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: