Sunday, June 5, 2011

Thoughts from the Laundry Room

Sunday, Mmmmm MMmmm :-) It is the one day of the week we get to sleep in. When you can luxuriate in the delight that the whole day stretches before you and is yours to do as you wish. Well until the reality of the week ahead sets in, and you realise you have to get your washing done, get food for the week, and get that damn dialogue out again.


This pic is of me and Gemma, a lovely lovely girl from England who is in my group. A group of us went up to Malibu yesterday and then into Santa Monica for some shopping and dinner. It was so nice to get away for the day but it meant that today it was back to reality.

So down to the laundry room I went this morning with washing and laptop in tow. Laptop? Yes, laptop. Because something as simple as getting your washing done is of course not going to be simple here. How can doing your washing be hard you ask? Because we have only two, yes count them 2! washing machines for 430 yogis to wash 11 hot sweaty yoga outfits a week in. Oy! Insert eyes rolled skyward here. Now while you can put your stuff in the "line" and come back at an assumed time, the honesty of the line order depends entirely on the people in the room. So its sometimes better just to settle in and wait in the room.

Which is where I spent two hours this morning. It gave me a chance to update my blog and emails etc so which was great as the internet signal is much stronger there than in my room. Go figure?

It also gave me a chance to chat with some other peops and share stories about our TT experience to date. It was really interesting to hear other people's perspectives and thoughts about all of this. I always make an effort to choose my words carefully so as not to influence the conversation too much on this topic, but there seems to be a definite underlying sense of disappointment and disillusionment about our training over the past 7 weeks that a lot of people share.

The one thing that everyone seems to be hanging on to and what keeps them here is the fact that this is the ONLY way to get the opportunity to teach this yoga and ultimately that is what we all really really want to do. Other than that there is not much else we will take away from this. Which I find quite sad. This must be what its like as a child when you find out Santa isn't real or that the Tooth Fairy doesn't exist. Instead of feeling inspired we are dreading the next two weeks when our so-called Guru will be here everyday.

We are all so passionate about the yoga and how it changes peoples lives, and the opportunity for what we could have learn't here should have been amazing and yet so much of it has been wasted in mindless drivel. The media constantly challenges the "facts" we are fed, and often disproves a lot of the stories we hear. And yet here it goes on unchallenged both by the staff and us trainees?

Certainly if you paid for a lecture or course out there in the "real world" and got this calibre of presentation you would have walked out weeks ago. Yet we all sit there, and sit there, and sit there. No-one raises their hand to dispute anything or to argue any of the "facts" and stories, even though we often sit there in disbelief at what we are hearing. Its almost like no-one wants to mention the white elephant in the room. Not that I think the "white elephant" would stop long enough to listen anyway.