Bikram is back

I haven't been able to post for a few days as the Blogger host website has been down so I have several days of musings to catch up on.

Since I'm not doing yoga classes at the moment it means I have an extra few hours each day to myself to think and reflect. Though I'm not sure that having too much time to think here is actually a good thing? Of course you can always easily chew up any spare time studying dialogue which I have been doing - no reason not to have it down verbatim now eh! (Oy, as if I wasn't hard enough on myself already.)

So Bikram came back yesterday and true to form kept us us till 2:00 a.m. watching a Hindu movie. Oh sh8t! For the past two weeks most of our evenings have been filled with Anatomy lectures with Dr Preddy who won HUGE favour with us by never going past midnight. We love you Dr. P!

Anyway, Bikram taught the 5pm yoga class yesterday and told everyone it was the worst class he had ever seen in the 4th week of training. Hmmm, as much as I am missing the yoga I have to admit to being quite glad to have missed that class as you can well imagine what it was like being in the Hot Room for that one :-(

It would seem the dark mood continued through to the evening lecture, as prior to the movie Bikram spoke for two hours berating the Western world for all the problems we create for ouselves, our lack of morals, how shitty our lives are, and how great the Indian way of life is. Oh and how much money he makes. As if we weren't depressed enough already.

Now to date I have had no problem with the fact that Bikram obviously makes a sh*t load of money with what he does. Hey if anything I'm jealous, I would love even just a fraction of what he makes. The reason I guess it find it "ok" is that the yoga works. Plain and simple. It is the best thing that has happened to me and you hear the same thing from everyone here. People's lives are dramatically changed for the better through doing this yoga. And so if he is smart enough to make money off it, more power to him.

However, what I don't appreciate is having it all shuved (sp?) in my face while you tell me what a piece of shit I am. Now I am smart enough to see that this is all a thinly guised veil of Bikram's attempt to push our buttons and so see it for what it is. But at the same time when I think of what this has all cost, the time and money invested, the emotional roller coaster ride etc, it is hard NOT to have your buttons pushed! And I realise now as I write this, that he did infact get to me, because here I am the morning after still writing about it rather than having just observed it and let it go. Oh expletive expletive expletive!

Bikram 1 - Stephanie 0

'Nuff said.

Poolside View

Well its not much of a view actually looking at a construction site and the back of some old utility buildings surrounded by concrete. Certainly if I was going to spend a summer in LA I would not choose to be spending it at some shitty hotel pool. :-(

But I wanted to put the pics up so that when you read in a post that I was outside by the pool you don't have a vision of us all laying on luxurious lounge chairs by a fabulous pool with waiters serving cocktails! lol

Ok......... grumbling over. I've been spoilt by living on the Gold Coast for too long and seeing all the beautifully manicured landscaped pool areas surrounding all the hotels there and having access to miles and miles of beautiful coastline.

I should just be thankful that the sun was shining and I was able to get out of the hotel room at all. I get cabin fever from being locked up in rooms with air conditioning all day and night. None of the windows open anywhere, all the lecture rooms are internal and we don't have balconies off our rooms so you can easily go all day without stepping outside and getting any fresh air and natural sunlight. Hard for a beach loving gal like moi.

The worst part is walking out of the Hot Room where you have been cooking for 90 mins in 40 degree heat and are totally wet with sweat, out into the air conditioned hallways. Ugh! Bloody freezing, and according to Dr Preddy (our Anatomy teacher) quite dangerous as it really stresses your system out after working so hard in the heat to then hit the icey temperatures.

Hmm ...... No comment.

Teaching Notes - New York Style

I realise that I haven't written up my notes from our posture clinic last week with Troy and Iko from New York, both of whom I just loved! I learnt so much from them in just one afternoon so I want to make sure that I write it all up while its still fresh in my mind so that I can refer back to it.

As follows:

KNOW what you are teaching. That way you can stay true to the dialogue.

When you are feeling nervous shake the energy off. Direct it somewhere i.e. with a hand gesture /a point or motion.

Watch the bodies and connect the words to the bodies to that you don't just "see" the dialogue in your head.

Don't say you're sorry for any mistakes you may make. Most students won't notice anyway as they are too busy suffering. Lol I love that one :-)

Don't sabotage yourself by saying, "I Can't". The negative energy compounds in your body. Say, "I Can". Tell your students, They Can!

We all have 100% potential to change. Just make up your mind to do so. Make up your mind to change 180 degree angle right in this moment.

Say your dialogue to the ocean or in an open space. Throw your energy out there. Practice developing your style. The ocean won't judge you.

Lead well. That way you will instill in your students the motivation to practice with integrity and energy and to work hard to "kill themselves".

Punch the words written in bold in the dialogue. These are action / command words.

Leave space between the paragraphs of dialogue. This is time for you to breath and for your students to settle into the posture.

And my favourite: You're ok! If you f*ck up, who cares? Its ONLY yoga! Its NOT supposed to be a stressful job. Enjoy yourself :-)

Remember why you wanted to become a teacher and carry this with you into your class. Convey it to your students and they will have a good class regardless of how you deliver the dialogue.

So you can see based on these notes, why I enjoyed the afternoon with Troy and Iko SO much. If I'm ever in NY I will be def be looking them up and heading to their studio!

Tuesday with Terry

Our Posture Clinic today was held by Terry who owns a studio in Merrimac Valley, Mass. She rocked! I would love to take a class with her. Her feedback and energy for everyone was great and so I have a whole page of notes that I took as a result.

She started by telling us the rules in her studio. They are as follows:
1. You have to breathe
2. You can only nod your head yes. Shaking your head no can cause brain damage
3. Look at yourself in the mirror and say, "how cute am I!" :-)

As you can imagine, based on these I warmed to her immediately. So, following are my notes, which are taken from the persepective of learning to teach so may or may not be of interest to other peops. ( They may seem a bit all over the place and random but they were written down after different people delivered their dialogue so there were numerous scenarios.)

The posture we had to deliver dialogue for today was Bow Pose. One of the lines in the set up for the hand position is; Say "Mama give me money" (to which the students are supposed to reply, Mama give me money).

Its as corney as it reads and feels even more corney saying it out loud let alone in front of the class. BUT one thing that Terry said, was that if you don't get used to asking the "Universe" for money then you're not going to get it! SO fellow yogis at home, get used to it, cos I'm going to be saying it and expecting you to say it back! LOL

Beginners will always look at you rather than at themselves in the mirror NO matter how many times you ask them to look in the mirror. She said if you do catch someone's eye to smile (for Beg's this reassures them that they WILL survive ) and then look away because as a new teacher it will be easy to get distracted by them. Its better to concentrate on the bodies.

There will be two dialogues running while you teach.
1. The external dialogue that you are saying to the class.
2. Your internal dialogue that you are saying in your head.
Make sure you don't let the Internal dialogue come out!

If you make too many unnecessary hand gestures while teaching try holding your water bottle. This will help you stop waving your hands around.

Give your students space to have their own energy. Hold onto some of your own so that you don't fill the room with your energy. This will exhaust you and your students.

Don't try and create the energy in the room. Let it build naturally. Start in Pranayama. Give a little and let them answer. Its a conversation. You say the dialogue and the bodies answer.
You need to learn how to build the energy so that you can teach at any time of the day and adjust your energy accordingly.

Precision in YOUR dialogue creates precision in THEIR practice.

When you see mistakes in a posture repeat the line of dialogue that will give the required instructions to correct. Don't ever adjust the student yourself. By saying the dialogue and letting the students self correct they will learn better.

You don't need to control your students journey. Let them make their mistakes. Tell them to come back tomorrow. To try again. They will learn in their own time when they are ready. Again this is why we don't adjust them ourselves.

If you get stuck and can't remember the next line of dialogue, repeat the last line you just said until the next line comes to you. Students will just think you are correcting someone in the class. Hee hee

Say it. See it. Process it.
Really connect with the bodies. Your eyes should look at the body parts you are talking about.

Set a Mantra for each posture. This is what you can say if you can't remember anything else. :-)
E.g. Lock the knee, lock the knee, lock the knee. Change.

Take care of yourself. When practicing in class, check your ego at the door. Do 100% of the posture correctly for how your body is feeling THAT day. Yoga is a lifetime practice. You have for ever, therefore you don't have to do everything today.

To Post or Not To Post.......

I have spent a few days wondering about how to write this post and / or whether I need to write it at all, but its going to become pretty obvious soon when I don't mention doing any yoga for the next week or so that something is up.

So here goes, firstly, I want everyone to know that I am ok! I just need some time to rest and recover but other than that I am totally healthy :-)

However, unfortunately within my first week of being here I got some news about something regarding my health that I had to make a pretty quick decision about. It made the first few weeks of Training even more stressful physically and mentally than they already were. It was without doubt a major testing point for me having to make a life changing decision under these circumstances and without the support of friends and family at home. But I managed it and was able to draw on strength and make my decison with a sense of calmness that I didn't know I had.

So everything has been taken care of and I'm recovering but am under Dr's orders not to do yoga for the next two weeks. Now as much as I am relishing having some extra time to myself (worth its weight in gold around here!) I wish I could have been excused from the late night lectures and movies, not the yoga classes. They are all that has kept me sane through all this!

But I have to remind myself that I have a lifetime to practice yoga and so if I miss a few weeks its no big deal. Its just the timing that sux as the challenge of being here and doing doubles (2 classes a day) for 9 weeks was something I was really interested to see how I would cope with.
So it is what it is and at the moment the lesson is still unclear to me, and may always be, so I'll just continue to take it day by day and see what comes :-)

Beginning of Week 4

Well Monday has rolled around already and we're back into things. I got away again on Sunday and caught up with my Kiwi friends down the coast. Got to do some sightseeing and look around Huntington and Newport Beach in Orange County.

You could easily have been on the harbour in Brisbane or at Runaway Bay on the Coast. Its all very beautiful and I imagine very expensive. For anyone who has watched the O.C. or Laguna beach on TV and seen the mansions all with 180 degree coastal views up to LA city, I can vouch that there are rows upon rows of million dollar homes like that. In another lifetime maybe...?



Anyway, today we had posture clinic and I delivered Standing Head to Knee. It went really well and I am feeling much more comfortable about the public speaking aspect of teaching. I am really trying to connect the dialogue with the bodies and work on getting the timing right and trying to accentuate the appropriate words at the right time etc so that the yogis know when to push and work harder in the posture etc etc.



Some of it feels very natural and some of it still feels forced so I'm hoping in time I will develop my own style and feel a bit more at home with being bossy / pushy! Not my natural personality. (Tho some may beg to differ here :-) So far I have had no probs with my dialogue and am thankful every day that I took the time to learn it before I came here. There are so many people who are trying to learn it while they are here and I just don't know how they manage it.



So we're back in the lecture room tonight for Anatomy. Bikram is still away so at least we can count on being fin by midnight. Still loving that sleep! :-)

1/3 - One third - Won Thurd

Check out these smiling happy faces! Yes we're a third of the way through our training. I'm not sure how I feel about that? But this pic was taken after class this morning, and I think the smiles were as much to do with the fact we all had a great class, as it was the fact that the class was over and as its Friday it means the weekend is just around the corner :-)

Ironically after writing my post the other day where I was saying how boring I found some of this, I came across an article that Emmy Cleaves had written about Bikram yoga. In it she was asked if she ever got bored with doing the same 26 postures every day and she said, no, that it was a chance to develop patience and mindfulness. Oh....... I might have known there would be a lesson like that in there. I guess I have a ways to go then.........

Anyway, its now Friday night and we've just finished posture clinic. So instead of relaxing with friends and sharing a meal and a vino I found myself standing on a podium delivering Eagle posture dialogue in front of 40 yogis. A far cry from what I would normally be doing, but hey thats life at TT!

I had no problem remembering the dialogue (but then Eagle is one of the easier postures to remember :-) and am actually starting to try and really connect the words with the bodies. Sounds easy but sometimes the connection isn't very obvious visually as there are often lots of little things happening that aren't very big movements. And I have to admit that sometimes I just say things because I know thats the next line but don't really understand why it has to be that way?

Which is something I hope we get to spend more time on so that I have a real knowledge of the technique in all the postures and why things are done the way they are, rather than just doing them because thats what it says in the dialogue.