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.

Heading to the weekend

Last night was another early night by TT standards. We finished up our Anatomy lecture at 11:30pm and then were free to go. A lot of peops chose to stay up studying the dialogue but I hit the sack and enjoyed a good 7 hours sleep. Still have this cold hanging around and so thats not making me feel the best so I'm making the most of our chance to catch up on sleep while I can.

Bikram is away in Japan at the moment hence no Bollywood movies. He is teaching some classes at a studio there and doing some lectures as a way to help out with the disaster relief over there. For all the critics and bad media who say he is all about making money, he does seem to be very generous in offering his time and money to help where needed and is always helping people network etc to get things done.

This morning we had Emmy again, and our group was on line 1 right in front of the mirrors. I haven't been able to see myself in the mirrors for days so was interested to see if my postures looked how I felt they were.

Half moon was pretty crap but my upper back has been really tight and sore for days so I didn't expect much change in that posture. My bow has deepened which I am thrilled about as I feel that I have been stuck and not progressed in that posture for ages. For the past few days I have felt like my back has opened up a lot more so it was interesting to see just how far I could get my chest down and really feel the back bend in Bow. My Camel also feels a lot deeper and though I may not be getting my back bend any deeper I feel like I am def able to push my hips further forward.

Triangle. Ugh. I could feel that my hips haven't been coming down enough in the set up even without being able to see myself. The carpet is really slippery when you're sweating heaps and for some reason my legs just don't feel strong enough, though at home it was one of my fav postures because I finally had gained the strength and my hips had opened up enough to find that "sweet" spot that makes the posture almost easy. Note: ALMOST :-). Anyway, all of this was confirmed when I could see in the mirror. Oh dear. My hips were miles up and my knee far too far over my toes. I hope its just a sign of other things changing and it will all come back into line but I'll have to be really conscious to make sure that sitting up too high doesn't becomes a habit.

Emmy stressed the importance of Frequency, and practicsing with Precsion and Intent. She said if you're just going through the motions and doing the postures the wrong way you aren't going to get any benefits. Uh oh...............guilty as charged on some days :-(

Her thoughts about yoga differ from Bikram's in that she believes you should practice with mindfulness and be aware of everthing that is going on in your body, whereas Bikram likes to distract you with humour so that you forget how painful and torturous it all is. I think I like a bit of both depending on my mood. Some days I am focused and have a rock star class and others I just want to get the hell out of there so are thankful for any kind of distraction. Unfortunately lately the later has been more true for me, but I must admit, being in front of the mirrors today made a big difference. You can feel the energy is more focused up there. The further towards the back of the room you constantly have people walking past leaving the room etc and it really does effect the energy and flow.

Anyway, so tonight we had Rajashree and I had my best class to date! Sheesh it only took 3 bloody weeks to happen, but hey it happened! I nailed every postue, only fell out of Bow at the end of the L side first set and charged through the rest. There is no rhyme or reason, I wasn't feeling particularly strong or motivated, but once I got in there I just seemed to hit my stride and away I went. Mmmmm.... I love yoga again :-) So on that note I think I'll sign off for the day.

Mid Week # 3

So last night we finished up at 11:00pm. We could hardly believe it! It felt like Christmas to finish so early. The benefit of having studied the dialogue before I got here is already paying off ten-fold as it mean't I could go straight to bed whereas there were plenty of yogis up till the wee hours trying to learn Awkward. Oy!

I realise looking back over my posts I haven't mentioned anything about the Anatomy lectures we have started this week. I am really enjoying them and the Dr Preddy who is teaching them has a great sense of humour and practices Bikram yoga himself so can make everything totally relevant for us. Although I know the basic muscle groups and some of the terms are familiar from hearing them in class, a lot of it is like another language and just goes right over my head. So I think it could be in for the start of a steep learning curve for me.

We also had a lecture yesterday with Emmy on Pain and its connection with the body. Unfortunately she only spoke about it for an hour or so and I SO wish she could have had more time as this is an area I find fascinating. The mind body connection and how our emotions and thoughts connect directly to the body etc. She gave us the names of a few books that I hope to read when I get back home.

Class this morning was taught by a visiting teacher, David, who lead the class exactly as per the dialogue and held us in the postures for what seemed like ages. By the 2nd set of Awkward my legs were dying and yogis were coming out of the posture early and falling out but he didn't give us any relief by speeding up the dialogue at all. Oh expleteive.......

The rest of the class went ok and I got my head to knee in both 1st and 2nd set Standing Head to Knee with no trouble but again when its done to someone saying EVERY word of the dialogue s-l-o-w-l-y it makes for a bloody long set and so my bow was crap as a result as I was buggered.

A little suprise discovery I made in the class was that our group was on line 10, the very back row and unbeknownst to me (as I had never practiced back there), if you are set up near the exit doors you actually get a little bit of fresh air everyone time someone walks out or in the class. Absolute heaven as they don't open the doors EVER during class and even when its finished the heat stays on. Ugh. And yes, yogis are allowed to leave at their own discretion whenever they feel the need. Some teachers comment on it and others don't.

So this afternoon we had Posture Clinic and we went through Awkward. The teachers we had for this clinic were Troy & Iko from New York and they were AMAZING! I have a whole page of notes on teaching that I will write up on the weekend as they had just so much valuable information that they shared with us. They showed such compassion, motivation and passion for EVERY student who said their dialogue regardless of how good they did or didn't do and I feel I could learn SO much from them, purely on just how to carry yourself in life both inside and outside of the hot room. They were such models of the kind of person I endeavour to be. Needless to say I hope we get to see them again.

Anyway, I got up and did my dialogue and it went pretty well. They said I smiled a lot and looked pretty natural - some of that because I had a yogi from my home studio in the demo group so that helped me relax.

In the 3rd part, I forgot the 3rd line, which is "Exhale breathing, suck your stomach in, spine straight", and so Troy asked me to do just the 3rd part again. As soon as I started and got to that line I realised I had forgotten it the first time and said so to Troy. He said that was all he needed to know as he wanted to check I hadn't learnt it without that line, and then explained the importance of exhale breathing and how that helps straighten your spine - something I hadn't realised before. He said there are some lines that it doesn't matter if you omit them but that particular line was really important in setting up the posture. So you can bet I'll NEVER forget it again.

Unfortunately while we are here we aren't given time to have all the postures and dialogue broken down for us like that and so they said it is up to us to make sure we learn how to connect the postures with the dialogue and really start to recognise what the bodies are doing so that the dialogue almost comes 2nd place to us as we already know what the bodies are supposed to be doing. Does that make sense? Its kind of hard to explain, but for now for myself and I think for a lot of the others we are just repeating lines and not really connecting them with the bodies so that will be the biggest thing to learn.

So we're back tonight for another Anatomy lecture. Fingers crossed we finish before midnight. I am still enjoying my sleep as that supposed "not needing sleep' benefit from 2 classes a day has not kicked in!

Only Tuesday

Today's post will be short and sweet. They have moved up our evening start time from 9:30pm to 8:30pm which means we have less time after the afternoon class to get our dinner organised, cram in some studying and be ready for the lecture. As this is the only time I find to write a post, I'll make it a quick one.

So tonight we're having posture clinic. Hopefully the rest of the peops in our group will finish up Back Bending and Hands to Feet so that we can move on to Awkward. The reason for the early start is that because we are such a large group they need to make up some time somewhere along the way. The other option would be to make training 10 weeks. Oh God NO! I will stay up late, I will stay up late! Anything to make the bad days come to an end.

Well ok, its not that bad......yet. But I am certainly not loving the experience like I had envisaged. Everyone says that by the end you will just not want to leave so I'm hanging out for that because at the mo I'm ready to change my flight and get the hell out of here asap.

Its kind of hard to explain, because its not horrible, its just kind of dare I say it, boring? Oh and bloody hard work. From the minute you wake up the day is tightly run to a schedule that is exactly the same everyday (except weekends) and though some of the lectures are different and very very good, I still have a sense of dread knowing that tomorrow we do it all over again exactly the bloody same.

Anyway, enough whining, I bored everyone enough for the past two years talking about how much I wanted to come here so I had better not bore you all with details of how little I'm enjoying it!

This morning's class was taught by Emmy. She said our Rabbit postures were so bad that the only things those rabbits were good for is stew. Baaahaaaahaaa. I just loved that one! Small things make for great humour in that torture chamber!

She also said how in Bow Pose it is really important to bring your chest down parallel to the floor especially if you are inflexible. Will def think about it more next time I'm in class.

Tonight we had Rajashree again who once again charmed everyone with her lovely nature. Even when she says she is not giving us anymore Mother Love and is going to get mean she is still wonderful. She asked if anyone was homesick and then said how its good to get away so that we appreciate the people in our lives, and also to really value this experience as its not often we get a chance in life to dedicate 9 weeks purely to ourselves and our own development. A nice thought to end the class on. :-)

So in light of that I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all the wonderful people back on the Goldie and in NZ whom I am missing right now. I am so blessed to have such great people in my life who make being here all the more bittersweet. Namaste to you all. xxx