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.
