Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Two for Tuesday







Today was our first day of double classes and posture clinics. A taste of things to come.

The 8a.m. class this morning was lead by Jim Kallet, one of Bikrams first ever teacher trainees. He has a lovely energy about him and I really enjoyed his teaching style.

They room was at a better temp too which made a HUGE difference. I think in light of the mass exodus in class yesterday afernoon they realised the heat and humidity needed to be adjusted and so the class was cooler. Which by NO means, means it even NEAR cool, it was just less hot. It still felt as humid as some of our days on the Coast and so was a fairly tough class none the less.

I took it really easy, and didn't push in any of the postures so was able to make it through without having to sit down at all. A small measure of success in the Bikram TT World :-) And after yesterday's insane class my goal was going to be just to not run from the room screaming!

So there are a few things that are done differently here. In the 2nd set of Pada Hastasana there is no moving the hips to relax the back, its just straight into hands underneath the heels. He said the reason being, that the body has already been there before so is warmed up enough already.

In Standing Head to Knee / Dandayamana Janushirasna they really emphasize that the grip is just below the toes not in the arch of the foot, so I feel l need to move mine up a little which in turn will help me flex the foot better.

Finally in Head to Knee with Stretching / Janushirasana with Paschimotthanasana (whew!) when you are in the final position with both legs out in front of you, your head has to come down in line with your feet so that there are no wrinkles in the back of your neck. It made a huge difference to how far down I could get my body and it is something I have heard in class before but for some reason didn't register until today?

After class we had posture clinic with Bikram and starting going through Ardha Chandrasana. This is where you have to stand up in front of Bikram and all the 430 yogis and present the first posture. Needless to say its probably going to be the most nerve wracking part of this whole training experience - and no I haven't volunteered to go up yet.

Its amazing just listening to everyone's different styles, personalities and accents. And Bikram, despite all his (sometimes not so funny) jokes and piss-taking, is really very compassionate and seems to know instinctly what each person needs to hear. He said the reason he gets every single trainee to come up and do this is not so that he can see if you know the dialogue or not but rather to get to meet us and see who it is that is going to be out there representing his brand. You've got to give him points for that I reckon as I don't know if any other worldwide business owners could say they know ALL their staff?

When the trainee from Christchurch in NZ came up he asked how their studio was after the earthquake. As it turns out it needs to be totally rebuilt and so Bikram said to tell the studio owner to call him so that he could arrange to help out with funding the re-build so that the studio could re-open as soon as possible. Cool eh! He also spoke of various other charity events that he is contributing to around the world in light of all the recent natural disasters.

So we were in posture clinic all aft until the 5pm class which Bikram took. Again it was pretty hot and humid so I took it really easy. I didn't feel like I had any energy at all and wasn't practicing even close to my full potential. But hey, at this stage I'm still taking it very easy (maybe a little too easy?) and not trying to proove anything to anyone. There is still a long way to go, so I'm really pacing myself.


I need to figure out what is going to work for me the best in terms of getting a quick energy fix though as we only had half an hour between the end of the posture clinic at 4:30 and the start of class so no time to digest anything and I hadn't eaten since lunch at 11:00am. I can see my diet rapidly filling up with pills and various packets of mixes rather than actual food! :-)

Now its 9pm and we're about to head back down to the lecture room for our 2nd posture clinic for the day which is due to start at 9:30. Yes that 9:30 PM folks. Oy! It looks like this is where the sleep deprivation begins.........


Pics are of the Hot Room, and me after class this morning with my water bottle. Something I haven't taken to class in over 2 years but there is NO way I am going to class without it here. Its already a distraction though and I find myself drinking even when I'm not thirsty but rather as something to take my focus of how friggin hot it is!