My Saturdays seem to be spent attempting to study dialogue but more realistically passing in and out of consciousness whenever and wherever possible. By that I mean napping, many many naps. Not really actually passing out. Don't be alarmed. I have yet to pass out unintentionally. Oh wait. That's a lie. I accidentally fell asleep during posture clinic. Oops. Only for about 10 minutes, thankfully the clapping woke me up.
So Week 3:
Boss has been gone all this week out of town doing lectures. His absence means we have been dismissed at midnight every night this week. Lucky! Reality check this week with his return I think. The real posture clinics started this week. We are split into 20 groups each with about 20 people in them. Each day the groups are paired together with another group who we do the posture clinic with. It should really be called 'dialogue clinic' because that is what we are doing. Presenting our dialogue and being critiqued on it. We have moved SO fast this week. Pretty much one posture per clinic. We did back bending with hands to feet pose, awkward pose, eagle pose, standing head to knee and we started standing bow. Incredible. They have all gone pretty well for me and I am happy with how I did in each of them. Basically my dialogue is good and pretty much verbatim I just need to BREATHE or else I am going to pass out when I am teaching a class. Hehe that would be disastrous. So today I am going to practice my dialogue with very deliberate breathing breaks. I don't want to be told that again, this is all about moving forward and I want to move away from that.
This past week we have also had anatomy lectures each day. We have an amazing doctor teaching us; his name is Dr. Preddy and he is so full of knowledge it is incredible. He is an emergency room doctor in Las Vegas, an anatomy and physiology professor and he is also a chiropractor. I have always found the human body incredible and so interesting. His lectures are fascinating for me because not only is he teaching us about the human body, but also relating it to yoga and the postures. This is totally something I want to study more in the future. He is also one of the funniest people ever. He keeps us entertained while teaching us some really important stuff. Seriously. Hilarious. I'll try to write down some funny quotes or stories this coming week so I can share them with you. Too awesome to keep to myself. We have an anatomy quiz tomorrow so in addition to studying dialogue today I'll be studying anatomy.
We have had a lot of good yoga classes this week too. Well 11 yoga classes to be exact, some better than others. I'll just highlight a few of them for you. Well the first one I'll talk about was actually Friday of Week 2, but I can't leave it out. Our teacher that night was from New York. His name was Jakob and he was hilarious. From the second he stepped onto the podium and said hi to us, I knew I liked him. He was SUCH a good teacher. Seriously I want to be like him one day. He had this incredible way of motivating us and killing us without us even knowing what was happening. In addition, he was hilarious. This seems to be a common theme here: I like all of the people who are funny. Well laughing is one of my favorite things in the world so that makes sense. Some of these will only be funny to you, and will only make sense if you practice Bikram yoga. Here are a few good ones that I remember:
- During hands to feet : "From the side you should look like a Japanese ham sandwich, whatever that is"
- During awkward : "Sit down until your hips touch the chair, drop it like it's hot!"
- During party time (water break): "It's a Bikram yoga party! Everyone is pretty much naked and we all drink water for 30 seconds."
- During Triangle : "Touch your pedicure!"
We had a class taught by Brandy Lyn Winfield who was the 2010 International Yoga Asana Champion. She was fantastic as well. She was commanding and it resonated to all of us and made us stronger. She essentially gave us no choice but to listen to her words and follow them exactly. I got a lot out of her class and didn't want to get up from final savasana. I wanted to stay in the room. That has been happening more and more to me as training goes on. I just want to stay there and absorb the moment and lock it in my body, mind and soul forever. This is truly once in a lifetime and I am so fortunate to be here.
So many other great classes. Our Saturday morning class was taught by Michon who is on staff here at TT. the training could not run without him. He does his job so well and we all love him. He was a great teacher and really made us aware of what we were doing. Basically his lesson to us was don't anticipate. We have all taken Bikram yoga classes hundreds or even thousands of times. We know what comes next. Despite this, don't anticipate! Be present! Listen to the words and then only then move your body. It was a good class, and I am glad for it. Awareness is everything in this practice.
We had a great talk from Jim Kallett who is I would say a Senior Teacher. He was certified in 1997 and he has been working with Bikram ever since. He knows a lot and has a lot of experience. He said a few really great things and had me pretty mesmerized the whole time. He said Teacher Training is like peeling an onion. We are peeling ourselves away layer by layer until we get to the centre and the tears begin to run down. So great and so true. He also had a few really good things to say about the yoga competition and the controversy over it. It is called the International Yoga Asana Championship for a reason: in is an asana competition. We are competing using the postures. It is not a competition in any of the other aspects of yoga because those are immeasurable. People who compete need to train to have already won before they even step onto the stage. If they are not already a champion, they are not going to become one during the three minutes they are up there. If they are ready to be a champion all they have to do is get on the stage and demonstrate it. Well said Jim, well said.
Well I think I'll end on that note as I have much studying to do. Thank you for reading and until we meet again, Namaste!
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