April 29, 2012 - Week Two

April 29, 2012 It was an interesting week, mainly because I struggled so much physically early in the week during my classes. Every single class, by the second posture (out of 26) the combination nausea and lightheadedness would take over so that every second, and I mean literally every second I would struggle with every ounce of my being not to sit out a posture. Time elongated so a 90 minute class was like three hours. It kind if seems unfair that when you feel the worse time slows and when you feel the best it speeds up, it would be much nicer if it was the other way around. Bikram teaches the afternoon class and if I haven't described the room, let me give you a sense. The room has about 10 lines parallel to the front mirror where you put your mat. It probably holds 40-50 people with about 2 feet in between each. Then at the front is this platform of about 15ft. by 15ft' from which the instructor teaches. The platform is about 10th off the ground. When Bikram teaches, there is this big chair he sometimes sits on, but often he is up and about animated on the stage. He can see everyone, but pretty much if you are within the first 3 rows and within about 10-12 bodies on either side of the middle you are in prime site for him to go after you during class for doing the posture wrong. By wrong it does not mean that you are just not good at it because you are inflexible, old injuries, body destiny, but because you are not precise in your posture. As he says 99% right is 100% wrong. No compromise on the exactness at whatever stage you are at. To further explain the system, you are assigned into a group and everyday you get a line assignment so you move up and back throughout the 9 weeks, no hanging out in the back away from the instructor but mainly Bikram. When the doors open people tend to set up furthest from the podium if they are struggling and have a weak practice to avoid the potential ire. This weak I was in row 4 moving up to 2. I managed to get a spot just outside the main line of sights while I was having these terrible battles with my head and stomach. What makes it hard is that you spend the whole time trying to manage how much energy to spend on each posture and which changes of where your head drops might cause you to faint that you can't focus on all those things that allow you to balance and do the postures. As I sit here today, I would make myself smile sometimes at the height of my distress, because I was aware that this was making me more compassionate and more aware of what my students sometimes feel. You would not believe all the time you have for chatter in your head when you can't focus. Usually I just focus only the words of the dialogue or some particular thing within a posture I am working on say like pulling up on my quad to lock my knee better, or trying to get my 2 shoulders in one line and not tilting my head etc.etc. but as bad as I was feeling all I got was my brain just chatting away with itself throughout. "this sucks" "better not kick out" "ughhh think I'm going to puke" "you can do it stay up" "smile, this is what you came for" "I can last today but what if I can' figure out what is causing this...don't think I can take 9 weeks of this" "what a beautiful bow" "the poor people beside me, sorry, I'll try not to fall out so much and move in between the postures, but if I don't I'll go down" etc etc. Monday to Wednesday, 2x a day I would just dread going to class and then barely drag myself back from class. I get trying different things to drink etc, but when you are sick to your aroma hit is hard. I did notice that I felt immediately revived after my Bikram Balance electrolyte drink after class. I thought it might be a blood sugar thing, why I was so weak and had tried some OJ, but that had made me very sick to my stomach during class. Well without going on any longer I tried drinking the Bikram Balance before class as well as after and it seems to have solved the trick. I still mess up sometimes, like I was hungry one morning and ate too may rice cakes with a banana too close to class. Overall by Thursday I seemed to have gotten my electrolytes right and what a difference it was to have a normal class. The heat has not bothered me at all at least with the temp they have chosen to put it at least for now. Now let me give you a little sense of what the week was like outside of the class disaster. Everyone seems to be adjusting well and people are starting to form little groups of people they are most comfortable hanging out with. Just like in class, most of us like one side of the room vs. the other and so you tend to get to know people that likgo to about the same area even if their lines move day to day. You find people that are very diligent about studying the dialogue and others well not so much. I feel really good about knowing most of the dialogue to some degree and then it really helps me lock it in by working with someone just learning it. Bikram was around this week and then he goes away next week so we had the final endless sessions of sitting through NIM listening to each person deliver the dialogue for the first posture. It took about 3 hours for 50 people so that means we did about 30 hours of this. Well it is 6:00 am now on Sunday, and I'm not too thrilled with my writings to you all this morning so I'm going to go out for my run and hope the thoughts flow a little better when I return. Just back from my run and feel like a million bucks, so much better than when I left. It is why I continue to run every day even given the high physical demands from the class, lack of sleep, different diet. When I run it is so calming and I just love to breathe the air in and out in and out. I often listen to an audiobook, sometimes,for those of you that read a lot you know how nice it is to lose yourself in a book, totally out of your head for a while,same thing, other times I'll have the audiobook playing but my brain is just floating on it's own thoughts so when I get back I will have to replay the chapter. The. neighborhoods in LA remind me so much of my home growing up in Miami, it was somewhat nostalgic this morning, I could almost put myself back in time to when I ran at home, well enough of that I'm sure you care more about what it is like here. This is the daily schedule: 8:00 am sign up and 8:30 class - usually get back to the room about 10:30 10:30 am - Noon - break where you eat breakfast/lunch 12:00 sign up, 12:30pm - 4:00pm lecture or posture clinic 4:30 sign up 5:00pm- 7:00pm class 7:00pm-9:00pm rest/dinner 9:00 sign up 9:30 pm to whenever lecture and when Bikrams here, movies So this week we had 2 movies, I'm becoming a fan of the Bollywood productions. They are at least 3 hours long, but if I can find a spot in the room where I can see the subtitles but also doze off occasionally Without the staff busting you then it works ok. The chairs are really stiff but in the outside you can sometimes turn a chair and make it a foot rest. This week we had 2 movies, enjoyed both. One took us to 2:00pm the other until 3:15pm and then it takes a little time to settle in to bed. Makes it rough getting up at 5:30am. Thankfully I have a room by myself so I can get up, talk to Dan, and go out for my run, all before class. Bikram spoke at most evening lectures at least for a little bit before we did the endless half moon pose by everyone. We had another guy speak a couple of afternoons who was in the original teacher training class and owns 4 or 5 studios in San Francisco. He was excellent in doing the More thought to thought progression translation of Bikram speak which tends to jump around all over the place. Also some good stories and some interesting information on heating systems, bacteria, rugs etc etc. Bikram seemed to be in an exceedingly good mood all week. I just love listening to him. For those of you going to see him in Boston, try and sit up close enough to see his eyes. His eyes reflect the youth and enthusiasm in each minute that you see in a young boy that is looking a big tractor, or massive dirt moving machine. They sparkle and dance with each word. When I was thinking about it this week, what amazes me the most is that he still teaches and speaks about this yoga almost every day sometimes multiple times and every single time he does it totally present in the moment. No going through the motions even though it is probably the kazillionth time he has done it. You can tell that communicating with whatever his audience is at the time or whatever the class is the most important thing to him. I hope I'll always carry this as a teacher even if I teach 3 classes in a day or many days in a week. Also I will try to remember it for other times when My mind is somewhere else when I am talking. He can say some outrageous things, but I find them pretty funny for the most part and he will tell you the truth, even though it may hurt. You know when someone gets a new haircut and it looks really bad, but when they ask you, you find a way not to hurt their feelings, well Bikram will not only tell you it looks bad, he will find some way to say it that will leave you no doubt and would definitely sting. One of the big movies we watched dealt with discrimination. Bikram is very big on no discrimination. He says he makes people hurt does not matter, old, young, rich, poor, religion, race, color, weight. He kills us all. And that is so true. A couple of other things before I go, every day during class I learn little nuggets of new information on how to make my postures more precise. It is hard to remember them and I'm sure everyone hears their own little nuggets, totally different than mine.I am trying to figure out how to organize my notes so they will be references in the future and not just this mass mess of scribbled words. I leave with this Yoga is very simple but so very difficult to perfect. It has 3 elements: Yoga is holding in stillness, breathing, normal and savasana. When one becomes successful in asana then pranayama is perfected. With pranayama the veil that hides becomes lifted and the mind becomes fit for meditation. Posture-stillness, breath, meditation. These are the keys to the yoga. Until next week. PS thanks for all your comments and support on facebook. I can't express how much they helped. It is immeasurable. 1