Sunday, June 12, 2011

Saturday July 2nd, 4pm

This is the day I will step onto the podium in our home studio and teach my first ever official Bikram Yoga class.

I will be responsible for leading yogis through their 90 minute meditation. For getting them in and out of the postures safely and without killing anybody! LOL.

This is my chance to pull it all together, to put my money where my mouth is, to dare I say it, "trust the process" and fulfill a dream I have had for 3 years now.


I am SO excited! Though I have to admit to getting a knot in my stomach and a feeling of angst at the thought of it also. Needless to say as soon as I got the email from Jodes, our studio owner, and had a confirmed date, I have been studying the dialogue with much more vigour!

Suddenly, after wishing the hours, the days away for so long, time seems to be going too fast and I want the hours to last longer so that I can get more studying in. There still seems to be so much that I don't know. I haven't practiced delivering the left side of any postures, let alone a 2nd set. What is the timing for the postures? Have I said it out loud enough times so that it flows naturally? Is there enough inclination in my voice? Is my class going to be too easy or too hard? Is.....? Do I............? What if..........? Have I................................? Oh dear.............................

Steph, just breathe! And go get that dialogue out...... :-)

Sunday Musings

So this is the infamous yoga room. When its empty you get an appreciation for its size. By graduation trainees will have practiced 95 classes in here if they have attended every class. That's a minimum of 142.5 hours - though I want to stress minimum because a lot of classes ran over 90 minutes.

Of course for me this number is slightly less due to the time I had to take off. I will have done a total of 78 classes - 117 hours. Still a substantial amount.

It seems such an oxymoron that a room where people would usually be celebrating weddings and birthdays etc, all dressed to the nines and drinking champagne has for the last 9 weeks invoked so much sweat and tears. To lie in Savasana under a chandelier, heart pounding, body totally spent with sweat running off you (and sometimes tears) is such a strange feeling. Sometimes I don't notice them at all. Sometimes the chandelier is a good distraction and I just look at the lights and crystals through exhausted blurry eyes and drift away. Other times I notice which light bulbs are not working or where some of the crystals are missing..............(there's that monkey mind which NEVER gets tired, sigh).

I wonder what the energy in there will be like once it has been converted back to a ballroom for our graduation? Or whether we will even recognise it? They will be changing the carpet thankfully. It has that unmistakable smell of a Birkam yoga studio that you would recognise anywhere. Some days it hits you about halfway down the hall as you're walking towards it. Just be glad I can't post a scratch and sniff picture! LOL






Home Is Where The Heart Is





By this time in two weeks I will have left the City of Angels and be just about to land back in Australia. Pic is of the beach where I live incase you needed encouragement to come visit :-)

Now while I am looking forward to spending some time with friends after training finishes and seeing a bit more of California I am eager to get back Down Under. I will have been away for almost 3 months in total and I have to say I am ready to get home.



Ready to get back and resume my life. To start my two new jobs, one as a yoga teacher and the other one back in the corporate world. But mostly to be back with that very special Australian cowboy with whom despite our being apart for 3 months and the difficulties we had to face during that time, or perhaps because of them, I have grown so much closer to.


At least for me I have been somewhere new and been kept so busy that I don't have a lot of spare time to think and feel homesick. For me its all been new and different and there is no "space" in my life here where he should be. But for him, he walks on the beach at home, like we always did together, as I now sleep in LA, and watches the moon at night as I get up and head to my first yoga class of the day. Things that make the world seem a very big place at times.