May 27, 2012 Weeks Five and Six

May 27, 2012 Promised myself I would write this morning, Sunday before I headed out for the day at the beach. Last week I decided to write my blog when I got back, and as you can tell it never happened. So the last two weeks have been more of the same. Posture clinics where you deliver the dialogue and a couple of classes a day. While more of the same and a pretty regular routine they each bring something special where you either learn more about yourself, your practice, types of teachers you respond best to, things that push your buttons, deep conversations, how differently people perceive the same event. It really is an amazing experience to be in a bubble. The discoveries, affirmations, or just subtle new lights shed on old views of oneself is really interesting. Somethings things hit you smack in the face and other times you reflect or in talking with a close friend you look back on things and just see things kind of different. It has been fun mostly. Well on to more of what actually has transpired. I think for me what I notice most of what I get so. much pleasure in, is helping others with learning their postures and delivering them. At first I helped people in actually memorizing, which I still do, but most y it is amazing how quickly everyone has learned what works for them and for some it is just a lot of time. What I find most rewarding though, is helping people to get the confidence and the comfort to actually teach the dialogue rather than just try and spit it out from an imaginary page in their mind. I helped the is one older guy, Polish, so English is not his first language although he is fairly fluent in it. He would stand up and just freeze and sweat and mumble and oh jt was painful to watch. He is not in my group but every posture we are paired with different groups. So one day after I seen him, I saw him sitting out in the hour before we had to go to class and I asked him to say his next posture for me, well he kind of gave me all sorts of excusses etc. so I just strted working with him and we laughed and when he quit fretting about it he had no problem, so I boosted his confidence a lot, and sent him on his way with a pen of mine telling him that before he got up he had to click the pen to remind him of me smiling and him smiling and that he can do it. He said it was the best one he did, and that day he started to release some of the anger from PSTD that he has from when he was in the Polish army when he was young. anyway, he turned the corner and now has come out of his he'll a little. I worked with another girl who is French. Her trouble was more of confidence in her English and so she would go so painfully slow in spitting out the dialogue. So again we worked, we laughed, and she saw she could do it. I can pick out specific things to focus on to help them and because they trust me, it just works. Then I've worked a little with people in my own group. Not for big extended periods of time but just little things to help them with their dialogue. See, I have been able to see them progress and hear all their individual feedback as well as see all sorts of great teacher trainees deliver their dialogue. I'm by no means the best. Some are just naturals and amazing. But through this process, every time we deliver the dialogue we are critiqued or given helpful suggestions by current teachers that come back and give feedback. Some have been just fabulous and I've learned a lot, others well...not so much. One of the drawbacks is that without anyone consistently looking at the progress and all that has been suggested or tried, the trainee can become confused and kind of lost. So for a coup,e of them I have kind of grounded them and given them specific tips so when they finish delivering their postures they look first to me to see how they did before they turn to hear from the teacher. Of course they always get better and better. It is mostly just finding ways to get them to believe in themselves. Nothing has given me more pleasure here than to see people just blossom and become ready to teach but more importantly for them to believe they are ready to teach. So one of the things I have learned about myself is that I really love to teach and that in some ways it is an independent passion, and not just a byproduct of the passions I have. Thanks Shannon. Boss-Bikram was back last week and was in rare form on a Monday class. He was in the best mood and of course it is partly because my class is awesome and really works hard and is pretty technically proficient but mostly cause we try really hard. Anyway, the whole class he was telling jokes, all mostly with sexual innuendo and we were all just laughing and cracking up the whole class. Class flew by. It was great fun. We had him again on Wednesday and this time he was more back to yelling at specific people when they do the postures wrong. He cracks me up when he exclaims real loud...I HHHAAATTEEE LLLAAAAZZY PEOPLE. You don't want to be on the front end of that. This day we did the beginning part of triangle about 15 times because we had a coup,e of people that could not bring their arms down at the same time they took the step out to the right. So we did it over and over. That night we had a lecture on yoga and other exercise followed by some violent action Bollywood movie until about 2:00am. I did not sleep through it but I shut my eyes during every minute of it and just kind of rested them and me so I was not all that tired the next day. A lot of people stay up to study several hours after we are released for the night...usually 11:00 on non movie or non lecture nights. I go right to bed cause I am a morning person. I get up about 5:00 every morning and study a little then go out to run at 5:45. Dan call me at 7:00as he is on his own adventure travel long down the Mississippi river starting in Michigan on a solo self supported bike trip. It is fun to hear how his long day went. Riding 100 mile days in iffy weather is a ton harder than doing a couple of yoga classes in the heat. Which by the way, the hear does not bother me at all any more and I'm back to not needing any water in class, although I usually bring a little in and take a sip after eagle and savasana but just merely wetting my lips. Oh other things that have happened. We had Rajshree, Bikrams wife finally arrive after having been abroad travel long during the first few weeks of our training. I have experienced a ton of teachers here, but she is by far my favorite. She makes me work so hard but she has such kind sweet spirit in her teaching manner that it is such a p,easier to take class. That element of trust which is thrown out so much about the student being able to trust the teacher to be willing to try going beyond the limits they have set for themselves as well as to be pushed by the teacher in ever subtle ways well I understand it much better now. It is special and I'm sure takes many years or else it is just a gift. so every time she appears on the podium I am delighted. One class she spent reminiscing in between postures of the early days in teacher training. In the early days it was just she, Emmy and Bikram that held every class and did every posture clinic. It sounded like she was the gentle nurturing soul to Bikrams strength and power. A great combination. Oh last thing I guess before I forget. I made myself standout again which I so regret after I do it, but I could not help myself. We had a speaker for 2 days, who is A body work specialist. He deals with fascia, the tissue that binds your muscles and bones. Anyway, he also talks a lot about emotional release etc etc. Well He tended to trash and put down Things in order to support what he believed in. So for example he said you thought all your life that the skeleton supported you but I'm telling you that is wrong. the skeleton would just collapse without the fascia that binds it, fascia really supports you and he showed some skeleton collapsing etc. Well you could make the same argument against fascia if you phrased it the same way. Instead of saying that humans are a complex system in which the skeletal system, the muscular system, and the fascia that binds them all support the body he wanted his to be superior so he trashed the others. BS. But that's not what I objected to. He went on a whole tangent this time googn off on how sports and exercise and then he made the cardinal sin...he talked about rhow running is supposed to be good for your heart, but Jim Fixx who witenagemot the book on running died while running and he mentioned 2 or 3 similar examples of people dying in a marathon and Pete Maravich collapsing on th basketball course. Well few things can set me off more than this most grossly abused means of supporting an argument. So I walked to the bathroom ato let out some steam but then I could not let go and I raised my hand and I told him that it was a bull sht argument to pick out anecdotal incidents as a means of making a broad statement against running. And for every person he named I could name him 100 that run in their 80s and 90s. And while I don't personally know any I could bet that someone has died while doing yoga. That is life and it si stupid to make single correlations as a broad state,mention of fact. So he asked me if I thought fit people could be unhealthy and I told him I could not answer it unless he defined fit and unhealthy because my guess is that we would not have similar definitions. So people clapped for me. The a little later he again trashed running because it was addictive and people loved the high it gave them. So I yelled out, well we get the same thing from yoga. Anyway, it always bothers me when people feel the only way to support their "thing" is to trash the other. Like I told the guy, there is a lot of bad things about running but not all of it is bad and what we all look for is a right balance. You know, he trashed the western medical world for not giving any credence to alternative medicines and then proceeded to trash every bit of anything other than what he believed. In my view he was just a different side of the same coin as the doctors. We will never get it right unless each side begins to believe in the value of the other as an integrated means to best serve the human being, but each side feels they can only boost themselves by trashing the other, all or nothing. Well off my soap box. Afterwards many many many people came up to thank me for speaking up that they were all just boiling in their seats. Of course for every one showing support there were darts that were sent my way. I prefer anonymity, luckily in a day, I could sink back into it again. Went to the beach yesterday studied dialogue, relaxed and had a beer. Special friends make life special. Today more if the same. I better get ready. We have all shifted our focus pretty quick lately to thinking about getting ready to teach our first class. I think next week we will try putting the standing and floor series together to see how teaching the class would be. I think I thanked everyone on Faceboook, but I just remembered that cause I did not write last week I did not thank everyone for my gift box from the studio. I was really overwhelmed with all the very very unique and specificlally thoughtful gifts and kind words. Cried cried cried several times that day thinking of how really lucky I am and how special you each are to me. Looking so forward to seeing you all and standing on that podium when I return...and actually getting to see your practices instead of just glimpses on days I'm distracted.

May 13, 2012 Week Four

May 13 , 2012 Week Four Week Four - So difficult to sum up really. In some ways it was living in Hell without the devil in residence...Bikram was away all weak and returns on Monday. It was actually an OK week except for about half...well maybe a little more than half my classes which were an interesting exploration of will and determination or maybe stupidity, followed with a continual intellectual assessment of trying to figure out what I can adjust to ease the stress. so in that sense it was well...not too bad even if it sucked in the exact moment. Let me explain...So on any class where the ratcheted up the heat; and for those of you in my favorite studio of the whole world as a means of comparison...think of the hottest most humid day packed with bodies and then imagine it about 20 degrees hotter and if it were possible to get over 100% humidity, I'd claim we did it, but since it is not, I guess I'll concede to 100%. So in all my classes I got to the floor and while a little shaky by tree, I was OK. So you would think once you got to the floor you would be golden, that is what I thought by I experienced something totally different. I love the spine strengthening exercises, the next 4 so I work pretty hard then when I got to fixed firm and tortoise which can be the kind of rest postures if you need it I could barely lift my body up the floor on the sit up, then by camel I was doing some serious dry heaves, I love rabbit and it feels so good so I would do that but then could barely lift my head up for separate leg stretching and then could not even do spine twist or the breathing. Many of these days there was a steady stream of people out of the yoga room and several were carried out. Note: For those that think this is dangerous, well everyone recovers by the next class, at least well enough even if they lay there a lot. You are always next to people feeling better or feeling worse. I consider it my challenge to keep smiling and supporting those around me as I suffer and they suffer next to me, when they see me go on, they try harder to just stay in the room and we smile and give thumbs up, whisper words of encouragement and it is a powerful element of my classes this week. Well to continue the physical saga, so I started asking people about what they were doing to cope and got some suggestions on some supplements, but pretty much many many people barely the first set of all the standing postures exerting little effort, working more on precision of the early foundation movements, so I think I have just been going as usual, working as hard as I can on each posture. But I tried the last day working more on precision with less of the movement and it seemed to help. I also started bringing in Gatorade along with my water. On the last day one of my wonderful beautiful TT from Spain said that she was really struggling and now takes a full 15 minutes on the final savasana before going back to her room. She said that no matter how tough her class was it leaves her totally refreshed and ready for the rest of the day and not dreading the next class. So I tried it on Saturday, it felt great but it is hard to say as the whole class was great because the heat was more down in the 110-115 level. Did I tell you guys that I have to make sure I have my light titanium glasses on instead of my metal framed glasses because my metal knees get too hot and feel like they are burning my arms for half moon and separate leg head to knee. Anyway, a little more on this exhausting feeling. So After class I lay on my mat for about 5 minutes and then try to drag myself out of the hot room, step step...pause, drop my head...breathe; step step...pause, drop head, breathe, breathe again, breathe one more time, step step...you get my drift. I get into the yoga sign up room sit down, recover another 5 minutes and then drag myself upstairs where a shot of orange juice just boom is like a hit of energy. So I am trying to remember to bring some OJ with me for after class. Too bad it would make me sick during class. Many things to try this week with suggestions form others. Have to be careful with too many electrolytes cause they give you the runs and I think I would prefer fatigue and dry heaves to that. Oh there were a few classes that were normal cause the heat was lower. One of the fun things is experiencing all the different styles of teachers. There have been a couple which were universal favorites but funny how many of the others some people really connect too and others don't like at all. It is great to experience them all. Wish I could remember all the motivating cool things they say but it is like they hit the erase button on that tape and so I'll have to come up with my own. But these teachers, most with many years of experience have some great lines and motivational reminders about the practice and life. The other part of the week was pretty good. We had anatomy with Dr. P which just kept getting better and better and was in bed by midnight every night. We went through a lot of postures and am totally impressed with everyone that did not learn the dialogue before hand. I did have an interesting and what I considered was Abadan experience initially but now a very good one having experienced it. I know the dialogue on the postures we are doing very well because I help others learn it line by line so it just locks in what I already know so I've not had any problem delivering it. Well I was doing bow pose and did not really connect with the teachers critiquing our group that day. Then on the person before I delivered mine they were given a critique of gesturing too much. Well I tend to talk with my hands and gesture a lot it kind of helps me express my words, he said use your voice to express not your hands. So I tried not to use my hands and about mid way through the posture because I was focusing on this, the dialogue just went out of my head, but I just kept giving commands, a little out of order and missing command and repeating one again before I went back on track. I was pretty disappointed in myself but my group is super supportive and by the next day I was really glad that I experienced that because I'm sure I will again in posture clinic as well as many many times in my teaching life and I realize it is no big deal, if you know the posture, your students don't know at all, just be confident in what you are telling them and if you know the posture then no problem. Our group of 20 is fabulous. We have some real superstars which is wonderful because I kind of like being a B student and not the A student. We are all so loving and supportive of each other that one of the teachers critiquing us said she could just be with us every day and we need to share this energy and support with every group we get paired with. She just said it over and over. Dan has been here this weekend. What a wonderful break. You can talk with someone on the phone every day but there is nothing like spending 24 hours a day just hanging out to make you feel centered and grounded. We ate some nice meals and a cold brewski at dinner one evening was so pleasurable. Dan leaves by the time I get back from class on Monday am. Then he is off to his own adventure, flying back to Boulder to say a last goodbye to Jake, Michelle, and little Mac, before he drives to the head of the Mississippi and then goes on a 4 week self supported (carries tent , sleeping bag, cook materials, etc on his bike)journey. Yeah I am a little worried but you know just like this yoga, what's life if you don't push the boundaries just a little. Only one life to live and at our ages you got to do what you can when you can cause as the famous line from balancing stick goes..."if you're late it's over" Next week Bikram returns and I know it really will be he'll. 3:00pm bedtimes and 120 minute Bikram taught classes, but now I'm a little more worried about those because I have been doing so poorly physically. Well all I can do is trust that he will see that I always do the best I can...and you know I do believe that he does, well 95% belief anyway. Thanks for all the kind emails and Facebook words of support. I was a little slack on responding this week. Sorry about that. PS Liana (my sister) I know you are worried but life is good and I'm fine and this really is not a cult...promise. Next wee So that's the physical part

May 6, 2012 - Week Three

May 6, 2012 Week Three Well I wrote a lot this morning but it is gone now so I will start over, just as well as I was not in the mood to write this morning. A little bit about how the body is holding up...well pretty good at the start of the week, seemed to have gotten by hydration and electrolytes, eating routines etc. all established so that it was working. Round about late Wednesday and into Thursday my glutes, hip flexors, periformis...all those muscles in your but that move your leg up and down tightened up into a big knot. So much so, my fantasy was to have a massive body builder type masseuse, drive his elbow into the knots until it hurt, I think about it all the time, oh to have some release from the tightness. Today is my day off from yoga and it does feel a little better today but I know after one class I'll be suffering again and who knows how much worse it might get but I'll cross that bridge when I get there. It seemed I'd been getting real used to the heat cause I have not been drinking anything in class, the water gets so hot it kind of is disgusting to me so I just wait until I get back to the room...? BUT...play the JAWS theme song...just when you think you are safe...On Saturday, which is our last class of the week and last week the heat was pretty low and the class was fantastic tons of energy, this week the exact opposite happened, I was dripping in the first posture and I hardly ever drip and probably don't really break a good sweat until about the 6th posture so I knew right off it would be a tough class. Well all around me people were down on their mats sitting out postures, which was more similar to the first week with plenty of people leaving the room and 3 people being carried out by staff. One guy said he has a thermometer on his water bottle and it hit the max 120 degrees early. It looked like a war zone, but that being said, plenty of people thought it was only "a little hotter" and had normal classes. Just goes to show that it really is about each of us individually, how hydrated we are, sleep deprived, mentally weak, etc it is not really about the room. I hear this type temp is what we should expect all next week so I bought a bigger water bottle that I can put some ice in and hopefully make myself drink a little through class. A little about what went on this week as Bikram was going out of Rowan so we did not see him all week except he came in to watch a Bollywood movie at midnight on Tuesday with anyone that wanted to stay up and watch with him...ahhhhh no Thank you. we continue to take classes 2x a day and will throughout the 9 weeks. In between the two classes and after the evening class until about midnight we wither have lecture or posture clinic. We have been having anatomy lectures and the guy, Dr.Preddy is fabulous. He is an ER doctor in Las Vegas so you know he has to have it on the ball plus he teaches anatomy for colleges as well. He is really funny and interesting and gives very good overview of everything letting us know what part will be on our final test so we can free ourselves up to listen rather than write down one of a million anatomical parts. We we are not in lecture we are in posture clinic. There are 26 postures in Bikram yoga and each posture has a very specific dialogue or script, so it is like learning a 40 page poem. Similar to some poems it is not straightforward English and we call it Bikramese. Sometimes you want to translate his strange phrasings of English into proper grammar etc. but you know they find that students hear the strangely worded grammatically incorrect phrases better so it seems to serve the purpose. In addition to the exact words you are give some additional phrases to substitute in and each teacher while sticking very close to the dialogue makes the class unique after teaching a few years. For us rookies it is all about the strict dialogue for a while and the dialogue is ultimately your reference anytime someone has a question about how to do something, the answer is always in the dialogue. No matter how often you recite the poem, it sings a different melody depending on the day and where you are in your practice. I hope I never forget that and in mNy years to come continue to read it as if for the first time. Speaking Of many years to come...I really like Bikram and I appreciate him for all he brings and within that I accept him totally for who he is, the parts I like and the parts that are a little off the wall, Emmy on the other had I idolize and put on a pedestal. Emmy you might recall is the 86 year old teacher that looks, thinks, acts, communicates as if she were 60 and that is absolutely not an exaggeration. On Tuesday she taught a very intense focused class. Emmy is not about dialogue, she is about getting us the future representatives of the yoga to understand and do each posture with EXACT PRECISION. She gets all over us when we don't. I understand she is the only one that can give it to Bikram. She works with him on his yoga and the Advance series just like she does us, no slack. Well after teaching a 100 minute class and then staying to answer questions, she came back 2 hours later imppecably dressed and gave a 90 minute lecture on pain and injuries and then proceeded to have probably 100 students come up so she could correct each one on triangle, most of them requiring her to physically pushing their hips forward etc. for another 2 hours. I was just sitting in my seat and was exhausted. Back to the dialogue and posture clinics. During posture clinics you must perform the dialogue of each posture. We are going one by one and are on posture 5 now. For posture clinics, our class is divided into groups of about 20 each. You stay with the same group throughout the 9 weeks. For every clinic you are paired with another group and then each trainee stands up and delivers the dialogue for that posture in front of the 2 groups using 3 other trainees doing the posture as if they were the class. So first of all you need to make sure you have memorized it, then you work on delivering it so things like energy, voice inflection, exactness of the dialogue, body language wtc Teachers fly in from across the country and give you this type of feedback on how to improve your delivery or what homework you have for the next posture. My first homework was to relax a little more and don.'t be so serious, my second was to use a little more body language, my third was to help other people. It is all very dependent on what the teacher likes or sees but I have found all the feedback not just for me but for others to be very very helpful. It is all a process of finding your style and U think with every posture I am finding that a tiny bit more. Some people really struggle with the dialogue. Many are finding out they have to spend a lot more time going over and over it and most are definitely rising to the challenge. Others have terrible stage fright and despite knowing it just completely blank out and break into a cold sweat. It is really remarkable the amazing improvements for this that are struggling form posture to posture. Of course I know I must be on an emotional edge from being over tired and lack of sleep because every time one of these struggling group mate stands up and wills their way despite great fear one step bereft and better I am brought to tears. Today being Sunday, my only day off I have spent 6 hours helping people with dialogue. I so love doing it. Nothing make me feel so happy and satisfied than to help go over and over and over. I like to try different things on them to see what connects and I force them to say it loud cause i've found saying Aline loud takes so much more energy that it causes your brain not to be able to stay ahead towards the next line and then you freeze. So I make them practice saying it loud because I also find that all of them memorize it but sometimes they need to let the top part of the brain loose so that the inner part that really knows it can just spit it out. Just like life, our conscious brains try and think to much when it does not need thinking. As much as I love doing it, it truly is exhausting work and now Sunday is over and I don't really feel rested or prepared for next week but I still have a few hours to veg, sleep early. Until next week Carpe Diem, Carpe Vitam