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.

12th Class for the week

So today I decided to take the 12th class that is offered on Saturday mornings after our regular class.

This is known as the "make up" class and you HAVE to take one for every time you forget to sign in to a lecture or yoga class, or if you are late, etc. They are held over our head as a threat for anyone who steps out of line and is basically deemed a fate worse than death. After all, by the end of the week having done 11 classes in 6 days the thought of having to spend another 90 mins in the hot room is hardly appealing.

So why would I volunteer to do this class? Because of the teacher! A very special person here who gets a round of applause every time he simply walks into the room. and yet still remains so humble and genuine. He is Balwan, and is by far the most loved staff member here. Because he has only been teaching for a year (?) he is not allowed to teach our regular class (despite his popularity) but when I found out he was teaching today's make up class I jumped at the chance to do it.

So that meant doing two classes back to back, no easy feat when you've already got ten under your belt! But you know what, I went in with no expectations and ended up having one of my best classes to date. Firstly because there was only about 100 people in the room we could all spread out (and still we only covered the first 3 lines or so) and actually see ourselves in the mirror. Something that hasn't happened since our group was on the 1st line back in week 3 so it was a welcome change to actually see my whole body in the mirror as I practiced.

And as I'd done the 8 a.m. class it meant I felt so much more open and was able to go deeper into the postures as a result. And Balwan is so nice it just makes you want to work harder for him. A nice way to round off my last Saturday here :-)

Its The Final Countdown!

Insert the Van Halen song here (Showing my age I know).

But the final countdown is officially on! Today we started the first of our "lasts". That is to say we had our last Friday yoga classes and our last ever Friday lecture. What a feeling :-)

Then as if that wasn't great enough we were given tonight off - no lecture, no movies. Oh man, around here that is the best news ever and was met with thunderous applause when Bikram announced it before this afternoon's yoga class. You'd think we'd all just won lotto!

I'd like to say that we went out for a night on the town, but my priority at the moment is sleep, sleep and more sleep. So my roommate and I ordered french fries through room service and ate them in bed while watching tv. Exciting stuff eh! But EXACTLY what the body ordered. An early night is worth its weight in gold here after a week of late night lectures and movies.

Following are some random notes and musings that I had written down over the past few weeks but not managed to work into a post.

- The dialogue is synoptic. That is to say it is written as commands so that the brain doesn't have to think about whether or not to do the posture. There is no question, no thoughts, just commands to "do". Which we only had explained to us in about 7th week by a teacher in Posture Clinic who just happened to mention it. But it explains why the dialogue is written the way it is and what we all thought was just bad grammar has actually been written very specifically that way.

- A line to use while in the set up for Standing Bow Pose: "Put your hand up if you like bow pose / or Bikram Yoga " For those non-yogis this is funny because you have to put your hand up to do the posture. Hee hee. Small things I know, but trust me anything that brings a smile to your face while you are in that room is a god-send.

- Set up the podium for yourself with water & towel etc prior to start of class. When you're ready to start, walk onto the podium, take a breath & settle yourself and then introduce yourself (rather than starting to talk from the back of the room as you walk in).

- Record your class and then you can check later to see how accurate your dialogue was. Gulp.......ok.............I'll let you know how that one goes :-)

The Power of Water

So I did a little research on water and hydration. (Its after 10:00pm and my brain function is def impeded by my lack of sleep over the week so this is as much as I can handle tonight.)

Here is a link to a page I found most helpful but I will summarise my findings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehydration

Like Joel said yesterday:

Your body absorbs only 4-6 oz / 250ml of water every 15-20 mins.

That equates to 32 oz / 1 L per hour - so drinking any more than that through the class is not going to increase your hydration. This stresses the importance of hydrating prior to class rather than relying on the water you are drinking while you are in class.

The best way to work out how much water you need is to weigh yourself before and after exercise and to see what the difference is. You need to drink 2-3 cups of water for every lb lost.

To work out how much water in total through the day you should drink you can use the following formula:

For moderate exercise -your body weight in lbs divided by 2 = # of oz of water required per day.

For strenuous exercise with excessive sweating - thats us folks! - your body weight in lbs equals the # of oz of water req'd per day.

For those in metric 20 oz = 600ml.

Hope this helps :-)

No Whining, No Water, No Worries ;-)

This was the intention I set for my class today. Reading back over my last few posts I def see the need to stop whining, (and to start using spell check!) and as the morning classes aren't that hot I figured what better time to start getting back into the discipline of not drinking through class. And I managed both, hence no worries :-)

This morning's class was taught by Joel from Philly and we got to see a glimpse of a sense of humour that he didn't display in posture clinic. In Standing Bow Pose instead of saying, bring your right hand out, you're holding the money in your hand, he said, "put your hand out if you want your money back". Needless to say, it def got a laugh from me! (And one I will save and pull out in a really bad class where I've totally lost all sense of the dialogue - gulp)

He also got us to clap anytime we put our arms overhead with hands together and had us work on it until we all got it in time together. Quite an awesome energy when 430 people raise their arms overhead and clap in sync. He suggested we try it tonight and surprise Bikram with it. So lets hope we can pull it off, because if 430 of us end up clapping at different times Bikram is going to wonder what the hell we are bloody doing!

At the end of class Joel said that the body can only absorb 250mls of water every 20 mins so those of us who drink more than a litre of water in a class aren't rehydrating anyway. I want to do some research on this because there are so many diff opinions on this subject (I'm such a geek I know). But NOT drinking water has been something I worked really hard to achieve and we get a lot of different information about how long it takes the body to absorb water, how much it can absorb etc so I'd like to get some info for myself to back up this argument when discussing it with others. Certainly there are the obvious reasons for not drinking in class in that it helps you stay focused and often we use taking a drink as a distraction from doing a posture we don't like or because we are feeling uncomfortable etc but I'd like to also have some facts about the physical aspect of it.

This afternoon we had Rajashree go through the Standing Series with us and give all the benefits of the postures. I wish I could say the pic is of me but alas this posture still eludes me. It is instead, Nicci the East Canadian yoga champion - you can see why) Rajashree is in the background, she is a wealth of knowledge and it was all so interesting to hear that the four hours went by in a flash (unlike other lectures....................oops that right I was not supposed to be whining today). She has such a lovely energy and I wish we had more time with her but we've hardly seen her at all :-(

So we were up till 1:ooam last night watching movies. Its been so long now since I've had a full nights good sleep that I have forgotten what its like to NOT be tired. I've certainly learnt to function on a lot less sleep than I would ever attempt at home so it will be interesting to see how my sleeping habits change when I'm back out in the real world.

Anyway, its time to head off for the 5pm class with Bikram. I'll let you know how our "clapping" efforts go.

A few hours later.....

Well as it turned out we didn't have Bikram for this afts class after all. Instead we had Jim one of the senior staff members from here who always teaches an awesome dialogue driven class. He worked us hard but keeps you focused so that it doesn't seem like you won't survive the class. It took us a few postures but we got our "clap" down pretty good and we were all mostly in time. There's always one tho that is late eh :-)

He commented on how our practice and focus had improved so much from the earlier weeks when he first taught us and tried to get everyone to stay in the room just this once (to no avail unfort). There are still plenty of yogis leaving the room and this is something that he and many other teachers are trying to stop. I have to admit there are some people you see leaving EVERY class and so you have to wonder if they really need to or whether they have created that habit of doing so.

We have been told countless times, that as "teachers" (wow its freaky to even think about calling myself that!) we have to set an example for our students and become the students that we want to teach. So first and foremost is being able to stay in the room. How can you teach a 90 min class if you can't even stay in the room during your own practice? Then there are all the other disciplines like not drinking between 1st and 2nd set of postures, not wiping sweat, not moving in Savasana etc. Things which to me have been ingrained from the beginning from practicing in disciplined studios both in Auckland and on the Coast so its not something I even have to think about, but you see a lot of it here still.

Now I used to agree 100% with the thought that everyone had to have a disciplined practice the way I like my own to be, and while I still agree pretty strongly with this I have softened my thoughts about it after having listened to some of the teachers here. While there is still a need to stay focused and aware of unnecessary movements in your practice I realise too that I don't know what might be going on in anyone else's life, what kind of sh*t they may be dealing with that I am not aware of and so I need to respect their need to look after themselves and do what they need to do to get through the class. And like they say, better to teach people by example and then they will learn how to do things rather than you having to tell them what not to do. Which I think makes for a much better environment for everyone. :-)

P.S. Following is my reply to your comments Glenda. For some reason I can't post my reply and I know plenty of you are having the same prob and have emailed and left msges on FB instead. I am not familiar enough with Blogger to be able to figure this problem out, but please know that I read all your messages and am always thrilled to hear from you (though don't always have time to reply sorry). But do keep 'em coming folks :-)

Hi Glenda and Gerry

Thanks for your message and your kind words on FB. I am thrilled you are enjoying my inside perspective of Bikram Teacher Training! (And Glenda I will certainly refrain from asking you any open-ended questions in class :-)

There is at times a strange culture here and as with anything there are always a few extremists who spoil the general energy but I think the majority of trainees share a genuine love and absolute belief in this yoga and a desire to share that with the world.

Certainly I believe that the more people who are getting onto any kind of yoga mat, anywhere, anytime, to practice ANY kind of yoga the better place the world is going to be!

See you both back on the Goldie soon ;-) xx

Want to Lose 3lbs in 90 Mins?

I weighed myself before class today and then again after. Not that I have any interest in what the scales said to start with but to see how much I loose in sweat during a class. The result, a whopping 3 lbs - this is after drinking a Litre of water straight after class. That just astounds me. It just stresses the importance of hydration when practicing Bikram yoga - and believe me hydration and what you are eating is a full time obsession around here!

While we practice twice a day, the rest of the time is just endless hours of sitting so I can't say that my body seems to have changed much at all. I should add that those hours of sitting are interjected with plenty of junk food snacks as a way to relieve the boredom.

I couldn't tell you either what my practice actually looks like as the strategic rotation of group placement on the lines in the yoga room supposedly so that everyone gets their share of time in front of the mirrors seems to have failed miserably and some groups have spent days on the front 2 or 3 lines and others like ours have only been up there once in nearly 8 weeks? It certainly makes you concentrate on "feeling" the posture but you have no way of checking your alignment. But hey if you can hold standing bow pose from the back of the room where you have several hundred bodies falling out around you then you can hold bow pose anywhere!

So since being here we have had a huge array of teachers taking the yoga classes and it has shown us many different teachng styles to learn from. You hear lots of different ways to use your voice to create impact with the words etc and its been great and I hope I manage to take it on board and develop my own skills. It has also shown us some things you want to make sure you don't do!

Yogis at home, if I start talking in a high pitched voice you have permission to throw your water bottles at me because listening to that for 90 mins is really hard to take.

If I talk so fast thatthewordsallruntinoeachotherandidon'tstopforabreath throw your water bottle at me so that you get a chance to at least catch up to me in between breaths. Again, hard to get into the next posture when you're still coming out of the last one.

And the one I promise to try my best to refrain from - waving out to friends in class! Yes you read it correctly folks......... and we witnessed it today................can you imagine.

(While In Tree Pose)
Bring your right hand up to the centre of your chest in Namaskar.
Oh hi Vera, wave wave. Hi! Hi Vera! Wave wave.
Glenda, oh I didn't see you back there, hi! More frantic overhead waving.
(Confusion? Why aren't you responding? It looks like you're in a mediation focusing on yourselves in the mirror or something?)

Holy sh*t man!