So close, yet so far - Week 8

Weeks 8 has completely put me over the edge. I'm too tired to write anything right now. Please check back next week for my final post. Namaste!

There's no place like home - Week 7

By the middle of Week 7 I came to the conclusion, I'm ready to go home. I learned my dialogue, I met some really cool people, I experienced "the process", and I did a lot of yoga. Party is over and I'm ready to go back to reality. Before coming to training I thought going back was going to be really hard. While I'm only dreaming of actually going back, I do not think it's going to be nearly as challenging as I had imagined. For all my FERC followers, I am so excited to come back to work. For all my yoga followers, I'm thrilled to start teaching. And for my friend and family followers, I can't wait to be back with you all.

While sentiments of home sickness stewed around the Radisson this week, it was overall a pretty easy week here at teacher training. Since we finished the dialogue, posture clinics consisted of us going up and combining 3 postures and seeing how it felt to let the postures flow together instead of just saying one at a time. I was shocked at how much of the dialogue I remembered. We were in posture clinic ALL week. Pictures below will give you a sneak peak of how exciting one can be in a posture clinic.

We only had 2 movie nights and neither one was Bollywood. Waaaahooooo!!!! I'm not really sure what the first one was about because I slept through most of it and the part I was awake for was not in English and the subtitles didn't work. The 2nd movie night was just clips from the early 80s of Bikram on talk shows when he first came to Hollywood.

Apparently it's a tradition for the Fall Teacher Training group to have a Halloween Party. My friend Christina and I got sunglasses with bicycles on them because during one of Bikram's lectures he asked us if we looked like bicycles. $2 sunglasses was the extent of my budget for a Halloween Costume and picking them up where I happened to be shopping in Venice Beach was also the extent of the effort I wanted to put into planning a costume. I had a great time people watching during the party. Many of my fellow trainees put a lot of time and effort into their costumes and it showed. I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween.

Things I am thankful for this week:
1. Subway and their avocado
2. The beach store had my hydro flask that I left there last weekend
3. Baking soda to take away nasty smells in my hydro flask
4. Jacuzzi at the Sheraton
5. Coffee, tea, and Kombucha

Don't we look just like bicycles?

Tough life, I know.

 Entertaining ourselves during posture clinic

 More posture clinic fun

 Manhattan Beach sunset never gets old

 Just going to the grocery store

That wasn't so bad - Week 6

Perhaps the anticipation of something can be worse then whatever it is you were dreading to actually happen. Last weekend thinking about all the postures we had left to learn and all the rumors of us finishing by Friday made the week ahead seem dreadful. Also knowing Bikram was back we were all scared for another 4AM Bollywood or even worse Mahabarata night. Turns out - week six was not nearly as bad as any of us expected it to be. We did indeed finish the dialogue by Friday. We did not have ANY late night movie nights. We slept, we studied, and we did yoga. Can't complain about that!

I have officially recited all 26 postures to my group. Group 7, AKA Sexy Seven. My group has been fantastic!

Classes this week were not so hot either. I took class from Lady Gaga's private Bikram teacher - Trisha. She was FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!! She was funny, had tons of energy, tough when she needed to be and kind when we needed some love. She said at the end of class, "Be nice to people and work hard and amazing things will happen to you." I hope she is right about that because I really really like that philosophy.

Friday night we had a lecture on the mind body connection. In my opinion this was the best lecture we have had all of training. Unfortunately it was only 1 hour. This lecture just touched on a gigantic topic and just got the wheels turning for me, so now I know where I need to start my research. Since I started yoga I have always wondered what is it that is bringing me to come back and back for more. I knew that I felt great after class. Early on after starting Bikram I noticed changes in my regular life. I was overall calmer and happier. I had tons of energy all the time. I started craving more healthy foods and less junk food. Everything just seemed clearer and better. According to our lecture, everything I experienced is because yoga balances out your sympathetic nervous system with your parasympathetic system. Your sympathetic nervous system is what generates your body's flight or fight response while your parasympathetic system promotes maintenance of your body at rest. These two systems are always fighting with each other. Yoga does 2 things to balance these systems. First it activates your sympathetic system with the strength, endurance, and cardiovascular challenge. Next your parasympathetic battles your sympathetic system in poses that demand your focus, concentration, and stillness. This results in autonomic system fine tuning. I believe that all exercise makes you feel good. I have been physically very active since I started college. However, I have noticed a shift from the way I felt when I was working out to the way I felt when I started doing yoga. This topic fascinates me. This is why I try to encourage every person I know to just try a class. I hope to learn more about why this really works. Bikram has told us that Harvard has just started to study this. We have also heard about a sleep study being done on how Bikram yoga helps people get more out of their time sleeping so they don't need as much. More to come on this - hopefully we hear more on this topic here.

I was not a huge fan of several of our classes this week. There are many different teaching styles and philosophies on how yoga should be taught. Before coming to training I was so excited thinking that I would have amazing classes here. I learned early on that wasn't the case but I think it's good to experience a wide variety of teachers. I'm learning what I like and what I don't and I hope to incorporate what I like into my classes and hopefully never repeat what I don't like.

Since we finished dialogue on Friday I was able to have a really fun weekend with no studying! Saturday I went to Manhattan Beach and today I went to Santa Monica and Venice Beach. Below are some pictures from my adventures:

 Taking the city bus to Santa Monica

Hanna from VA, Christina from NC and me in Santa Monica. 

We made it!!!

Don't worry -  I held on tight and kept one leg kind of on the ground

Learned that the song Hotel California is about people with addictions and its based on a real place in Santa Monica. I should have taken a pic of the actual hotel - such a lovely place. 

YIKES! My form...ughhh. I'll work on that when I get home. 

Of course I got my palms read.  Dahhhh :)

Teaching Tammy (owner of a Boutique in Manhattan Beach) some yoga.

I'd like to give a shout out to Jin for her thesis performance. I can't wait to see it!!!! Also shout out to Jenn for making it to the finish line of the Marine Corp Marathon today!!!!!!! So proud of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, I hope everyone on the east coast is safe and dry. I  hope the hurricane did not hit bad and you all have power.

3 weeks to go. I can't wait to see you all soon!!!!!!!!!!!

And then there was Week 5

As properly named Hell Week, week 5 left the majority of us feeling as we got picked up by a tornado, got spun all over creation, and then got spit out in the middle of some foreign land. Week 5 can be summed up by hot classes, learning dialogue at warp speed, long lectures, sleepless nights, and laughter. While this week was the hardest week we had here, we all got through it, made it out alive, and grew stronger together. My fellow teacher trainees are the most supportive, compassionate, loving, craziest people I have ever met in my life.

It's getting hot in here - wow they finally figured out the heating system and boy, could we feel it. One evening class Bikram even said, "Boss, turn it down, too hot in here. I like 120 but this feels like 140." I personally LOVE the heat. 140 is a bit much, but I have found my classes this week since they turned the heat up to be the best since I've been here. The class after the night we only slept 2.5 hours was a disaster!!!!! People were being carried out of the room left and right. At one point half the room was lying on their mat. For some very strange reason, that class was one of my stronger ones. Something really is true about this yoga giving you energy. I have never slept as little as I'm sleeping here and I've never had as much energy as I have here. I do get tired every now and then, but for the most part I just keep going and going and going.

Lesson learned from this week: Listen to what other people say and think about it. But ultimately do what you think is best. I wasted hours studying dialogue with other people. They keep telling us here we need to have a study partner and we need to have people demonstrate the posture while we recite the dialogue. Common feedback they tell us in posture clinics, "Are you studying with bodies. You have to see the bodies." I learned this week I study best alone. Forget the bodies for now, I need to see the paper with the words on it.

The late nights are the hardest part of training for me. This week particularly was pretty brutal. We had one Bollywood night which we all predicted was going to be pretty rough. Bikram lectured until 12:45am and the movie was 3.5 hours long. There you have, 4:15am was finally bed time. This night was also particularly rough because the staff members were relentless. I got woken up literally about 15 times. Every time I closed my eyes, someone was either tapping me, calling my name, or shining a brutally bright flash light in my face. It's very difficult for me to explain why this kind of treatment is happening here, when we all just want to be yoga teachers. It sounds like they are preparing us for war and to withstand being tortured if we get caught by our enemies. From what I understand so far, its all about being broken down in order to be built back up again. Common theme here is, "You have to  go through hell to get to heaven." Also, they keep making it a point that we are so much stronger then we think we are. They try to prove how strong we are with how much we can memorize, how many classes we can take in a day, and all with very, very little sleep. Bikram says we only use 7% of our brain, we need to tap into the other 93%.

We got a little break from posture clinics towards the end of the week and had a 7 hour lecture across 2 days from a Mind Body Therapist named John Burros. We learned all about fascia and the different chakras. It was very interesting going from our anatomy lectures with Dr. P to lectures from John. Just another experience along this journey.

I think that about does it for Week 5. Hell week continues into next week too. They told us to prepare for 2, maybe 3 postures a day. I feel like we are on Titanic and they are increasing speed when there are icebergs ahead. Don't worry Jack, I'll never let go!

There wasn't too much action to take pictures of this week but here are a few:

 Max came to visit!!!! :)

Thanks mom and dad for the cookies!!!

Just for fun:

Blast off - Week 4

Wowsers! As the length of this blog post will show, Week 4 left us with very little free time. The pace of posture clinics is picking up. We went from 1 posture in 2 weeks to 2 postures in 1 day.  Everyone is walking around reciting dialogue ALL the time. I am guilty of this too. I even woke up the other morning and the first thing I thought was, "Stretch your upper body down from the lower spine towards the floor." Oy vey namaste!!!!!!

Here is a very quick rundown on the week of what I can remember. Its really hard to remember the specifics of the days here because for the most part every day is the same from the day before and the day after. I'm living in Groundshog Day. This week we had 1 ridiculous hot class. Rumor was it was 122 degrees. People were dropping like flies. If you didn't drop, you were carried out. I saw people doing some interesting things. I tried something I've never done before - poured ice from my water bottle into my hand and placed it in my bra. I had so much sweat dripping in my eyes the room looked smokey. There was even one part of class I dropped to the floor facing the wrong way and my body was just too heavy to swing over to face the correct way. That's never happened to me before. First for everything.

Also this week we finished Anatomy Lectures. As entertaining as Dr. P was, his lectures confirmed why I didn't pursue a career in the medical field.

Posture clinic, posture clinic, posture clinic. Posture Clinics are where we recite the dialogue to 2 teachers (usually 1 senior teacher or in my case, world champion) and a group of 40 other teacher trainees. Intimidating, yes but overall they are going ok. The teachers give us feedback on how we can better deliver the dialogue.

Hot class, Anatomy lectures, and Posture Clinics, pretty much sums up Week 4. Bikram has been gone for the past 2 weeks but he will be back on Monday. We have all heard that Week 5 is "Hell Week." Apparently they turn the heat up, there are a lot of visiting teachers (including Max), and the pace of posture clinics picks up.

Here are a few pics from the week:

Must stay hydrated. Post class must have water, Kombucha, and hot tea

So sleepy before Anatomy Lecture....uhhhh ohhhhh

Our cozy room.....

It was such a lovely day to study poolside....

 Brrrrr, it got chilly!!!!!!! Can't go in, didn't finish Triangle yet.

Anatomy Lecture break time

Low, Slow, Flow - Week 3

During class our teachers explain that our breathe should be low, slow, and flow. I have made this phrase to be my mantra for how I survive teacher training. Teacher friends of mine had told me before coming to training to try to stay off the radar and to just blend in. I have found this to be great advice, especially during Bikram's classes. I call this my lay low strategy. I do everything possible not to get noticed by Boss, as everyone calls Bikram. Some people flock close to the podium to get noticed, I go as far away from that thing as possible. You may be wondering why I came so far to be taught directly from the source but then I run away from him. If you really want to know why, just ask and I shall tell. Just not on the worldwide web.

Slow - second part of my mantra. I take everything here, especially in class, slow. 2 classes a day, 5 days a week and one class Saturday can make a very sore and tight body. In class and everywhere I go, I move mindfully and cautiously and with 3 weeks behind me my body is thanking me. I feel great!!!!

Flow is the final part of my mantra. We have no other option then to go with the flow here. We have very little control and really don't know what is coming our way. Usually this kind of non schedule would make me very anxious but here, it doesn't bother me one bit. Everyday I know I will do yoga and study dialogue. Anything in between is a surprise. I have nothing else that has to be done, no laundry (we have a laundry service), don't have to clean, don't have to go to work, get on the metro. Getting ready for yoga takes me 2 minutes. All I have to do is put on my clothes and fill up my water bottle. It's hard to be disappointed with the way things turned out for the day when you didn't even know what you were going to do. Go with the flow- easy peasy at teacher training.

Overall week 3 has been lovely. We had anatomy lectures at night, so no late night Bollywood. Just learning about bones and muscles until midnight every night. It is strange the times we have lectures at. But like Bikram says, no other place in the world do you learn in the middle of the night. Well, he is right about that. This week we also started official posture clinics. I recited up through Awkward pose. I got pretty good feedback so far. These are the postures I learned before coming here so this week should be interesting.

Many of you have requested I add photos to this blog. So here you go!

First night in LA. Kelli and I had dinner in Redondo Beach. 

Daniella and I at Orientation

I'm so excited for first class with Bikram. It's finally here!!!!! Oh if I only knew then what I know now.......

Why people don't drive rental cars into Mexico

Yo quierro taco bell

Tasty!!!!!! 

Haven't done yoga in a couple hours. Hurry, strike a pose in La Jolla.

Pretty sunset at Manhattan Beach

 Happy Birthday to me!!! Thanks Phillip for the cake!!!!!

 My new friend Christina. We love Anatomy Lecture!!!!!

Photo shoot under the Pier at Manhattan Beach

Well, there you have it. 1/3 down. I miss you all very much!!!!!!!!!! Namaste!

The longer it takes it will last forever - Week 2

As week 2 comes to a close I have acclimated to the routine of teacher training. I am learning to accept that I don't know what's next, how late I'm staying up, if I'm listening to Bikram lecture or watching a Bollywood film. Week 2 has taught me to go with the flow. I have also learned that I can fall asleep just about anywhere and even a 5 minute cat nap can really help. I have fallen asleep on my yoga mat during Savasnah, in lecture sitting straight up, in lecture not sitting so straight, at the pool, and just about anywhere else I can find here at the Radison.

The highlight of the week was a lecture from Jim Kallett. He talked about Bikram's life and Bikram's childhood with his Guru Bishnu Ghosh. He talked a lot about teaching and how it's not about us as teachers but its all about the student. He reminded me why I came to teacher training and how excited I am to start teaching. Some highlights from his lecture:

• Energy consist of nutrition and relaxation
• Mental stress is the cause of every disease including infectious ones because it lowers the immune system
• You don't get rid of stress you just become stress proof
• Instead of putting a band-aid on the problem you have to find the cause
• The longer it takes it last forever 
• You don't huff and puff in yoga because you don't go into oxygen debt
• I am a noodle from Milano
• Hardest part of class is to listen
• When you love yourself you learn how to like yourself. When you like yourself you learn how to take care of yourself. When you love, like, and take care of yourself, you can take care of others
• Have compassion for people who are trying. Make them want to try.

His point of the longer something takes you to accomplish, it will last forever really resonated with me. He explained to us that when he started doing yoga he was 10,000 steps below and everyone else was 100 but because he had to work that much harder the benefits would last that much longer.

Overall, week 2 was pretty calm. I got a good taste of what sleep deprivation feels like. Going to class is my favorite part about being here.

Last year on my birthday I wished I would be able to go to teacher training. Whaaa Laaaa, this year I spent my birthday at Teacher Training. I had a great day on Saturday with Daniella. We went to Manhattan beach, lied out in the sun, went for a long walk, shopped, and ate a delicious cheeseburger, french fries and got real ice cream! Thanks Daniella for an awesome day. I loved the houses along the shore between Manhattan beach and Hermosa Beach. I want one some day. 

I'm really excited for this week. We start real posture clinics, no more half moon and we have anatomy lectures at night.

Hope you all have a great week!!!! Miss you all so much!!!!!!

Goodnight. 

The calm before the storm - Week 1

As crazy as this first week has been I just feel like things are only brewing before the big storm hits. The adventure began when I met my roommate Kelli at the airport. I knew it was her when I saw a petite blonde girl pushing a cart with 2 suitcases almost as big as mine. We greeted each other with a hug and another hug and then just started laughing. Since our hotel is pretty much in the runway we walked there, checked in, and went to our rooms. Simultaneously we both said, "What?!?!? This is where we have to live for 9 weeks. No way!" After spending the next 24 hours running to Target and Whole Foods, we fixed our room up and we now feel more at home.

Sunday afternoon we had Orientation where we met Bikram's daughter, Bikram's lovely wife Rajashree, Jim Kalett, and the staff members. We heard how this experience is going to be life changing and how we will make life long friends. We were told to take it easy at the beginning. This is a marathon, we can't wear ourselves out the first week. I took note of everything and overall came out of Orientation excited and ready to get started!

Monday night was our first class with Bikram. We all drank water all day long to prepare and made sure to eat and be well rested. I have been practicing Bikram yoga for a year and a half and have never taken a class from Bikram. I was psyched. I was scared. I had no idea what to expect. I knew I didn't want to kill myself. I didn't want him to notice me either. I just wanted to blend in, observe his teaching style, and have fun. My roommate Kelli and I set up our mats in the middle towards the left. With everything I have heard pre teacher training about how hot that room can get, my mind was constantly trying to figure out if it was really that hot. I came to the conclusion that it was pretty hot because I started getting the chills. This has happened to me before, practicing at home, and I have been told that this is a sign of heat stroke. True or not true, having the chills in a room heated to at least 105 degrees isn't too normal. But, I got through it. I wasn't shocked with Bikram either. He definitely said some outrageous things in class, but I had heard about his personality before coming here. The only thing I was surprised about was the amount of people who left the room. It was a revolving door of people coming and going. I counted 7 people who were carried out of the room.

The rest of the week consisted of 2 classes a day, lectures from Bikram, 1 late night Bollywood night, and the start of all of the trainees reciting Half Moon (the first posture) in front of Bikram and all 443 trainees. As many of you reading this blog have heard me recite Half Moon, over and over and over again, I felt ready. So, I volunteered to go in the first group. Kelli went 4th and he tore her apart. Told her that she needed speech therapy. He said her dialogue was choppy and she needs to learn how to sing. I went 8th. He wasn't a big fan of me either. He stopped me after I got about 3/4 through it. He said, "Good, but I'm on cruise control. Very boring - I would leave your class after 3 postures." At first, I was devastated. I wanted him to like me. Why didn't he say one of his catch phrases to me - "Good things come in small packages." By the end of the week though I took in what he said. And I get it. I know I need to teach more using my personality and not just reciting the dialogue. And I know I will do that.

For the first week they gave us the entire weekend FREE. We usually have Friday night lecture and Saturday morning class but Bikram said no class Saturday and no lecture Friday night. So what did Kelli and I decide to do on Saturday? We went to Mexico!!!!!!!!! Tijuana and then San Diego. Getting to Tijuana was, well interesting. We rented a car so we wanted to park at the border and walk across. Well, on accident, we drove right on through and was in the line to go through the border with the rental car. Oooopps. I rolled down my window and told the officer, "We made a mistake, we want to go back to America." He started speaking in Spanish and my 3 years of high school Spanish did not come in any use. Fortunately Kelli studied in Spain so she jumped in. The officer ended up stopping 6 lanes of traffic for us to make a U-turn. Then when we pulled up to the officer to let us back into the US, I said to him, "We weren't really in Mexico. We were here for 30 seconds. We made a mistake." This made him very suspicious of us. He searched the car. I had to tell him I work for the government but I'm in CA to become a yoga teacher. He seemed very confused by my story but he believed me and let us go. We parked, walked over, had a burrito, and got out. We had learned before we got there that Tijuana wasn't too safe so we got too scared to really go anywhere away from the border. After our $2.50 lunch in Tijuana we headed to San Diego. What a difference 30 miles makes. La Jolla was beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!! We walked along the beach for a while, did some shopping, and had a lovely dinner watching the sunset.

Today we went to 2 Farmers Markets, one in Hollywood (not so good) and another in Santa Monica which was amazing!!! Too bad we got there 10 minutes before they closed but now we know and will definitely be back there over the next 8 weekends. When we got back from food shopping for the week we went to the pool, where everyone was studying dialogue. We joined in for a little while until I came up here to write to all of you.

So, first week is done. I feel strong. I feel good. I have met some interesting people and am excited to meet more people. About half of the trainees are not American. There are large pockets of people from Japan, England, Vancouver, and Mexico. For Washington DC, its only me and Daniella. There are 2 people from Fairfax, VA and 1 girl from Annapolis. That's it. I feel very lucky and grateful to be here. There have been moments where I wasn't so thrilled - first 3AM Bollywood night and then waking up at 7AM the next day for yoga class. But overall, I am happy. I think a lot about coming back and teaching. I want to teach so badly and I really hope I am good at it. I want to share what I love with people and I want them to love it too. They keep telling us to trust the process and not have any expectations. I do trust it but I do have some expectations. I expect that this is the craziest thing I have ever done in my life thus far. After just one week, this I can confirm.