Week 8. A Quick Glimpse of Life Outside the Bubble.

I am really going to miss all of these people.  Their faces have become so familiar to me, even if we haven’t had the chance to meet. This weekend was the Asana Championship so we did not have Friday night or Saturday class.  Because we had the weekend off, Wayne bought me a last minute ticket to come home for the weekend.  So I hopped on a plane at 6:30am on Saturday morning and spent the next 40 hours at home in Seattle. It was really, truly, an exercise on being present. No cleaning (hard for me not to do), no organizing, straightening, placing, replacing, fixing, doing, kaputzing, or kabitzing.  It was just me, my honey, and hot fudge sundaes from Molly Moos!

I was very excited to go home, but a part of me felt as though I would be missing a lot by going away over the last weekend. However, something unexpected happened. Leaving made me appreciate the bubble and I think it has given me the opportunity to completely appreciate my last week. I took a yoga class on Sunday with my sweets.  It was SO fun doing a class together (aside from the teacher training room where we were separated by 6 rows and about 200 other people). This time we got to be side-by-side and make faces at each other (yes, so present). Being away from the Radisson, and all my 400+ new friends, gave me a bit of perspective.  I actually felt a little homesick.

Here are a few of my thoughts from the outside:

• Outside of the bubble, no one else really cares that you are in teacher training.
• I will miss the people I haven’t even talked to yet. I will miss their faces everywhere I go.
• The connection to the people here is very, very special. The world is little bit colder and you will use the focus and serenity you learned in here, out there.
• The energy of 400 people from all over the world, from all different ages and backgrounds, practicing yoga together in one room, is a one of a kind experience. You will wish for this feeling you may not have even known you had, and I believe, you will search for it, as I will. This will likely be the thing thst brings me back to training year after year.
• Hotel towels are a HUGE luxury.
• Living 20 ft from the yoga room is an enormous convenience.
• Spilling water all over you and your mat and the floor around you is frowned upon.
• No one drinks water as much as you do, and you will feel a little weird about killing 64 oz of water by the floor series.
• Be prepared: You will push yourself a little bit harder because you are now a “Bikram Yoga Teacher Trainee graduate”, which will make your class unexpectedly harder. You will think the room is extremely hot, you will feel your heart beating harder than you think it should, you will wonder what you’ve been doing for 9 weeks, and you will question your abilities. You will look at Deborah next to you who is not breaking a sweat and then come to the conclusion that you must be pushing yourself harder and that is why your towel is completely soaked after Half Moon. You will then realize that you have to wash your own towel. You will then realize that you will have to wash 7 towels a week. You consider renting towels from the studio from now on. You refocus on Awkward pose and wonder how you are going to get through class. Is it extra hot in here? You wish for the bubble. You wish for the hottest class, the coolest class, the longest class. You wish for Emmy! You (ah hem) miss Bikram! You want to go back to the bubble. People understand you there.
• Out of the yoga room, you have a lot more energy than the people around you. It’s a little annoying that you’re not ready for bed. Ever.
• You require less sleep and return home eating weird things. Your sister will suggest that you cut back on your pints of ice cream. You ate one pint in two days. She doesn’t know you can eat one pint in 3 minutes.

In the bubble, yoga class is the only time to be alone. With 400+ people next to you, mat-to-mat, this time becomes the only time you are suppose to be doing nothing. Not dialogue, not taking notes, not crying, laughing, high-fiving, clapping. It becomes really easy to be alone. At first that was really hard to deal with. After 8 weeks, you feel like it is the most peaceful alone time you have ever had. And Savasanas feel like the best nap you have ever taken.

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Week 7

Week 7

3 more weeks until I see my sweets!  Wayne left for Haiti this week, and had a layover at LAX on the way.  It was only a short layover, but he ran all the way from his terminal, to the Radisson just to be able to say hi.  He ended up having to take a cab back to the airport to make sure he made it on time.  It was the best 20 minutes since my birthday weekend 🙂

Overall, this was an odd week.  Monday was memorial day so the staff gave us the afternoon off.  Everyone was ballistic! But, Tuesday came and we weren’t able to have afternoon class.  Bikram came to tell us that one of the trainees had called the Fire Department and that they needed to fix the heating and other building code violations before we were granted a permit to use the room again.  We did not have class again until Friday night at 7pm.  Because we missed so many classes, Bikram decided that we would have classes over the weekend (and for those who had a make-up class, would have to do 3). Lots of people did, and then some people did 3 classes voluntarily because it was an opportunity to test their limits. So for some, it was 6 classes in 48 hours!  I did the usual. 2 classes. That felt right.  I came down with a really bad bug on Friday- body aches, soreness, congestion, earache, sore throat, sweats- the works!  I saw the nurse but she did not excuse me from class.  She said that I was peeling back the layers.  Lots of people are peeling back layers right now because almost everyone is coughing, sneezing, dripping, oozing, fevering, aching, crying, whining, laughing, melting, freaking.  It’s good stuff.  So I attended class on Friday night, just a few steps away from my death bed.  I pretty much stood in one spot for the standing series, and laid on the floor during the floor series. Before I got sick, my roommate and I played in the pool.  Played!  We swam around and said dialogue while we were treading water, and then I told her to do a bunch of yoga poses underneath the water to see if she could stay under and not come up.  We tried to figure out which poses would look best underwater.  For no reason! We laughed so hard and it felt like were 11 years old.  It was so much fun.

Lectures were a bit odd for me this week, and I believe that I might be in the minority on this.

I have met some amazing people here.  Being social is sometimes a challenge for me, and one tool that I am really happy to take home with me, is learning to be present. It is very tough for me to fully engage in social activities, mostly because I don’t feel I ever have the energy to do it.  I have the energy to think about doing it, and I always really want to, but it is very draining, so I find it hard to commit to plans because I worry that I will feel anxiety from needing to recharge, not talk, need space.  I truly love people, but it is very hard for me to be around people. I often have to rest up for big outings (an afternoon at the beach with a friend, or going out to dinner with friends), or I get really drained and have to rest a lot afterward. For this reason, I shy away from plans or don’t commit to plans.  It is hard to keep strong friendships this way. Part of what I have learned about myself is that I think too much about the future, and how I imagine I will feel, or being able to establish boundaries (e.g. I am having fun, but it’s time for me to go).   I am trying to be present. In the moment. Not imagine how much energy it will take me to do what I’m doing, but realize that the energy is there, so not to worry. And if I feel that it is not there anymore, then to do what I have to do to get it again.  If it is go home and be by myself, then that’s an easy solution.  If it is to stop talking, and be the listener, then I probably should have been doing more of that anyway.  Every moment requires a different action, and planning for all the various possible scenarios, is what’s draining.  I will try to do less of that.

Onto week 8! In two weeks I will be with my honey and my sister will be unpregnant! Yay!

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Catching up

I am long overdue for a post, so here is a quick overview of how the past couple weeks have gone:

Week 5

Bikram returned. Wayne was excited to be here and to take a class from Bikram on Monday night, but Bikram did not end up teaching.  Since his return, Bikram has not taught more than 1 class a week.  Bikram finally taught the recertification class later in the week. Almost 200 Bikram teachers returned for the weekend for their 3 year recertification. The class was VERY hot and over 2 hours. All the teachers crammed into the first three rows and the teacher trainees fit mat to mat in rows 4-10. It was a cramped class of almost 600.

Now that anatomy is over, we focused on dialogue full time from week 5 until just last week, sometimes going through 3 postures a day. That was a LOT of memorizing, because I, as I mentioned, did not memorize the dialogue beforehand. By the time we got to the floor series, it pretty much evened out among the people who had prepared before, and those that had not.  Most people that memorized before training, managed to get the standing series, and need to review the floor series.  And for those of us who were memorizing for the first time, it was coming very quickly. Having the dialogue already memorized makes it much easier to make it stick for posture clinic. But, I did not, so what I did do was spend a lot of time memorizing in the shower, during meals, on breaks, in class; just about every second of the day. My roommate began setting her alarm for 6am to start practicing.

At this point, I have 5 more weeks until I see Wayne, and I really miss him.

Week 6

4 more weeks until I see Wayne.  It is pretty hard.  Some will not be able to see family, husbands, children, for the full 9 weeks.  At this point, I can’t imagine that.

The yoga room has cooled down significantly. I would almost say it’s cold.  It feels warm when you first walk in, but then once you start to sweat, it isn’t hot enough to keep you warm, so you begin to feel cold.  I definitely do not prefer this to a warm class.  I feel nervous to pull or hurt myself when I am not warmed up, so I don’t push as hard. Bikram taught one class this week, and showed a Bollywood movie until 2:30am during the week.  I stayed awake for the entire movie- watching the movie, and reciting my dialogue.  It has become a lot easier to memorize the postures quickly.  I try to memorize 3 ahead on the weekends, and this weekend, I memorized 4.  The trick for me has been to become familiar with them over the week, and then go over the posture for the 2 hours during the meal breaks right before posture clinic. That way you have it right before you have to deliver it.  This works for the short-term, but there is a lot of reviewing and memorizing still to do to get those postures into the long-term memory.  I decided to go over full dialogue this weekend, and after Half Moon, it felt like I had not memorized the postures at all!  I don’t know where they went!

Group 2

By the end of week 6, we were finished with the standing series and fully onto the floor series in posture clinic.  Even though posture clinics felt a bit stressful, especially in the beginning, they became fun and it has been really awesome to get to know the people in my group. Group 2!  One girl from my class, Tziana, has grown so much.  She is from Zurich, and her first language is Swiss-German.  It has been very challenging for her to learn the dialogue in English and to present the postures in English in front of the class. Everyone is so supportive and she is doing so well.  She is going to be an amazing teacher. During one posture clinic, one of the visiting teachers asked her if she could say the dialogue in Swiss-German, just to see more of her personality when she is not so worried about the language and saying the words right.  She was amazing! She completely exploded!  Everyone was cheering and yelling and then some of us (yes me) cried 🙂 We don’t speak the same language, and most of the time we have no idea what the other one is saying, but we have fun I hope we stay good friends. (side note: today Tziana and I sat by the pool for a few hours practicing dialogue.  We reviewed Standing Head to Knee pose, and doing dialogue with her really helped me to get it! I will miss being around so many amazing people)

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Posture Clinic (or dialogue delivery performance practice hell)

We delivered 7 postures last week.  I have never learned to memorize so fast in my entire life.  I started off week four with a HUGE wake-up.  We actually DO have to do this dialogue after all, huh. Oh yes, you very very very do.  And correctly.  No pressure.  No, not at all, so why do yourself a favor and prepare before the teacher training?  That would be too stressful.  Oh yes, too stressful.

This is probably a good week to develop something like, say, an ear infection. Something I haven’t had since I was 12-ish.  It’s been a while, but you know it immediately.  That dull, throbbing, ache.  It radiates out the front of your ear, reaches around your neck, and grabs onto your face.  Apparently ear infections are quite common during the Bikram teacher training.  All the moisture from the humidity and the sweat make your inner ear a sweet little petri dish for bacteria. YUM!  I felt it creep up around 11pm during posture clinic, but I thought maybe it was from all the clapping and cheering (I sort of knew it wasn’t from that though, because I’m kind of a loud talker anyway, and I would have given myself a million earaches by now, and I don’t). By the time I got back to my room, I was sure of it, but I had to wait until the morning, because I knew if I went to urgent care that night, I wouldn’t get any sleep and I would still have to take class in the morning.  I was able to fall asleep and saw the nurse first thing in the morning.  She excused me to go to urgent care and I got meds right away. Phew!  All better! Aside from that, I’ve been solid as a rock. Physically.  Crying during every Savasana through week 4 is a separate thing 😉

What have we learned from this?  Use your time wisely on the weekends to update your blog and check Facebook. NO! Memorize your dialogue! and preferably before teacher training!

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Old Habits Die Very, Very Hard

I’ve noticed a pattern.  Maybe living out of a 100 sq foot hotel room for 9 weeks with a roommate will do that.

In particular, I’ve noticed that these behaviors follow me wherever I go.

Exhibit A:

My clothing finds itself in organized piles around the room.  There is, actually, an organized system in place, where items are placed either in the drawers (clean), on the bed (already worn but will wear them again, probably today), or on the floor (good for one more use but also I just shoved everything off the bed because I’m going to sleep now and I know which items are pretty clean and will reorganize everything back onto the bed in the morning). I now realize that this particular habit is not a function of my living space, awkward furniture arrangements, or lack space, but that I implement this same sort of system everywhere I go.  Anywhere that requires clothing, wearing of clothing, taking on and off of clothing, I will eventually designate separated piles of clothing articles based on their frequency of use, accordingly.  This has a funny way of playing out at home because Wayne and I have similar habits, but different systems.  His system goes something like, I’ll wear it until laundry day, and not put it back in the drawers until its clean again, and then I’m not totally sure it will make it back into the drawers, I might just put it back on.  My way is a bit more systematic, so as a household, we’ve defaulted to my system and I organize his clothing piles accordingly.

Another pattern came to my attention only today when my roommate left for the weekend. Almost immediately, I started leaving my things about, and not cleaning up after myself!  I told myself, I’ll do it in a little bit 🙂  After practicing dialogue with my neighbor, Anna, down the hall, I returned to dishes in the sink, food out on the… dresser (ha!), and clothing all over the room. It hit me, I do the same thing at home while Wayne is working.  I slob up the apartment all day and clean up right before he comes home.  I think, in some way, it gives me a sense of accomplishment, to clean up after my own messes 🙂 Like adding an item to your to-do list that wasn’t there before, but you’ve done it, and it feels good to have items on your list that are crossed off.

Exhibit B:

  

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Birthday Bliss!

I turned 31!

And to celebrate, my sweets came all the way to L.A. to be with me for my birthday.  We had a delicious dinner in Manhattan Beach, walked around town, practiced my dialogue together, a lot, ate hot fudge sundaes, drank special coffee drinks, laid on the beach, got my bangs trimmed, practiced more dialogue, and kept careful watch of the Manhattan Beach citizenry from the pier. It was the best weekend!

Wayne Spotting

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Taking It To The Limit

Ok, so I need to revise the advice of my previous post on how to prepare for Bikram yoga teacher training.  The heat is ON, in a big way, and I’m here to tell you that staring at your dialogue from across the room, and carrying it in your purse wherever you go, are not the most successful ways to get ahead.  In fact, it turns out, they are exactly the things you want to do if you want to be behind and then have a panic attack.

It was so easy to believe we would go through all the dialogue with the same ease and pace as we did half moon, which took us….. about 1 week and a 1/2.  I was sadly, sadly, mistaken.

Last week, week three, they turned on the heat.  We began posture clinic and broke up into groups where we delivered the poses in front of Bikram staff. Opposed to the previous weeks, where Bikram allowed several people to read from the paper if they couldn’t recall the words, the staff insisted you just keep talking.  You are teaching a class, and during a class, we cannot stop and say, “oh, shoot. Ok, wait. Ohh, ok, ok. Can I start again?” (I can tell you the answer will be no).  We delivered Backward Bending, Hands-to-feet, 3 parts of Awkward Pose, and Eagle.

I was very nervous to go up for Backward Bending and Hands-to-feet, and whatever I said up there, was definitely not impressive.  I can’t remember what I actually said because I sort of, blacked-out, but it wasn’t coherent I’m assuming because my three mock students didn’t move a whole lot at first.  I suffered through Backward Bending but pulled it together for Hands-to-feet, and managed to say something that got my mock students to do something that brought their hands near their feet.  Success!

I shed some of the nervousness and stage fright for Awkward pose, and found a voice in there that somewhat resembled a yoga teacher.  After this, I decided to go to the pro (to complain) and see what she can suggest. Thank goodness I got smart.  Shirley helped me so much! For just 10 minutes before the 9pm lecture, she helped me to begin memorizing Eagle pose. We met again in the morning before yoga class, and within 25 minutes, I could give the whole posture a good go.  She suggested I imagine the posture while I’m saying it, break the paragraphs up into groups to identify the main action, and then repeat the sentences over and over and over again. It worked!  She also suggested I imagine that I am talking to my niece, Mackenzie, kindly but sternly.  This helped me to not be so silly and to be more clear on my commands.  Over the weekend, Shirley and I met up at the pool and then walked to the park down by the LAX runway.  We yelled the dialogue over the noise from landing jets!  It helped!  I made it all the way to Balancing stick over the weekend.

Bikram was out of town so instead of movie nights and lectures on Indian philosophy, we began Anatomy.  Anatomy.  Yes, your yoga teachers know a few things about what’s going on in there.  At least they should.  We also listened to a fantastic lecture on pain; identifying pain, understanding the difference between pain and stretching, and how to properly perform the postures to avoid pain, prevent pain and injury, and modify poses if injury exists.

The highlight of my week was that my sweets came to visit 🙂 He even came to yoga class twice! He helped me to memorize dialogue and practiced dialogue with my roommate and I too, acting out the postures for us as the other person delivered dialogue.  He ran to the grocery store and helped make meals while I recovered from class and studied. On Friday night, we ordered room service, 3 desserts! Let me offer some very good advice on this: should you find yourself fortunate enough to make your stay at the Radisson at LAX, and also in need of something sweet, it is well worth it to take the 1 mile walk to Ralph’s for a pint of ice cream.  Wayne left on Saturday morning, which is fortunate, because it is very likely that I would have dragged him to the morning yoga class, which was the worst yet.  The heat was unbearable.  Many people had to leave the room, and a woman passed out on her mat. The nurses were able to stabilize her and remover her from the room.  I wasn’t able to finish the final 3 postures and it took me quite a while to recover.  After class, tons of people were laying outside of the yoga room on their mats.

I learned this week that the limit always changes. It changes with each challenge, and it changes day-to-day, minute to minute.  Taking those challenges one moment at a time, enables those boundaries to be met, and sometimes crossed.  Knowing when to make that move, and when to be comfortable just as the edge, is a skill.  It needs to be practiced and refined, and it requires the cooperation of body and mind. Let your body tell your mind a thing or two, and listen. Then, there is a chance of beginning to work on the soul.

Five Principles of Yoga:
Faith
Self-control, self-discipline
Determination
Concentration (without concentration determination is reckless)
Patience (without determination, patience is laziness)

A quick note on memorizing dialogue for those who are crazy enough to attend teacher training: Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.  Say your dialogue. Memorize it. Read it. Over and over and over again. And then over again.  This is the only way to memorize it. And despite how much you wish that it will just go into your brain somehow and then just be in there, take it from me, it won’t. Practice!

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Week 2 In Review

Babes back home

They say that everyone breaks down at some point during these 9 weeks.  Mine happened just at the beginning of week two.  I was riding on sheer exhilaration for finishing the first week, strong, and in one piece. The air was taken out of my sails when reality hit on Monday morning; there would be 6 more days, 10 more lectures, endless movies, and a bazillion more yoga classes, before the next weekend…. and then another 7 weeks.

And I was feeling pretty homesick for my babes back home.

I managed through Monday okay, but I fought a slight edge of negativity that was inching into my positive attitude.  Then, movie night. We had already been up late from Monday night’s movie,but Tuesday’s movie showing sent me over the edge. It was started at 11:45pm, after a 3 hour lecture. We were not allowed to fall asleep, or put our feet up, or sit on the floor, or stand against the wall, or stretch on the floor. There was nowhere to go but the bathroom. I went many times. Attendance is mandatory. I cried in the bathroom stall.  Yep. In the stall.

There are good, valuable lessons in all of it.  A short list includes; faith, self-control/discipline, determination, concentration, patience, and respect. But it is one of my biggest challenges to keep this in the forefront when exhaustion sets in. I have been on a pendulum of sleep deprivation and mental distress, to feeling rested and filled with energy: sometimes from minute to minute.

Room set-up

Roommate

Having an awesome roommate has made this whole experience so positive.  She is very dedicated to memorizing dialogue, and strict on making sure that I get it right, so she gets all the credit for any of the postures I have memorized so far. I anticipated one of the biggest challenges to be eating well since we are living out of a hotel room for 9 weeks, but we have managed to make sure our tiny fridge is stocked with fresh vegetables and have used every possible resource available to make sure our nutrition is a priority.  Cooking appliances are not allowed in the hotel rooms, but we have managed to eat well, and our system is bullet-proof.

Coralie cleaning "something" off of her foot at Manhattan Beach.

I hadn’t seen sunlight in a week, so my old roommate from New York, Coralie, who now lives in L.A., and came to pick me on Sunday.  We walked around Manhattan Beach, got some sun, and window shopped (okay, shop-shopped).  It was so nice to catch up, relax, and get some salty, sunny air.  Coralie stepped in something near the Manhattan pier, which was the only unpleasant point of the whole afternoon, but thanks to handy wipes, crisis was averted!

Everything that we have learned about Hinduism and traditional Indian culture is so fascinating and I have developed a brand new appreciation for the practice of yoga. We are learning to embrace our weaknesses and make them our strengths. Learning to love what we hate, and learning the make our biggest challenges, our biggest achievements. It is belonging to a community, and understanding how to belong to a community.  It is learning the meaning of discipline, motivation, dedication, and faith.

This is a personal journey, a group effort, and a global challenge.

In the Friday night yoga class, we were reminded to give thanks and appreciation for the forces that got us there, reminding us that we did not get there alone. There is always some reason, some way, some element that made us fortunate enough to get to this place, now.  I had a long list of thanks to give.

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Catching Some Zzzzzzz’s

I think I fell asleep during wind removing pose today… I can swear I had a very short dream.  Don’t ask me how I managed to continue pulling and stretching and lifting my legs, but I got a little bit of sleep.

For the second time, Bikram showed an Indian film, this time it was the story of Mahabharata.  I did try to understand the 2 hour lecture before the film started. I really, really did.  But at 10:30pm, after a full 4 hour lecture, and 2 Bikram classes, I had a really hard time finding my focus.  What I did find, was that EVERYTHING was absolutely hysterical.  I’m talking, laughing in church kind of funny.  I couldn’t help it.  And when I would look over at my roommate, the laughs would come up again! We couldn’t look at each other, which actually made me laugh more.  Having the urge to laugh in a silent room is really torture. Bikram enthusiastically told us the history of Indian life and religion, detailing the same story of Mahabharata that we would begin watching at 11:30pm. This film was 3 hours. It was not an easy watch folks.

We have been finding sleep when and where we can, which might mean during the middle of a posture, or on the floor between the rows of chairs during the midnight Bollywood movie.  I felt like I was 16 again, getting in trouble at a sleepover.  The staff walks around and wakes people up if they are slouching or sleeping, and makes everyone get off the floors who have found a spot to hide.

It is Day 2, Week 2. I feel like my body is operating outside of my head. It feels so sore and so tired, but it keeps walking down to that damn yoga room, and keeps taking me to lectures, I seriously don’t know how it is doing it.  More amazing, is that other people here, manage to look quite well put together.  Doing their hair and makeup regularly whenever outside of the yoga room, their outfits matched and unwrinkled.  I can barely manage to get there with my pants on so I will have to swap secrets with these ladies (well I guess it is considered a swap if they are also wanting to know how on earth I achieve this look.  I’ll tell them, don’t try so hard to match your socks, completely neglect your hair, and pay no attention whatsoever to the bags under your eyes.  That really should be their first 3 steps).

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Week One: 10 Classes, 7 Days, And A Whole Lot More.

I overpacked.  I’m not sure if I packed too much, or just too many weird things, for instance, 10 sponges.  When I arrived at the hotel, I had no idea what I had in my luggage.  The past 24 hours of packing and spending time with my honey, were an anxiety filled, blur.  I was fully aware that there is no green allowed during this training, a request I found absurd before arriving, and now feel respectful and understanding of this one small wish.  It is said, if you cannot honor this one simple request, what will you be able to do in life?  Even though I packed, unpacked, and repacked, about 4 or 5 times, green items somehow managed their way to L.A., but they have not made their way out of my hotel room.

As it turns out, This Is So HARD!

Hot room on Day 1.  420 people practice yoga in this room twice a day. Im in this picture! The black line makes it look like a mirror, but it is electrical tape going down the center of the room where I am standing. That is actually how huge the room is.

But, I learned that I am so much stronger than I thought, too. During the first week, the temperature in the yoga room was up to 120 degrees. It’s hot. There are large fans in front of the heaters to circulate the hot air around the room, but as I figured, there are no doors or windows to open. Every now and then I can swear that I have possibly detected a slight breeze, but it may just be people moving around me.  During the first few classes, about 20% of the class had to leave the room, either on their own, or with assistance.  Some were carried out, passed out, throwing up, or having anxiety attacks.  Bikram’s first class was very intense. It was hot and he held the postures forever. Bikram teaches the 5pm classes and they are consistently 2 hours long. Morning classes are not taught by Bikram, and they are kept to the usual 90 minutes. I was careful to not push my limits this week while my body is adjusting. The schedule and the environment are new and Bikram asked us to be careful and to go easy.

This training is kindly referred to as the “Bikram Torture Chamber”.  For me, this term applies not only to the yoga room, but also to the lecture room because we spend more than 8 hours a day there, in conference room-style chairs, sometimes until 3:30 in the morning watching Ballywood or Hindu movies. All aspects of the 9 week training are compulsory.  The movies are actually very good, but very hard to embrace at 2am, sitting upright after having already done 2 Bikram classes and stayed up until 2am the night before.

During the first week, I stood up in front of the entire room- 420 students and Bikram himself- and delivered ‘Half Moon Pose.’  As soon as I stepped on stage, I forgot the entire thing (quick addendum to advice on planning; definitely look at your dialogue before you come, a lot). I had some assistance from the front row, but Bikram was kind and said, “See how happy you are? Just the one posture you finish and you so happy. Yes it is true. You so happy just to finish one. Imagine when you finish all the posture, how happy.”  It was true. I was SO happy to be done with that.  For the rest of the training, we will work in smaller groups during Posture Clinic to learn about the postures and work on dialogue.

It is clear that this process will bring out challenges for most people. Each person seems to be working through their own unique challenges in a different way.  Some are challenged by the heat, but have a lot of self-discipline during lectures.  Others can stay awake through every movie, and need to leave the room several times during yoga.  Some can memorize dialogue quickly but have a difficult time delivering the dialogue in front of other people, while some have amazing presense but no focus to learn the postures.

I will be honest.  I did not think I liked Bikram Choudhury.  All the things I had heard and read made me believe my practice was separate from the tradition. That is not to say that I have not had a love/hate relationship with him this week- love (inspiring lecture!) Hate (3am obligatory Bollywood movie)- but what I have learned is that I did not know anything about Bikram Choudhury.  We learned about Yama, and Nyama this week.  What to do, and what not to do.  Traditional Indian culture teaches what Not to do (Nyama), not, what to do (Yama). When you can’t love, at least do not hate. When you cannot tell the truth, at least do not lie. And when you do not know, at least be quiet enough to learn.  That is what I did this week.

On Friday, Bikram surprised us with the night off after the 5pm class! I did not know what to do with myself! I was so happy that I ran in circles all night deciding how to spend my time, and then went to bed. After morning class on Saturdays we have the rest of the weekend off.  I somehow managed to completely fill all of my time off over the weekend so I am learning early on how to better manage my precious time off.  Sleep is on the itinerary.

I am so happy that week one is over, but there are still 8 more weeks to go. 8 weeks is so many days and so many Bollywood movies, and so many yoga classes, and so many lectures, and so much time away from my honey.  The hotel charges a fee to accept packages, so I will warmly think of all the chocolates that you really wanted to send but had to eat for me instead.  Yes, when I am in my darkest hour, the thought of all the chocolates eaten on my behalf will definitely drive this bus.

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