April 11, 2012

April 11, 2012   Last Thoughts


It's all happening so fast now, what seemed to be a glacial movement of time for so long now seems to be moving so quickly that i am trying to catch up with it. 


I am overwhelmed by all the support and well wishes i have received from all my friends at the studio. I can't believe how many people showed up at the send off party at the fabulous Camp Wingate-Kirkland and how many more expressed how they had conflicts but wished they could be there. Mark and I will have so much more power and energy to get us through the tough times than i'm sure many of the other trainees because of everyone. these last couple of days, it has been tough saying goodbye, i'm sure i'll be a total wreck on Friday but knowing how much you all will be there in spirit means a alot. i'm sure I'll be calling on you when Bikram is telling some story in the middle of standing separate leg forehead to knee...yeah...throat choked breathing normal for anything more than 20 seconds will probably mean passing out. But now as i sit here I'm thinking, OK so I breathe through my nose, so should it matter that my throat is choked, cause just choking your throat shouldn't affect your breathing all that much. See even writing my blog, i'm still trying to figure it all out. i'll have to test my hypothesis and figure this out. 


I'm as ready as I think i can be. I say that because i only know i'm going to be pushed way beyond my comfort zone, and for all of you that know me as a person that loves patterns, repetition, and a day that unfolds pretty much as expected there is no doubt i'm going to have to adjust to nothing being the same, day to day, hour to hour, minute by minute. But i've already surrendered to that in my head, it won't be easy at first but i'm sure with a little practice the first couple of weeks it will be easier.


You know i don't have any real goals for my practice. i'd love to avoid injury or body breakdown, but not sure that will even be possible. Even in my practice today, most days i totally zone out and just listen to the teacher and respond to every command to my maximum ability. Maybe its my family background where we marched to every order from my very strict father, or maybe it is my athletic background where I responded to the authoritative commands of my coaches; and a just a general fear/respect for authority figures...or maybe it is just an innate need to please authority figures. I always think of myself as a border collie...a working dog that seeks to please its master by working hard and responding to commands. I'm not the Labrador or similar breed that gets love from their master cause they are always so cute and charming. Nor am I those breeds (often little) that kind of do whatever pleases them and demand that their owners cater to them. But what i'm trying to say is that i can't turn that off, so if a teacher is holding me in postures barking out commands, I don't have any defensive mechanisms to say I don't want to go there, at least not usually, who knows when i go to teacher training. In someways i hope i don't cause that means i'm still able to zone out and so the time goes by very very fast. Those few times when i have a real bad class and i can't get out of my head ohhh the time is like 3 hours not 90 minutes.


Last thing, one thing i want to experience is some type of emotion in camel pose. How many times have i heard how people laugh, cry uncontrollably etc., call up all sorts of stuff. It's never happened to me. Maybe I'll get pushed to that place. kind of like seeing the spots, or fainting, its a cool thing to experience in its twisted sort of way.


Next post will be my first one from Bikram's torture chamber.