I need a title (yes I wrote this here on purpose)

It's Friday night and life's good.  Despite having ridiculously vivid and anxious stressful dreams last night (what else is new), it is a great day.  I've got the weekend ahead of me, I'm lounging at home with a glass of wine (ok maybe it's my second), and it's still warm outside.  It's been a busy week yet again.  I have a lot to organize before I head to LA.  It finally hit me just a little that I am actually going to be a yoga teacher (insert idiot grin on my face HERE).

I had an appointment with my bank today and was approved for a line of credit on the spot.  Hurrah! No more stress about money for TT! I also have an 'anonymous' backer for the financial aspect of Teacher Training.  I use quotation marks because they are not anonymous at all and we are genetically related but I won't reveal their identity here for privacy purposes.  If you are reading this my 'anonymous' friend, I love you and I am so thankful for your help! 

I went up-island this past weekend to visit my family and had a great time.  Had some good laughs with my family and some needed rest and sleep.  I went on a four hour long horseback ride with my mom and our family friend.  For those who don't know, I've been riding off and on since I was about 11 and I loooove horses.  It was a lot of fun and we saw some beautiful scenery right in our own backyard.  Horseback riding (especially at the fast pace we were going at times) is actually quite physically demanding.  Most people don't know that and think it is just a leisurely activity where the horse does all the work.  Nope.  The pain my body was in the next day, and the day after that, and the day after THAT, prove that it is a workout! Returning to yoga with such muscle pain was kind of humbling.  It was frustrating for me because I couldn't get anywhere near the depth in most postures as I usually can.  My muscles were simply too tight and too torn up.  That is what muscle pain is after a workout; your muscles tear microscopically which creates the pain you feel and leads to building of stronger muscle after they heal.

I feel like it was the perfect practice for being at teacher training.  Taking eleven 90 minute Bikram yoga classes per week on minimal sleep is going to take a toll on my body.  I will probably experience fatigue like I have never imagined and who knows what is going to happen inside my body.  I know that I am going to have the worst yoga class of my life and the best yoga class of my life while I am at TT.  I am excited for all of this.  I am looking forward to the good and the bad in the 9 weeks while I am in LA.  I have changed a lot over the past 8 years or so and I now think of myself as able to do anything when before I just felt lost and confused.  Life has so far lead me to this and without a doubt I know this is what I am supposed to be doing.  "Nothing that's worth it is ever easy" and this will certainly be a perfect example of that!

PS. I am disappointed none of you could 'name that movie' from my last blog post... No Googling allowed though...

So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it. (name that movie!)

So it still hasn't really hit me yet... That Teacher Training this fall is a REALITY.  It is happening! I still don't know about the scholarship; they changed the date when they will announce it (I would insert 'fuming mad emoticon face' here but I don't think I can...).  Actually I'm not fuming at all, it would just be nice to know how this whole shebang is going to be paid for and how much debt I'm going to be in when I get back. 

I need to reality to set in! Seriously! There is so much to do! I have dialogue to memorize.  Packing lists to write.  Supplies to purchase.  Flights to book.  Bills to set in order.  Despite all of this, I have a really good way of not stressing out about things.  Honestly, why worry?  Life will go on, the sun will set and the moon will rise.  This process is what it is and I'm just going to take it all in while sipping on a coconut drink and floating on a wave in the Pacific. 

My employers officially approved my leave of absence today.  We had our weekly staff meeting this morning and my supervisor announced that I had some big news to share with everyone which totally took me by surprise because I had no idea that the management team had discussed it already! It was a great surprise and I am so glad and relieved to be able to talk about it at work now.  It is great to have the support from my company and I am very thankful to have a full-time job to come back to! I will only be teaching yoga a few times a week so I'd quickly be homeless without my current job!

On a side note:  If you enjoy all things visually appealing, creative and inspiring, and are among those who have not yet had the pleasure of discovering the site pinterest.com, please visit asap!  Warning:  If you are a future teacher trainee who is supposed to be memorizing dialogue (ie. myself) do not go to this site because you will become addicted and will thus waste many precious studying hours!  

It's in the mail

My application that is! En route to headquarters in LA as we speak! It was a bit of a crazy week getting everything together for the application.  Doctor's approval went well, as did getting my letter of recommendation signed from my yoga studio owner.  She was so supportive and so great when I talked to her about TT.   She had me memorize half moon pose and then deliver the dialogue to her while she did the posture.  So weird to be in opposite roles.  It went pretty well, I had a little mind blank at one point but after I finished she said I did well and it was pretty much verbatim I just forgot one line. Oops.  Oh well that's what TT is for!!  I am so excited to become a teacher and get to stand on the podium and take a room full of amazing people through class.  Honestly, I couldn't be happier about the wonderful studio that I practice at and all of the wonderful teachers and fellow students that call it home.  Crazy where life takes you.  This is going to be one wild ride.

Excited face as I head out to mail my application! (actually I look a bit deranged... please note:  this is not what I always look like)

It's all coming together...

I have been the worst blogger ever due to my infrequency of posting... More on that later (well probably not actually, don't hold your breath).  I figured since everything is really starting to come together for Teacher Training this fall I should actually document this momentous occasion for my own reading and reminiscing pleasure in the future.  Oh and I suppose for my friends and family should they so choose to read this... (I think my mom will, and probably my grandma, and my sister will occasionally read it and then make fun of me. Oh well that's better than 0 followers right?) 

Enough of that.  So today I love technology.  My lovely friend Cheryl took some photos of me in the studio after yoga class tonight.  I immediately uploaded them and then emailed them off to the printers where I can pick them up in less than an hour.  I don't quite need them that quickly, I think tomorrow will suffice.  This morning I recorded myself saying some of the Bikram dialogue (of which I have 42 pages to memorize) on my laptop and then converted it and put it on my iPod so I can listen to it at work!! Ahh such things make life so simple. 

Taking photos of myself in yoga postures was an interesting and informative experience.  I didn't know I was so good at some postures and didn't know I was so bad at others *cough bow pose cough*.  I am applying for one of the two scholarships that they give away for training so I am required to send in photos of myself in 3 postures of my choice.  I have decided on standing bow, triangle and rabbit.  I talked to my studio owner the other day about the scholarship and she said it is very difficult to get one and you have to have an amazingly ridiculous story like you were a former heroin addict or a stripper or something.  Well... I don't qualify under those two categories but perhaps my story will be enough... I may publish my letter to Bikram here... I haven't decided yet.  How about we make a deal.  If I get the scholarship, I promise to share the letter that is the reason why.  If I don't get it... then I'll decide later.  Fingers crossed.

Standing bow pulling pose

Triangle

 

 

 

 

Rabbit

My postures aren't perfect and I see things that I can fix with all of them but that is the beauty of this yoga!  Bikram says that it isn't yoga perfect, it's yoga practice.  I can't wait to see how my body changes and how my postures change after teacher training!! Fingers crossed that I can get there as it isn't 100% yet...

Once upon a time there was a girl...

So I have started a blog.  I used to have a Livejournal.  That was a lifetime ago and I'd rather not go there.  I feel like I may stray from the subject of yoga from time to time... or rather all the time, but mainly my intention is to document my travels through Bikram yoga.  I started Bikram yoga in the fall of 2008.  I don't really remember much from my first class to be honest. They say your brain blocks out painful and traumatizing memories and events as a means of protection.  Maybe that is why I don't remember much; my brain is saving me from the memory.  In reality though, I don't think my first class was that bad.  What do I know though, like I said... don't really remember much.

I did yoga off and on for about a year and a bit, never taking it very seriously.  In January 2010 I decided to do a 30 day challenge, which then turned into a 60 day challenge.  I think that was my real starting point with the yoga.  I knew then that I wanted to really DO this and that I wanted to become a teacher.  I'm pretty good at throwing myself head first into everything I do.  I guess I wouldn't really have it any other way. 
 
Now hopefully by writing about my yoga here, I will really begin to understand how it is affecting my life.  Maybe someone will read this and decide to let it affect their life too.  It's a great feeling and I am so glad to have found something to focus on in my life.  I feel that I am at a crossroads and I think I've felt that way since my University graduation in the Spring of 2009.  For me, yoga is going to get me through it and take me to where I am truly supposed to be, because I have no idea how else to get there.