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!