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