore. My ear ache is still lingering, I think its deciding whether or not to stick around. There are three or four people here that have gotten ear infections already, whether from the pool, weather, or sweat. They all had to buy ear drops in order to treat it, so cross your fingers for me in hopes that I don’t have to resort to that.
Today is the first official day of our posture clinic groups. That means that we now have assigned lines in the room in which we have to practice on. I went in the very back row, I got there a little later than usual so I had to squeeze in. It worked out great though because I was between two people who had great energy. While everyone else in our row and in front of us went down we fed off of each other and finished with high fives. During the class the fans had gone off in the room, it was very stuffy and hard to breathe. We were told we had the 78% humidity pumping into the room with no circulation, talk about fun. Remember when the fans weren’t working at our studio for a while, picture that when the room is completely full, like the evening classes, like I said, FUN! Oh, class was taught by Diane from Boston. I felt great after class as I hoped I would, I still couldn’t believe it was only Monday though.
After lunch we had our anatomy test, don’t know how I did, we should find out the marks tomorrow. After the test we had more anatomy, three chapters for our test next Monday, that’s it. We still did not receive our books, and Bikram was mad about that so he had the staff photocopy the pages we needed for the next exam.
After Anatomy the staff went over and talked about how the posture clinics are going to work, and where each room was located. After they cleared all that up there was two more people to present their half moon dialogue. Bikram wasn’t there this afternoon but Diane and Jim took the pleasure of critiquing them. They also talked about ways to help us memorize the dialogue and such. I think most of us figured that out before we got here, others though are still figuring it out.
We got let out right before 4 so I laid down for twenty minutes and I was out. Class was taught by Bikram and again was good. I was between Michelle and Jonathon and we just did our thing. The fans went off again in class so they opened the doors for a posture to give us some air but it was still really stuffy. I felt good again after class but did not have the energy to make supper, so I ordered pizza from downstairs. For a 20 inch pizza and a coke it was $20, including tip, and I even have left overs. It will have to eaten cold but still, good food, good deal. I don’t even remember the last time I had a coke, can you imagine how good it tasted, mmmmm.
At 9oclock we started our first day of posture clinic with our groups. I only knew one other person before that was in my group. I brought along my super comfortable chair that Auntie Shirley lent me. I know it saved her butt a couple times at those folk festivals she attends, lol. It truly is going to save my butt and back over the next six or seven weeks. Lyndsay who graduated in Spring 06 was our lead. I went up and did my back bending and hands to feet pose, she checked off my name and saw that I was from Edmonton. She is opening a studio in Calgary in the next year and mentioned that to me before I started. I told her if I was ever in Calgary I would come teach for her and she said, “well I will decide on your performance”, to which everyone groaned, lol. So I did it, loud, proud and in charge, I owned that stage, I got stumped on one line but I repeated the previous line again, took a deep breath and kept on trucking. When I finished Lyndsay said, “I’d hire you, for sure”. One full posture down, 25 more to go, we continue tomorrow.
So now I am going to take this opportunity to give a shout out to my Grandma. Oh and Grandma, shout out means, “Heeeeeeeeeey Grandma”, lol, (lol…that means laugh out loud). Grandma isn’t too computer literate but Mom told me that when she was visiting a family friend (Hi Jud-i), she sat down at the computer and read my blog. I am sure Grandma doesn’t know what a blog is and I can just picture her trying to explain it to Grandpa, oh dear. I seriously laughed out loud when Mom told me that Grandma sat down and read it, she is so cute. Some of my younger family members can’t even keep up with my day to day blogs and Grandma spent an afternoon trying to understand the darn thing. I know before I left she didn’t really understand why I was going away for so long and the whole process. Now that she reads this I am sure she thinks to herself, “I don’t understand why someone would do that to themselves”. Don’t worry Grandma I will come back stronger than ever. The only thing Grandpa said to me before I left was, “I hope they don’t like freckles in Mexico, then they won’t keep you”. Ha ha, oh he makes me laugh.
Well time for some sleep, its only Monday night and I feel exhausted right now because it is taking extra energy to fight whatever is trying to take over my body right now.

Sundays Blog- Now I am caught up

2008-09-29T11:17:00.003-05:00

There are a couple people who have been following this blog that don’t do or know anything about Bikram yoga and the whole process here. So I am going to do my best to better explain some the things I have been talking about for the last two weeks.
Bikram Yoga College- Every single Bikram class you go to, anywhere in the world, you will get the same twenty six postures and two breathing exercises, and the same dialogue. In order to be a Bikram certified instructor, you have to come to Bikrams yoga school of India, where I am right now. It is held twice a year for nine weeks. It use to be held in California but this year it is in Acapulco, and there is talk that it will be somewhere different next year. There is 750 hours of instruction through out the nine weeks, along with two hot classes a day.
Our schedule-
8-8:25- Morning class sign in
8:30am-10:30- Bikram class
10:30-12:00- Lunch break: the buffet is offered from 10-12 every day. The lunch buffet is included in our hotel fees we paid.
12:00-12:25- Posture clinic sign in
12:30-4:15- Posture clinic
4:30-4:55- Evening class sign in
5:00-7:00- Bikram class
7:00-8:30- Supper
8:30-8:55- Sign in
9:00 to whenever- Lecture

Posture clinic- Half moon is the first posture we do in a Bikram class. When someone comes here they have to perform the half moon dialogue on stage in front of Bikram and the 300 other students here. After you complete the dialogue, Bikram lets you know what he thinks about you and the way you delivered the dialogue. He may give you pointers on what you need to work on in terms of the dialogue while you are here. He is able to tell your personality just by how you perform the dialogue and the posture in the one minute it takes to say it. After you say the dialogue you stay on stage and perform the half moon posture while the next person comes and recites it for Bikram.
Half moon is the only posture we have to say in front of Bikram. After all the students has finished we are broken into posture clinic groups (that starts this week). There are 16 groups this year. We are responsible for memorizing the dialogue in order to present it. Each day there are two groups that get together and go over the dialogue with a senior teacher. Everyone has to say every single posture in front of the group and teacher while others do what you tell them. The senior teacher is there to critique us and help us grow with in our dialogue. Your group moves on when everyone has presented the current posture. Once we get going we could be doing three or four postures a week. Each posture has a different length. Some are one minute some are as short as ten seconds so it varies.

Dialogue- The dialogue is the words Bikram created to be said in every single class. We are responsible for learning the dialogue word for word. It was made to create a consistency with in the classes. Any Bikram student should be able to walk into any Bikram studio in the world and hear the Bikram dialogue. Every posture has a certain way to get in, perform, corrections and get out of the postures, and stays consistent if the dialogue is used.

Lectures- Lectures are presented by senior teachers or Bikram himself. They can talk about anything that is relavent to the yoga and life in general. Bikram does a lot of lectures too which can involve some personal stories about himself and of course in relation to the yoga in general. One of his favorite things to do is watch Bollywood films during his free time. He very much enjoys sharing that with us until the wee hours of the morning some days.

Senior Teachers- Senior teachers are those teachers who are certified Bikram instructors who have been teaching or own their own studio. They have been invited by Bikram personally to attend the training. They help with posture clinics, can teach a class, do lectures, and are in general just there for us if we need anything.

People: Bikram- the man who created these sequence of postures called Bikram yoga. When referring to Bikram it can mean the man himself, or Bikram as in the class its self.
Rajashree- Bikrams wife. She is also a certified medical practicioner in alternative medicine and hatha yoga, and certified Bikram teacher.
Emmy- She is the principle teacher here, and the most senior teacher here. She met Bikram over 35 years ago. It is said that she is well into her 80’s but that doesn’t stop her. She is the teacher of the advanced classes, which can only be preformed if you are a certified Bikram teacher.

I think that covers it, any other things you don’t understand let me know and I will do my best to clarify it for you non-Bikramites.
Today I did some dialogue review, hit up Mega, which is similar to a cleaner superstore in Canada. I also studied for the anatomy test tomorrow and did some blogging.

Saturdays Blog- Week 2 DONE

2008-09-29T11:15:00.003-05:00

Saturday, September 27

Saturdays are 8 o’clock classes, so we were done nice and early and off for the rest of the day. Can I just say that I kicked week two’s ass! LOL! I seriously had such a good week and did not have one bad class. I think it also helps that other people have found their groove as well so the energy level has definitely picked up. There were some classes where a couple people took a knee for some postures than pulled it together and came back, while others still lied down for a majority of the class. It is only week two so I am not going to get hung up on the fact that I haven’t had to sit down yet. People were already starting to have major break throughs this week. There were a couple people that collapsed to their mats in tears. We are told they are the lucky ones that are bringing it up early, let it out, deal with it and move on. This week was such a good week, its kind of frightening to think what next week will bring.
There has already been some major blow outs with room mates that I have heard about. There are some rooms where the people are just staying out of the each others way already. There are others who have nothing but good things to say about their room mates. Eleni and I have been doing really well so far as room mates. I am not the most social person in the morning before I have breakfast, kind of like others who need their coffee in the am. I am used to having my alone time in my car on my way to work in the morning before I have to interact with people, sing-ing to the radio. Eleni and I take the same amount of time to get ready in the mornings and we have the same routine so it is perfect….so far, lol. Even after the yoga classes works out good; I get back to the room about ten minutes after her because I take a swim in the salt water pool. By that time she is all showered and I am able to jump right in and get ready. Right after class is either lunch or supper, and our preparation time is pretty in sync so we end up eating together, which is nice.
Today after class we went for lunch downstairs to the buffet. Then it was straight to bed for a nap for this girl. After the nap I did some anatomy review before heading to walmart for some milk and apple juice, oh and McDonalds for supper. When we got back I pulled out the lap top and did some writing while I watched some ER on tv, it was the only English thing I could find to watch on tv.

Fridays Blog

2008-09-29T11:13:00.003-05:00

Friday, September 26, 2008

Okay since things got delayed because of the whole blog thing, all three entries from the weekend are going on today. Sorry lots of reading.

This morning we had class with Emmy again, she leaves tomorrow and will be back in a couple weeks. After class we had more anatomy with Dr T. We still did not receive our books and our test is on Monday so they are holding an extra optional review session for us tomorrow afternoon. Dr. T did anatomy until 2:30pm, then Emmy talked a little more about the body, energy systems, pain and injuries with us. We than had class at 5:30 with Jim. He taught an 89 minute class with great high energy and a motivational dialogue.
Then it was back to the lecture hall because Emmy was doing a mock posture clinic with us. She wanted to go over and help us before she leaves with any postures we are having trouble with. A lot of people went up to get help with various postures. The most asked about postures were triangle, standing head to knee, standing bow pulling and grip. She always tells us in class we have weak fingers and not to hold using the wrists, taking away strength. She also showed us the correct way to do a sit up. To be honest I didn’t really learn a whole lot from the evening. I sat with Eleni and Damien (all from the same studio) and we all had the same concensus. I guess in a round about way I am giving a shout out the teachers at BYE because they have obviously taught and mentored us so strongly that we have heard a lot of the corrections before at home. Mind you it is a lot funnier to hear Emmy say it, with her straight up way of talking to people. She is constantly telling us no to worry about how far we go into the posture just do it the right way, especially to avoid injury. It never hurts to watch, listen and learn how to deal with the different injuries as it will be a daily occurrence in the room.
Today they posted the list for people who have to do make up classes. There was about thirty people on the list and about ten of them have to do two. I talked to one guy that decided to sleep in on Wednesday and then do the two makeup classes this weekend, Saturday and Sunday at 11am.
We were let go at 10:30, the earliest all week. We finally had some down time and we used it very efficiently. Eleni and I found an English station on the t.v. and watched an episode of two and a half men, lol.
T, you are going to love this one, you are really going to think I am joining a cult, lol. Earlier this week we were told not to go into the ocean. With good reason though; because it is raining season there is a lot of run off in the ocean and it gets pushed towards shore. Therefore they don’t want us getting sick from anything that the water is bringing in. Don’t worry though, I located the salt water pool and have been diving in there every day after class, still loving it.
Today one of the senior teachers has requested that we close our blogs. They don’t want us giving the wrong impression to people based on our own experience and feelings. She said that we won’t understand what is going on right now so we should keep it to ourselves and not allow others to judge it and make their own assumptions from it. I himmed and hawwed about this all weekend, and talked to some people about it. I have decided to keep my blog going but just restrict the access to family and friends, as was my connection intent when I started it. I will probably just open the blog to the public after training is finished. There are quite a few people blogging here and I think only one or two have closed it. I have been using this as a journal and absolutely don’t mind sharing it with those close to my heart. I look forward to the time when I can sit back, read and reflect on the growth that will occur with this experience, so please keep reading and again….enjoy the ride.

Good Bye

2008-09-26T20:18:00.004-05:00

Hey all,
I am closing this site on Sunday. If you have been following and are still interested in updates from me just email me or leave a comment by the end of the weekend with your email address, and I will keep you posted on whats going on.
Thanks,
Talk to you all soon.

Spaghetti and meatballs

2008-09-26T11:13:00.003-05:00

Last night we had lecture with Bikram until 12:30am. He talked about the different types of yoga and how yoga came about. I got to ride in the elevator with Bikram for a couple floors. All he said was, “these people that are here are special people” and I said “yah and it takes something special to bring us all here.” He said, “I can feel it, this group is special”, in which I responded with, “you probably say that to every group, lol”, and got off the elevator.
Last night the power went out, but I woke up at about 6am to go the bathroom and noticed the clock was flashing. I had to reset it using another little battery operated clock Eleni had brought. We have been using the electric clock but Eleni has been getting up about 10 minutes before it goes off every morning anyways. Her internal clock is telling her not to miss a class. If we miss a class we have to do two make up classes, and if we are late and miss sign in, it is one class. The make up classes are offered Saturday and Sunday mornings at 11am.
So this week I have been focusing on my ‘true’ yoga. What I mean is, last week I think I got caught up in the hype of training starting. Emotions were high with everyone cramping up and dehydrating. I forgot to reflect and remember how great my body really is, and how good it has been to me through my life, especially in the hot room. I was drinking water and adding electrolytes and trace minerals to it, something that my body wasn’t used to. I was so caught up with not wanting to cramp or dehydrate that I forgot to trust myself. Last week my stomach was constantly hurting before and during class. I felt winded after some classes with no energy, feeling like I couldn't catch my breath and I was craving ice cold water after every posture,. Yes I know that water saved my life one class last week, but I got hooked on that, mentally. So this week I came back to my true self. I stopped putting those minerals and electrolytes into my body before and during class. After class I have been taking the trace minerals but in lesser amounts, just to help get back what I lost during class through my sweat. I did a no water class earlier this week, just to refocus myself.
I was told that when we go to training we bring a little part of each teacher from our home studio with us. Sometimes we even hear them or something they said to us at one time during class. A teacher at my home studio tells the students that if you need water to pick three or four spots in the practice where you can have a quick sip, but not to rely on it. So I reconnected with what he said and I have picked three times in class where I reward my body with a sip of cold water, and it has been working.
If I do start to drag my body, don’t get me wrong I will use the electrolytes, but right now I don’t need them. I am eating what my body needs and that is working for me. My body has responded immensely and has thanked me for it by soaking up this yoga, class after class. We have been kept up until about 1am or 2am every night. I know the worst is yet to come but yet my body isn’t shutting down. I wake up in the mornings feeling tired but not groggy and I can’t wait for class to start, I can’t wait to start sweating and waking up. My body is absorbing and craving these classes like a big plate of Dad’s homemade spaghetti and meatballs, mmmmm. I think that is the best description I could give to make you understand how good I am feeling right now and this week. Take it for what it’s worth but it is only week two so I am going to enjoy the smile that won’t leave my face right now.

The room here seems to be extra humid as well. I am chalking that up to the amount of rain we have been recieving though. We were told last week that it is all natural humidity in the room so I am sure the percentage of humidity is a little higher than the spring, though I have nothing to compare to. I do feel like I am sweating more than at home, it is like a tap turned a little bit on, dripping constantly, not just a little drip here and there.
I had a little extra time today so I wanted to through that little thought of the day in there for you all.
Back to today: Class this morning was with Emmy again. The last two classes she taught us I have not found her classes very motivating for me. I noticed a lot of other people felt the same way. She is very frustrated with the way we execute some of the postures, and she lets us know. Today I decided to block that out and I focused on her corrections and I learnt three or four corrections that I did for myself and will be able to help students with. She is so knowledgeable when it comes to this yoga, and so much to teach us. After class people were talking about some things she said that were negative and I couldn’t even go back and remember them. I don’t know why but my mind did not allow me to absorb that today.
After class we had an hour of anatomy with Dr T, still no books and our exam is on Monday. Apparently the books are being held in customs, heres hoping we get them by the weekend so we can study. After posture clinic Bikram brought in a close friend of his to talk to us about our speech and voice in class. We were let go at 4:30 to rush back to our rooms and prepare for 5 o’clock class. Jim is back and he taught a solid motivating 90 minute class. I am loving those 90 minute classes, as we get stronger we should expect them more.
Before Bikram came into lecture, we got introduced to a senior teacher from Boston, Diane. She graduated in the second every Bikram yoga college, in 1993 when they didn’t even have a written dialogue yet. There was 30 of them in the school and Bikram would verbally dictate to them during posture clinic in order for them to learn it, now they have it down to a science.
Bikram came in a very good mood tonight, not that he is usually in a bad one. He told us that he received two compliments today about what good learners and listeners we are. Of course he accepted all the credit upon himself for teaching us so well. Jim had told Bikram that we looked like an entirely different group of trainees from when he taught us last week before he left. The speech therapist also told Bikram that we were such good listeners and totally shocked her, in a good way. Bikram went on to tell us that we are the best group so far, but I am sure every group before us has been told the same thing. Bikram lectured about another aspect of yoga and told us some personal stories before letting us go to bed at 12:30am.

Cage match #1

2008-09-25T10:57:00.003-05:00

We had class with Emmy again this morning and emotions were flying high. After first set of rabbit today in class (third last posture in class) there was a voice that shouted out, “you have one minute to finish class.” That was followed by people telling that one voice to shut up. I looked at the clock and it was one minute to 10 o’clock, not that it matters here, they can keep you in that room for three hours if they wanted to. After we finished the second set of the posture, the guy that had shouted out, grabbed his mat and tried to leave. The staff at the back of the room (he calls himself crowd control for anyone that tries to leave) tried to stop him, since we were five minutes away from finishing. The yogi did not like that one bit, and tried his best to get past the staff. I think the staff realized the condition he was in and let him leave after a bit of commotion as class continued. I saw the man at lunch and he was joking and laughing like he has the past week with the other students, as if nothing had happened. Sometimes people just need that release.
After lunch we went through more anatomy with Dr.T, and more talk about meat and poultry, la-dee-dah, it doesn’t matter to me, I am a farm girl and I love my meat. After Dr.T finished Emmy did a lecture. She talked about pain but I was in and out of dozing off. You know you are tired when you can sleep sitting up in a hard ass chair.
Emmy finished at 4:20 so we had little time to our rooms and get ready for class. That doesn’t give us much time when you are trying to get about 150 students into only four elevators, none the less we all made it in time of course.
Bikram walked into evening class and he said he was upset that he missed the cage fight in this morning’s class. He said people come from all over the world and pay money to see shows like that. Anyone who knows Bikram knows he is a story teller so it was a bit of an exaggeration, but still funny. Bikram said he talked with the man today during our lecture with Emmy, one on one in his room about what had happened this morning and why he left class. The guy has a lot of past demons to deal with, as do we all, and he just dealt with them in a different way. He voiced his opinions to Bikram and Bikram told him he had no right to ruin the class for everyone, because we all paid the same amount as money as him to be here. Bikram clarified that the man didn’t leave class because of Emmy personally but something he had to deal with within himself in terms of dealing with women. In the end the man decided to leave training all together. Bikram said he was upset because he felt he has failed, so he taught an easy class, 2 hours, hmmm. Apparently we are not ready for a 90 minute Bikram taught class yet, I wonder how many weeks that will take, lol. So now we are -4 people from what we started with on September 14th.

Picture is of our anatomy lecture with Dr.T

Keep on keeping on

2008-09-24T11:49:00.002-05:00

This morning we had class with Emmy again. This time she was walking around at the beginning giving corrections. By the end of the standing series she had made her way to the back of the room, where apparently is her favorite teaching position. She sat on a chair and stayed there for the rest of the class. After class we had lunch which was supposed to have better food then previously, with some Asian cuisine. Bikram had bitched at the general manager so we could eat better. There was only three dishes with Asain food, but the rice was delicious. I can’t really complain about the food so far, I have been stuffing my face and loving the fact that I can have ten different flavors at one time on my plate. Today at lunch, Eleni and I sat with two other guys. Robert, one of the guys was laughing at me because my plate was piled with one type of food onto the other. I had some beef ribs with sauce surrounded by ham, rice, mini quesadillas, bacon, oatmeal, and watermelon on top, mmm, doesn’t that sound good, LOL. Doesn’t matter to me, it tasted good to me.
After lunch we had more anatomy without our books, taking notes. Dr. T went on, and on, and on, and on, and on, about hormones and food for about 2.5 hours. We actually did get some skeletal review in all that. After Anatomy was more half moon posture clinic, and yours truly went first. I was shaking out of my pants, and had to shift my legs a couple times or I probably would have shaken right off stage but I did it, BOO-YAH. There was one point when I had to take a deep breath because I felt my nervousiness coming out in the microphone and usually when that happens I talk really fast, so I took a deep breath and finished it. Bikram told me I was good, with good dialogue. He suggested that I talk to Dr. Lilian Glass when she comes here. He said I need to learn how to use my diaphragm more when speaking to project better. I don’t need many lessons just one or two practice sessions, so I should volunteer to go on stage when she needs someone. So that is done.
5:00 class was with Bikram. He sat and drank a coke and teased in between sets with it. He said we are the luckiest training group ever because this is the first time ever he is scheduled to teach every night class for the training. He was also impressed with us because he said we have improved 150% since last Monday. That is his favorite number I think, so he probably tells that to every group of trainees. I could feel it though, less and less people are going down, and even less people are cramping or leaving. It seems people have figured out a routine that works for them, so awesome to see. We had another earth quake today, this time I felt it, it was kind of hard to miss it. It happened while we were right in the middle of triangle posture, it was the weirdest feeling. It felt like hundreds of men were walking on the roof at the same time. We must have got energy from that cause everyone powered through right to the end of the class.
After class was supper time, I made some good old mac and cheese, and it tasted sooooooooooo good, yummy in my tummy, just like a kid again. Then we made our way dow to the lecture hall where we were greeted with another Indian movie. It was three hours and we didn’t get to bed until 1:30am. The movie wasn’t actually that bad, it was a kinda of a gladiator film with an Indian twist.

Picture from starting week 2

An earthquake....WHAT!?

2008-09-23T11:00:00.009-05:00

So last night we didn’t go for Italian food, we walked to a little Vietnamese restaurant for some sushi for Michelle’s birthday. I don’t eat seafood so I had veggies with chicken, and some avacado rolls with cream cheese, after we stopped for some ice cream. Andres who is from Mexico City came with us, he was able to give us the run down of Mexico as much as he could.
That food did not sit well in my stomach. Eleni, Michelle, and I were all waking up off and on all night, I felt like I was having hot flashes, what the heck. Than at 1am there was an earth quake apparently but I didn’t feel it. When we were waiting for class someone asked Eleni and I if we had felt it and I said no. Eleni had this funny look on her face and said “is that what it was?” I asked her why, and she said it woke her up and she could feel her bed moving and she thought that I had crawled into the bed with her, LOL. I told her no, I was never in your bed trying to cuddle. She was relieved to know it was an earthquake, I was none the wiser. Emmy taught class today and told it was a 4.6 on the ricter scale. I have never experienced an earth quake before, I am sure there will be more.
Emmy said she teaches like Bikram use to teach 35 years ago when she first met him. She was up on the podium and she told us she was frustrated. She said could see so many mistakes we were making and all she wanted to do was correct us. I think next time she will be walking around the room making those corrections. That will be interesting because no one has done that yet, they have all stayed on the podium.
I had a good class considering how tired and hungry I was when I woke up. After class was the ocean, then lunch then some anatomy. We met Dr.T, and his wife, oh gosh the two of them together are so cute and funny. He gets going on his rants then out of no where his wife shouts, “get on with it, you got off topic”. Every once in awhile he tells jokes to make sure we are still awake, well they actually aren’t that funny but he tries. So after a couple jokes where we didn’t laugh to hard, his wife told a funny story about the two of them. She is basically making fun of her husband, its so funny, cause its all in good fun. They have been married for 56 years. Once his wife tells a joke of course Bikram has to get on the mike and tell a joke, something about a man with dog balls. All in all it kept us awake. Oh speaking of anatomy, we started that today without any books so we had to write down notes as Dr.T put slides up on the projector. "High light in Yellow, Mark is red", is his favorite saying. We are supposed to recieve our books on Friday and our test is on Monday. Bikram is not impressed about that and said Dr.T is wasting his time without the books, I guess we will see.
Oh all you peeps planning to come to training in the spring won’t have to worry about it being here again I don’t think. Bikram told us that he got into a 2.5 hour fight with the general manager about the shit food at the hotel. So needless to say, he said he won’t be back to eat it again. We also had a vote at the evening posture clinic whether we wanted to stay having the lunch buffet or if we wanted the supper one. Majority ruled and we are sticking with the lunch buffet. Bikram told the manager that he wants good Asian cuisine, not shit cat food we have been eating, or crap breakfast pancakes. I will keep you on the up and up on the menu for tomorrow and if it is any better.
After anatomy we had more posture clinic, than it was class with Bikram at 5.
All the boys who were at the other hotel got to move over here today, so class actually started at 5:30 (though we were in the room since before 5) waiting for everyone to get there. My stomach hurt throughout the entire class again but I still pounded it out. I think I have to start having a little snack before class. People are still going down but alot of the people who aren't feeling well place their mats on the last couple lines in the back of the room. I haven't had to go back there yet but I have heard the energy is not to strong because everyone back there is sick and has no extra energy. Today after standing bow I had to take a couple extra seconds to catch my breath. There are moments throughout the class where I feel like I just can't catch my breath. It feels like when I breathe that I am just not getting enough air in my lungs. It's not the feeling like I am out of shape just not enough fresh air to breathe properly, maybe its the extreme humidity I am not used to.

I had class, ocean, supper, than more posture clinic. I was lined up and read to go on stage to present half moon but Bikram let us go at 11pm. We had the option of coming back in ten minutes to watch a movie with him if we wanted to. We chose not to and were in bed by midnight.

The picture is us out for dinner: Me, Eleni, Damian, Andres, Michelle, and Jonathan

Jonathan Yang from Oz

2008-09-22T20:38:00.004-05:00

Okay I mentioned today that Jonathon is going to start posting next week but he actually wrote one for today so you get a bonus blog. Here it is:

so week 1 and 10 classes of bikram teacher's training has been done and dusted.. I feel like the guy off the movie wanted who gets the crap kicked out of him and then is rehealed each time then finally becomes that kickarse time warping machine :P hahaWell far from becoming that kickarse machine, but I did feel like I died on day 2 and was reborn on day 3... Its been incredible watching the most fittest people dropping down, look and feel nausea, sick, vomiting, diarhear, cramping, spasms and worse of all having mini fits becuase the body is so dehydrated.Bikram said in the orientation, "what is the most important thing in life"? its life of course.. so here we are, 300 or so students who normally can tuff it out in the most extreme classes back home are just overwhelmed with how hard this TT is.. It was a crap experience, but really made everyone think about how they are going to get through the 1st week let alone next 9 weeks.. The class vibe is great, its awesome practicing and meeting someone new everyday. At the end of class, instead of saying namaste, everyone claps and cheers haha I guess its for surviving the class :PHopefully week 2 wont be as hard as week1 please god!! :)

Jonathan Yang

A day of reflection, than onto week two

2008-09-22T12:07:00.005-05:00

Since today (Sunday), is a day of rest I am going to take as a day of reflecting because I don’t have much to talk about in terms of what I did today. Slept in until Eleni’s dad called at 9am, had lunch, walked to Walmart, had a nap, talked to my parent, bro and Aunt. It is Michelle’s birthday today so maybe we can go out for a good Italian meal tonight to celebrate. People were telling us about it, and cheap, the same one Ang told me to check out.
Oh I forgot to mention who taught yesterdays class. It was Dale from Vancouver. Very disciplined and again people had to be told over and over to put their waters down or not pour it on their heads, lol.
When we first started doing dialogue clinic with Bikram it amazed me how he could just read people. For example, there was a girl that went up and she did an awesome delivery of half moon. When she was finished Bikram told her that her dialogue was good but she needed to go on a diet. She came back with, “since I’ve been doing Bikram yoga I’ve lost one hundred pounds”. She got a huge round of applause as Bikram just looked around, smiled and said, “See, I saved your life.” Then went on to talk about how one of his right hand men from head quarters, Gregg, who is in Acapulco but wasn’t in the hall at the time, lost 200 pounds doing Bikram yoga.
Another girl was up there and she got through the dialogue and you could tell she knew it but stumbled a little, which has happened. When she finished Bikram asked her, “do you know why you can’t remember the dialogue and she can?” pointing to another girl on stage. He answered his own question with, “because your hair is to short, hers is nice and long.” She answered him with, “I had to shave my head because I was in an accident and broke my neck, I’ve never had hair this short.” She went on to tell us that she was in accident under a year ago, and has metal all over her body. The doctors told her she probably wouldn’t be able to do physical activity ever again, boy did she prove them wrong. She told Bikram that his yoga saved her life and has helped her immensely. Totally amazing.
Another cute little Asian lady went up and after she said half moon, Bikram told her she is so sweet and it seems she cares for people. He asked what she does for a job at home. She told us that she is a cook and a caterer, in which Bikram than asked if she could cook some good Asian food for him. She responded with, “I can cook for 300 people, no problem.” He really liked that response, and so did we, lol.
Another lady delivered such a strong dialogue with such expression in her voice and body movement that Bikram told her she would kill anyone that didn’t listen to her. He later asked her when she was sitting if she was single. She said she has been divorced twice but is now single. He said, “no wonder you probably chopped off their balls when they did not listen to you.” He then wanted to know if they were still alive or if she had buried them alive. He finished by telling her that she would make a good wife because she is a strong woman, which you can clearly see.
On Friday afternoon my stomach was hurting so bad from laughing so hard all week. It seems he knows exactly what questions to ask, and who to ask them to. Over the course of the week he has made one guy sing for him on stage, telling him they should do a duet together because he likes his voice. He told another guy he could be an actor in Hollywood film if he wanted because he speaks clear and looks good. He made the two girls from Vietnam put the sucker he had in his mouth in their own mouths and say the dialogue. It was cool to see how it helped them with their accent. He has told two people that they would make good marriage partners (not to each other) and he wants to find them a good partner.
Starting Thursday night I have been having the most vivid dreams. I wake up and think I just watched a movie, its kinda cool. The dreams I have been having have had people in them that I haven’t seen for years. I am dreaming about kids I use to babysit or go to school with when I was just a little tot. I am remembering and seeing things that happened when I was little playing with family and neighbors, and the games we use to play. Lucille told me if I am remembering things that vivid and from that long ago that I must be getting really deep already. Well it’s either that or I am going crazy, lol, just joking I am loving it. I am remembering and seeing things that I totally forgot about years ago and now watching them in the third person. I hope they all stay happy, and I don’t wake Eleni up in the middle of the night with sudden screaming. I’ll let you know how that goes, lol.
Monday starts week two so I will see how the blogging will keep up. I will do my best to do a little reflection everyday but now the pace picks up a bit. By the end of the week, we will be into the 70s with remaining classes, WHOOT WHOOT!

The picture is of the salt water pool I take a dip in after every class

Rocking it out

2008-09-21T16:14:00.004-05:00

I had a really good class this morning. Saturday class is at 8am, but I rocked it out. Everyone else around me was down for the count, nine people in a square around me. One girl right beside me barely made it out of the room at the end, and needed assistance. I checked on her a couple times but she said she was okay. Another girl to my right was struggling, she said she was tired, but she powered through a lot of the postures. I gave her some of my ice cold water when we were on the floor series. I am now convinced that orange jug saves lives. It’s amazing how good it tastes when you think you are dying. I know it’s a total mind thing but sometimes when you are at that point it doesn’t matter, believe me, I was there last night, I know first hand. I swam in the ocean after class for a good twenty minutes today, it was cold but good.
Today at the lunch buffet I found my staple from home….the chocolate milk, HELLLLLLLLLO CHOCOLATE MILK. LOL, oh the small things that make us smile. After lunch is blogging time than have a nap. We might hit up Mega (similar to Superstore) after my nap to pick up some stuff. I have been feeling like something is missing from my diet. I talked to one of the staff and she suggested drinking grapefruit juice after class. I am allergic to bananas do she said the grapefruit juice should do it. I am getting tired of the cold broccoli so I think I can manage that for awhile until I get sick of that.
It is only the end of week one and I already have yoga brain. My routine so far has been to fill the sink with water and detergent and let my clothes soak as I take my shower after class. Yesterday I filled the sink and threw my clothes in, when I got out of the shower I could hear some water running. It clicked in that it was the sink, I forgot to turn it off. I jumped out from behind the curtain so fast I’m surprised I didn’t slip on my head, oh could you imagine, ha. The sink was full, and seriously, if my shower would have been 11 seconds longer I would have flooded the bathroom. I told Eleni that I have official perma yoga brain so be warned, lol, oh dear, it begins.
It has been so humid here that my clothes nor my mat have been drying. My mat is never dry by the next class, especially the evening one. For the morning one it is still damp but not dripping wet. My clothes are taking two or three days to dry, it’s a good thing I brought enough outfits to last the week worth.
My family has been great. I taught Dad how to use msn right before I left and he is so cute when he can actually see me on the web cam. He’s moving the camera all around so I can see him, mom and my kitty. The connection goes out here sometimes and is a little wonky but we make it work. Mom and Dad also didn’t know what a blog was but they have been reading it every day. I am pretty sure my Zia (Auntie) has been following it too. She was addicted to Jenns in the spring and was the one that introduced it to me. Other than that I know people are keeping busy and I have heard the weather has been nice so I am sure everyone is soaking it in while they can before the snow comes.
I would like to give a shout out to Roxanne who I have never even met. She went to the training here in the spring, and has been writing me messages and giving me advice as I continue on. Jenn gave me tons of advice just from her blog with out knowing it so a big hug to her. Jenn booked a ticket to come here at the beginning of October so she can watch the going ons from the outside-in this time. It will be interesting to read her blog about her thoughts when it’s all done. There are a couple teachers from my studio that are making their way down here too. One will visit at the end of October and one for sure (and hopefully the other honey bee as well) for graduation. Any of you want to stop by my house and pick up my kitty on your way!?!? I connected with my parents last night via web cam and they showed me my kitty. It actually brought tears to my eyes to see him. I was calling his name and he was looking around looking for me, wondering where I was. Mom said he has been crying and sleeping on my bed, so I know he misses me too. Now I know why they tell us to forget about the outside world, so many emotions come along with it. Oh well it’s not a bad thing to have tears once in awhile.

The picture is of my precious child.

87 classes to go, week one down

2008-09-20T12:21:00.005-05:00

This morning I woke up and thought, “ah its Friday” followed by, “but there is still three classes to go before we get a little rest.” One class at a time right!? We had morning class with Lynn, she went to teacher training 12 years ago. She taught a great disciplined class, well as much as she could. When we got to the floor I started thinking, it would be so nice to have some ice cold water or a handful of ice right now. Then I thought, does it really matter, I am going to finish this class and do every posture whether I have that ice or not, so just do it. After class I have been trying to enjoy longer savasana’s before I rush getting up. The room doesn’t really cool down right after class so a lot of people go and lie down outside on the grass. The cool air feels nice once you get outside but at that point I am just focused on getting into that cold ocean water. It is amazing how therapeutic that salt water feels.

At posture clinic we had a two hour discussion with Bikram about where spring training should be. He wanted our input and thoughts. He actually has three places he is still considering, one of them being still in Acapulco. The reason he doesn't want to have it in Acapulco again is because of the flight ride for himself and the all the trainees. He flies out every now and again for a couple days for seminars all around the world. He also said he is tired of the shit food here. Rajashree bought him $200 worth of groceries before she left and he said he is already tired of sandwiches, even if he claims to only eat every twenty four hours. Someone brought him a sucker to eat today and he was pretty happy with that. Last night someone gave him some nuts but he wouldn't eat them because they are too healthy. Today they brought him salted ones and he was loving those, lol.
It never seems to amaze me how many times people need to be told things, whether it’s in the yoga room, lecture room or wherever. We constantly hear; don’t drink water in between postures, put your water down, don’t lie down, put your feet down, don’t eat in the lecture hall, put your water down, sign in, don't drink after this posture, stand instead of sitting down, pick up your garbage, cover up when walking through the hotel, don’t lie down, leave your water. Students are going to be constantly following our lead and people have to be told things like 12 times in row sometimes. I wonder if it gets better or worse, this is only week one.
After class it was into the ocean, shower, than lunch, I'm not getting sick of the food yet. They have a breakfast and a lunch option at the buffet and some great fresh juices which I chug two classes of first thing when I get there. We went through some more people today for half moon, Damien presented his today. He was the last one to go before we got let out at 4 to prepare for 5 o’clock class.

Bikram taught the class again. There was a girl that had to be helped out by Dale, and taken by wheelchair because she was cramping so bad. She is so sweet too, because right before class I saw her talking to one of the guys that hasn’t been doing to well, making sure he was okay for class. What a sweet girl, she was so concerned about other people and then she was unable to care for herself, I hope she gets some rest tonight. Oh speaking of that, Bikram announced in class that we get tonight off because his niece (and assistant) reminded him it is still the first week. He threatened us before lunch with more Bollywood films until 5am, you could feel the relief and energy erupt when he announced we had the night off in class.
Class…well the evening class wasn’t so good for me. My stomach has been hurting all day, but not in a cramping way. I actually felt like I was hung over, eating greasy bacon and sausage and forcing myself to eat the good stuff. In class I had a stomach ache the entire time again. I think the only reason I didn’t get sick was because my body couldn’t decide whether to shit or puke, lol, oh I can laugh now, geez. I did the entire class though, I had great energy and people around me, there was no stopping. Right after rabbit (third last posture), I was lying there in savasana and Michelle who was right beside me, literally poured her ice cold water into my mouth and offered me some ice. I am convinced that orange thermos water jug saved my life tonight, it felt soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good. I turned down the ice but the water gave me a burst to power onto the end. At the end of class I just lied there feeling like I couldn’t get up and that the room was getting hotter. So I somehow made my way outside and lied there for about 7 minutes, but that wasn’t any cooler. Wendy, one of the senior teachers encouraged me to get up and go outside, so I took a deep breath, got my stuff and again, somehow made up those stairs and outside. I lied there for another good 10 minutes and decided that it wasn’t any cooler outside. I felt like my body was overheating and I just couldn’t cool down, so I dragged my butt to the ocean. Oh my word, did that feel great, it does the trick every time, its just a matter of getting there sometimes, well okay, only today but still.
I met an older gentleman that was making his way to his room on my way through the hotel on the way to the ocean. He told me hasn’t been doing to well, he hasn’t been able to sleep and he is tired of drinking anything, whether it is water or pedialyte. So I convinced him to come and swim in the ocean. He was in there and four or five people came up to him and said, “you must be feeling better, you are smiling”. He just told them that the ocean was exactly what he needed. He thanked me after for convincing him to come for a swim, that was cool. I have convinced my friend Lucille, who I met here to come to the ocean after class as well, and she says its exactly what the doctor ordered. I know I talk a lot about it but it is seriously the best healing medicine here right now.

After the ocean and a cold shower, I decided I wanted Mcdonalds. We were going to go on Saturday and get it but we had the night off. We were going to walmart anyways so Eleni and I decided to stopp at Mcdonalds first. I seriously could not get the food into my mouth fast enough, well is wan't that bad but it hit the spot. I have not eaten Mcdonalds in forever and it tasted so good tonight. It was only $4 American, that’s like half the price from back home for the meal. It is amazing how the little things get me so excited these days. We went to Walmart to buy one of those orange thermos jugs to keep our water cold in class and some more milk. We have class tomorrow at 8am so now its off to try and get at least eight hours of sleep.

The picture is of me and Michelle (who saved my life yesterday with her cold water) at posture clinic right before the Bolly wood movie started the other night. She says the picture describes how she feels at that moment, lol, love it.

Welcome to Bollywood

2008-09-18T12:00:00.006-05:00

I realized when I write these posts and when they are posted is not consistent with the days. For example, I posted today (Thursday afternoon) but I am talking about Wednesday. It will get a little confusing unless you are reading this everyday. I just don't have time to post every evening so it will more than likely be posted the next day in the afternoon sometime. Okay now that that is clear.....

I got to bed at 12:30 last night (Tuesday) then woke up for 8:30 class with Rajashree. She leaves today after lunch so it is our last class with her until week six.

I figured out my routine for morning class. I drink lots of water before bed, get up to go to the bathroom like three times during the night (I can walk that room already with my eyes closed), and then drink some more water before lying down. Once my head hits the pillow, its game over.
This morning class was 90 minutes on the nose. She was trying to give us a nice easy class so everyone can remember how to breathe again. Everyone that left yesterday with cramps came back this morning to class, there was lots of energy going around.
We got 2.5 hours before we have to sign in for lecture. Time for lunch, which has been surprisingly good…knock on wood. Yesterday they had one of my favorites, chicken cutlets….mmmmm. I’m still waiting for the pasta, going to go through with drawl pretty soon. Maybe Sunday I will hit up the Italian restaurant Ang recommended.
Posture clinic followed morning class again. There was a girl that went up and she got lost in the middle up her set up. Instead of “when you can’t stretch anymore, stop in the middle”, she said, “stop in the middle when you don’t want to do it anymore”. The entire place roared with laughter and cheers as Bikram slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, and started laughing. The poor ladies face turned beat red and Bikram said to us "look what you did to her face, she is embarrassed".
Eleni went up today, introduced herself, said her studio name and Bikram didn’t know where it was. She had to tell him it is in Canada. She rocked it out and didn’t miss a beat. Bikrams comment to her was, “I like her, she’s sweet, everyone should speak clear like her”. His only correction to her was to speed up second set otherwise it will be a two hour class. That is funny because when we were practicing I told her to slow down half a beat cause she was spitting it out double time. Everyone is so supportive of each other here so she got a huge round of applause.
Bikram let us go at 4 and threatened us with a movie until 3am tonight, so our minds become tough.
Jim taught our 5pm class, a two hour drag out. I had a stomach ache throughout the entire thing but stuck with it and rocked it out. I thought I would have to use a puke bucket but I was wrong. Jumping in the ocean after that class felt soooooooooo good. After class I made some hot pasta for supper after having peanut butter and jam sandwiches for the last two nights. Then it was off to more half moon posture clinic with Bikram. We did that for an hour, got through a dozen people than we watched a Bollywood movie until 2am. It was a Spanish love/musical film kinda like “Grease”, but in Spanish with English sub titles.

Oh and Bikram told us a little secret; where training is going to be next year.

The picture is Eleni giving her half moon dialogue in front of Bikram

Turn weaknesses into your strengths

2008-09-18T12:00:00.005-05:00

Class this morning was with Uylssis. He incorperated some Spanish into the dialogue, and his dialogue was spot on, loved it. He is from Mexico City and I really enjoyed his class. The class was topped off with the sound of about a dozen people puking in the back of the room, what a beautiful start to the day. After class was more half moon. Line up had been long and everyone has been so good, so I haven’t gone yet. I know my stuff so waiting an extra day or until the evening is not going to kill me. We got let go at 4 to prepare for 5 o’clock class with Bikram. I lied down for twenty minutes to allow my body to totally relax for a bit. Bikram taught a 90 minute class. Bikram told us that his easiest classes are the 2 hour classes cause they are nice and slow and lots of time for rest. I personally think the 90 minute classes are way better, just keep me going and lets pound this thing out. There was great energy in the room tonight, everyone was moving together. It was raining when we got out so it was nice and cool, and there was no one on the beach so it was nice.
Eleni and I ordered pizza for supper from downstairs. I was still hungry so I filled up on a peanut butter sandwich before heading down to posture clinic. When Bikram arrived he told us why he doesn’t like the color green and why we aren’t allowed to wear it.
We than proceeded with more posture clinic, with an interruption to watch Bikrams 60 minutes interview from a couple years ago. Posture clinic went until midnight, then straight to bed.

I know many bitches in Canada

2008-09-17T11:06:00.005-05:00

Ain't that a great title?! A really quiet lady said her half moon dialogue today and Bikram told her to say it like an anrgy American pissed off at her husband. She responded with "but I am Canadian", which was followed by a loud applause, it was so funny and perfect. Bikram responded with what is the title of this blog. Thought I would start with that.

Today starts the first day of doubles. We had 8:30 morning class with Rajashree, it was an hour and forty five minutes. There was some cramping going on with other trainees today in the morning class. I am glad I have not had to experience that yet. After class we had posture clinic with Bikram starting with half moon dialogue today. Bikram seemed fairly nice to everyone, but on the other hand everyone that went today was ready, and lined up eager to go. There is one student here that Bikram said he has been waiting for him to come to teacher training for years (Jeff?). Bikram made him show us some advanced postures after he delivered his dialogue. Bikram was so happy with us he let us go at 4:15 to prepare for the afternoon class. Bikram taught the 5pm class and gave us the biggest compliment before starting class. “You are the best first day of dialogue I have ever seen in all years at teacher training, you were ready for me, and put me in good mood for this class”. He gave some corrections during class today….knees together more, chest up more, back lean back more, hold at the ankle, chin up, chin up, look up, chin up. He brought two girls up on his podium, one to help her lock her knee in standing bow, the other was to show us the five parts of standing head to knee. There was more cramping going on this evening, a lot of people sitting at the back of that room. I am trying to stay hydrated but two ppl around me went down hard today and it kinda scared me.
I find this room not nearly as hot as at home but way more humid. It feels like the time when the humidifier got fixed and it was pumping some good moisture and a lot more ppl left the room. It was another two hour class with two songs from Bikrams love songs playing at the end in savasana. We than had an hour to eat and get back to the lecture room. Rajashree and the nurse talked about our hydration issues and how to take care of ourselves and answered any questions people had. Than Bikram came up, did some fancy muscle work with his stomach and gave us a pectorial show. That was proceeded by more half moon dialogue in front of everyone. Bikram stopped us at 12:15am and said he was going to make us watch a movie with him until 3am, so the tech guys started setting up the projector. He then stopped the tech guys and told us that we made him so happy today with our dialogue and energy that he was letting us go to bed.

Oh and I am going to try and post a picture of myself each week to see the differences. I gained 6 pounds before coming so lets see what happens, lol. I am not to concerned about my body, it has done me so well in the past in that torture room. Enough for now.
Good night.

Week 1: Day 1: Take it easy honey

2008-09-15T20:30:00.008-05:00

No morning class today, we had a morning orientation at 10am, than Bikram arrived at 11am. He introduced himself and did his welcome to the family speech. That was followed by the lunch buffet at 12:45 to 1:45. We were told that after lunch we were starting posture clinic with Bikram, get ready half mooners. We were also told to “take it easy honey” for the first week. Also, to expect 70% humidity in the room for all classes because that’s what it has been outside in Acapulco the last two weeks.
At lunch everyone was going over their dialogue in preparation for the afternoon. We all gathered in the auditorium in anticipation of who was going to go first. Jim, a senior teacher, asked if we were all ready. He then proceeded to tell us half moon presenting would start tomorrow. You could feel the relief in the room, lol. So all the teachers and staff that are going to be with us for the next nine weeks, took turns coming up to the stage and introducing themselves. We were let go at 3:15 to prepare for our first class. Eleni and I went to check if her luggage was here and lo and behold, it had finally arrived. I told her to buy a mat this morning before our lecture and then her baggage would show up, I guess the theory worked.
I wish I would have brought my camera to the class. Eleni and I walked down to the room for 4:30 and there were 25 people already waiting. We got our towels and waited while 300 more students lined up down the sidewalk. I will bring my camera tomorrow if I remember. You could feel the anticipation. We got let in, signed in, put our stuff in the cubbies and found a spot. First nine rows were for trainees, the back rows were for visitors and teachers.
I set up in row five with a fellow BYE right beside me as Bikram took the podium. People were dropping, taking knees and lying down all over the place by standing head to knee (fourth posture for you non-birkramees). Bikram pulled a Ricky (or is it Ricky pulls a Bikram back home) in locust pose…nine….nine and a half….nine and three quarters….nine and.…okay ten, legs down. One of the most difficult things I found with this class was when to come out of the posture. People would come out and stand there and he hadn’t even said change yet so then I would come out when everyone around was out. The floor was slippery, but we all knew that going in from the spring trainees. Class was two hours long, Bikram said it is the easiest class he has taught since April…lots of rest in between. We got introduced to Bikrams singing voice and he played a song from his love songs cd at the end of class in savasana.
I headed straight for the ocean after class, as did a handful of other trainees. It felt so good to jump over those waves, I felt like a kid again. I now plan to do that after every class.
We get the rest of the night off. The shuttle is running to Walmart and Mega till 10 tonight so people can load up if need be. I think I am set until at least the weekend. Tomorrow, classes and posture clinic start full on which means half moon dialogue presentations in front of Bikram begin. I think I will use this time now to review.
Bikram also told us to forget about everyone at home. They are happy to get rid of us, that’s why they let us go and paid, yah right. So with that said I think this is where the bubble begins. I will do my best to give daily updates. I have had time up to now to give pretty detailed run downs but I will do my best to at least give you quick updates. Rajashree has encouraged us to keep journals so I will use this as my journal.
Side note: I don’t think I have mentioned how many of us there are, they told us today 318, biggest yet.

And today is the Mexican celebration for independance day. There is a big party in the lobby right now, with a band, dancers and drinking...for the other guests. Tonight is the celebration as tomorrow is the actual holiday. They get tomorrow off so that people can drink and stay up late tonight to celebrate. Tomorrow they can sleep in and not have to worry about work, they have it all figured out, lol. Supposely this is the busiest the hotel will be all training, tomorrow afternoon it should clear out. September and November is their quietier times.

This just in....

2008-09-14T23:29:00.007-05:00

Rajashree told us today at orientation that Bikram will be here for the full nine weeks. Buckle up people. More on the orientation later, lets start from where I left off last time.

.....Eleni got into the room last night around 12:30pm with no luggage. Herself and a couple other passengers/trainee’s luggage was misplaced. She was told she would have it in the morning, but it is late afternoon and still nothing. She is very calm for not having it. We went to go for the lunch buffet today, put our names down, and missed our names being called. Therefore we would have had to wait another 20 minutes, so we (us three from the studio) decided to just go to walmart. Not to disappointing, I bought some shampoo, conditioner, dishsoap, and hangers (among other stuff) cause there was only five in the closet. We payed $5 for a cab ride and the driver waited for us at the walmart while we shopped then, brought us back to the hotel. People are having trouble finding britta water jugs here, thank goodness I packed mine (thanks to Jenns advice in her blog). Rajashree arrived last night and I only know this because she was on the same flight as Eleni from LA last night.
I had time to walk around and look around the grounds this afternoon. This place is huge to say the least. I will try to post some pictures here but most of pics will be put into an album on facebook when I can find time.
Eleni and I had requested to stay together for last night only. We did this so we would both have the chance to meet new and other people while we are here. We went to the front desk this morning to ask about how to go about finding our room mates for the next couple months. They have us in the system as room mates for the entire time. This happened to a couple other girls I talked to from other studios as well. We will have to wait until Antonia who reserved the rooms gets here, so things might change. Damians room mate is from New Zealand, he has been here since Wednesday, there is a little age gap between them but they seem to get along fine.

We had orientation at 6pm tonight, headed by Rajashree, Bikrams wife. We were introduced to some of the senior teachers and the staff that will be here with us for the next nine weeks. The infamous "hold 2nd part of awkward for a minute Craig" will be here for a short time this training. I am assuming for graduation, though we have not been told when yet. Bikram is taking back the reign with help from Dale from Vancouver.

After the orientation we had a welcome supper, with ice cream for dessert...bring it on.

We meet Bikram tomorrow morning, at an orientation things with him in the morning at 10. Our first class is at 5pm Monday night, with Bikram. There are about 25 trainees not here yet because of hurricane Ike. They are expected to be here Friday afternoon when they open the airport.

I think that covers it for now, time for bed.

You have everything you need to do this

2008-09-13T22:16:00.008-05:00

I thought this was an great title for this entry as I am one day away from starting it all, well orientation starts tomorrow anyways, thats a good start. "You have everything you need to do this"; Ricky said to me on Friday, in my last class at the studio before I left and it stuck with me. Its a gooder.
I am finally here, not that is was all that crazy to get here. My flight went straight to Mexico City, only a 6.5 hour flight. We arrived 30 minutes ahead of schedule. But the trek started early this morning. We left the house at 4:30 this morning to make it to the airport on time. We were there nearly three hours before my flight. We are allowed one checked bag of 50lbs (32.5 kg), and I brought two so I paid for the second one, only $15. We are limited on weight so for two bags we were allowed 65kg or 100lbs. My two bags came to a total weight of 63.5kg, ha ha, just made it. That was my biggest worry arriving at the airport. Next was security...no problem.
Caught the flight, landed in Mexico City, getting to that terminal was interesting. Down this hallway, through this door, down that hallway, up the stairs, around the corner, down the escelator..... it took like half an hour, but we made it. Finally twenty minutes before we had to board the gate number was announced. We (Damian and I were on the same flight) went to the gate to be greeted by 26 other trainees, waiting to board, we all filled up half that plane. There was a Bikram shuttle waiting for us at the gate so we loaded our gear and all went to the hotel. The driver had to call for back up, I don't think he was expecting 30 of us, lol.
We got to the hotel, checked in, now I am waiting for my roommate for the night. She should be arriving any minute now.
When Damian arrived today and went to check in there was no record of him reserving a hotel room in the system. I guess this happened to all the guys that arrived today. They all got sent to the sister hotel, Pierre Marquis, a three minute shuttle ride away. Apparently any guys that arrive today and tomorrow will be staying there. It is a national holidat here this weekend so there is a big celebration in the lobby tonight. There will be a mariachi band playing, so maybe once the celebrators leave the guys might get relocated back here.
I think that about covers it for tonight. Tomorrow I hope to sleep in a bit, and then hit walmart.
Peace!

How did I get here

2008-09-07T12:23:00.002-05:00

I took my first bikram yoga class just under a year ago. I loved the class but it was a love-hate relationship. I had a headache during and after every class for my first seven classes, but still stuck with it. It wasn't until I learned about proper water intake and breathing properly during class that I began to appreciate it. I became addicted and came back regularly as I couldn't get enough of it. After three months of regular classes I decided I wanted to become a bikram yoga instructor. The day after I completed my 101 day challenge I applied for Teacher Training Fall 08.

Now its one week until training starts and its starting to sink in. I have all my stuff piled in my room that I need to fit into my suitcase. Its the beginning of a new part of my life and a whole new world opening up for me.

Anyone who is familar with bikram yoga and the rigors of teacher training knows this is not just a yoga retreat in Mexico for 2.5 months. I have spent the last month questioning and getting as much advice as I can about how to prepare and what to expect while there. Everyone has a different experience so there is no way to prepare yourself for whats going to come up in the next 9 weeks.

I know I'll learn alot and find out how strong I truely am. I am leaving my family and friends, who I know are behind me and will support me 100% as I hit those barriers. I will learn how strong my mind and body really are as I break through those barriers and learn how far I can push myself....(thanks Shauna). I'm told there is a method to their madness and to trust process, and that the dialogue WILL be there when I need it, lol.

So buckle up and enjoy the read and please feel free to email or respond as you feel fit.