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!
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!
1 comment:
Oh Melissa --- I'm so sorry you cried in class, but take heart --- I cried too at balancing stick! The instructor was right, you are incredibly strong, in body mind and spirit, and you will be an amazing teacher. You already are for me. Keep your hips in one line and let's keep going!!!!
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