Venice Beach

After a lazy start to the day my roommate and I headed to Venice Beach. We parked a few streets away and then walked up around the canals to get to the beach. It was such a lovely area, nice and peaceful - until we got to the beach that is.

The change in energy hit us like a tonne of bricks and it was just sensory overload. It doesn't look it in the picture but it was crowded, noisy and full of street vendors all looking for business. Very touristy and hard to get a true sense of what the area and local culture is like, though I'm guessing locals probably just don't go down there (much like Surfers Paradise at home which we rarely ever visit for the same reasons - too touristy and far more beautiful less crowded places to go).

We lasted maybe an hour amongst the hustle and bustle and then had had enough. If one week of living in the yoga bubble makes us feel like this I can't imagine what its going to be like after nine?

So now I'm making the most of the rest of our time off and just catching up on things and getting organised for the week ahead. I am SO glad I put the effort into learning dialogue before I came as it has taken the pressure off now and means I can cruise for a few weeks yet. Insert BIG smile here! :-)

Bikram's Bentley which was parked outside our hotel today. Who said you can't make money teaching yoga?

Notes from Emmy's Class

Finally have time to copy the notes that I quickly scribbled down after taking from Emmy's class. I learn't SO much in her class. I tried to remember it all, and would have loved to have been able to just sit there and take notes :-)

First thing was that she got up and announced that she wouldn't do the class saying the regular dialogue as she didn't want us practicing on auto-pilot and so that gave us such great focus. Something we should be able to do anyway, but it was amazing just the way she was able to talk about each posture.

- Standing bow: When you put your L arm up (in first set) to look at your fingertips in the mirror (tho dialogue says knee) as this will help get your head/ chin in line when you charge forward.

- Camel: When you first drop your head back, consciously take a few breaths to release your fear / angst.

- Fixed Firm: If you have trouble sitting back with your knees together, to start the posture standing on your knees with your knees together. Then sit down keeping your kness together. This will help you get into the posture correctly much quicker rather than having to wait for your knees to open. (Will have to ask someone who can't do this posture as I'm able to do it no trouble so can't comment on the diff it makes.)

- Locust: Single leg lift - to think about kicking your leg up like you do in standing bow so that you activte from your hip.

- Triangle: When you turn your foot to the side in the set up to keep your hips in the centre rather than letting your weight shift to the back leg. Something that I wasn't conscious of doing but think I was.

- Floor Bow: Knees together to start in set up.

She made a great comment in Locust that cracked me up. In the single leg lift peops must have had their leg moving around. She said, "why do you have your leg waving around? No-one is coming to help you! Keep your leg still". Baaahaaaahaaa. Maybe its the lack of sleep, but that really appealed to my sense of humour.

She also said that when you're practicing twice a day, that if you're easily flexible then to work hard in the A.M. class to gain strength and take it easy in the P.M. class. And that if strength was your positive then to take it easy in the A.M. and work harder in the P.M. as your body is more warmed up then and would give you better chance to improve your flexibility. Good tip.

Food Obsession

Saturday! Mmmmmmm the start of a weekend :-) Not a particuarly interesting pic but just wanted to record the first time I got out of the hotel!

Only one class today at 8:00am and then the rest of the day was ours to do as we wished. The class was taught by Miranda a visiting teacher from Montreal who is working at Headquarters for our training. I had another great class and eased through it as the humidity and heat were really temperate. Not something I expect to last :-(

Then, my roommate and I decided to hire a car and stock up on food and bulky items that are too heavy to manage on a bus etc. There are some fabulous huge warehouse style food markets here that sell natural / organic / healthy food. You are spoilt for choice in terms of variety - which is just as well as we are all OBSESSED with food!

It is the most talked about topic so far. Forget about how well you did or didn't manage the class; random cravings, food obsessions, whats working and whats not are the hot topic. I am craving things I haven't eaten in years. i.e. bagels with cream cheese! I wouldn't have had one of those probably since I lived in Canada which is 20 years ago, and yet I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to eat more?

For some reason none of the things I would eat at home appeal anymore and my cravings are like someone with split personality disorder as they constantly change from sweet to savoury and everything in between. And just when you think you've got it figured out, your tastebuds go totally the opposite again. E.g. Just the thought of the peanut butter sandwich I had yesterday (What the...? Again, something I NEVER eat) made me feel sick this morning. Oy...............

It reminds me of a Billy Connelly scenario where he talks about a woman's / or minority groups' demands: "I want this! I want that! I want some of that! A little bit of that! And all of that! And its all going to change tomorrow, so you'd better fucken stay awake!

Baaahaaaaha....LMAO

Anyway, as you can imagine it made for an interesting shopping trip and we have enough food to feed a small African nation. But hey, I am happy to shop a little more now and have all the variety and options at hand rather than be trying to get through without - God forbid!

I was about to say, alright enough about food, I'll tell you about the rest of the day, when I realised that it involved going out to a restaurant for dinner. Ha ha... what did I tell ya! Even though our room looks like a corner grocery store, we decided we would revel in the luxury of having time to get out of the hotel and go out for a leisurely meal.

We went down to Manhatten Beach which is less that ten minutes drive from here. It was so nice to get out and see the ocean....sigh......though made me feel a bit homesick as you can imagine. My roommate who is from Seattle was delighting in how warm it was and toyed with the idea of going back tomorrow for a swim but I was bloody freezing!


We had dinner in a restaurant near the beach and caught up with some other yogis. (Pretty hard to go anywhere within a 20 mile radious and not see someone from our group) One of the girls was Paula from Chille, who used to practice at our studio on the GC and has since moved to Auckland. It was her birthday so it was nice to celebrate that with her. Photo is to show the food we ordered; Buffalo wings, fries, garlic bread, pasta and then dessert. Granted I barely touched the pasta, but the rest was divine and eaten without any thought to the amount of calories it all contained..........Mmmmm Mmmmmm. :-) I'm beginning to see how peops can come to TT and actually put ON weight.

TGIF!

We've made it through the first week! You can't believe how good it feels to know we have only ONE class tomorrow and then the rest of the weekend is free. What pure bliss. Everything through the week is on such a tight schedule that it will be so nice to just sit down and not have to be somewhere.

Its Easter Friday and so as a treat Bikram has given us the evening off and we don't have to back for a lecture and / or movie tonight. Honestly that was the best news we had heard all week. Free time is SO precious here! Its a long weekend at home and so everyone will be enjoying 4 days off. OMG You can't imagine how jealous I am. Not that I don't want to be here but that I would love 4 days off in a row!

They have started making us sign in for all our classes and lectures now (which means you are signing in 4 times a day). All are compulsory and if you miss one or even forget to sign in for one you have to do a make up class on Saturday morning. My goal for TT is to NEVER EVER EVER have to do a make up class. Thanks, but NO thanks. Eleven classes a week is going to be well and truely enough.

So as you can imagine getting 430 people anywhere takes bloody ages. You line up and wait for an elevator (and hope when if finally does get to your floor that its not already jammed full with yogis :-0) Then you line up to sign in, then line up to get a towel, then line up to get into the yoga room, line up for that last toilet break, etc etc you get the idea. And its like that all day whenever you go anywhere.

So far I'm coping with it all ok. My roommate is lovely and we have got our little routines worked out etc so we manage to eat and get everywhere on time. What is strange is that I haven't even stepped outdoors in nearly a week. These pics are the view from our room, my only contact with the outside world. Otherwise the view is the inside 4 walls of the yoga room or the lecture room.......

Needless to say I am hanging out for the weekend and some time to even just get out and feel the sun for a while and breath natural air rather than A/C. Its amazing how its the small things like that, that we are already starting to really appreciate. There are all the big obvious "buzz" things like all the people you get to meet, the amazing teachers we get to connect with, Bikram himself and the whole TT experience, but its the little things that you take for granted out there in the real world that we now really appreciate. Some of the more random ones that make the difference between a good day and a bad one:

1. Still finding ice in the ice machine (I don't know what time people start getting up around here and getting ice for their water botttles for morning class but the ice machine is ALWAYS empty on our floor? Which then results in having to go up and / or down to other floors to raid theirs)

2. Catching the elevator to class or lectures and having it arrive empty or still with enough room that you can actually get into it. With 430 yogis over 6 floors you can imagine the rush hour traffic jam in the elevators.

3. Finding yourself alone for any period of time.

4. Going to bed on the same day that you got up. (Has only happened once so far)

5. A space in the hot room where you can lie down without anybody's feet on your head, or stuff in your space.

6. But the best of all: Finding that your water is still cold at the end of class! Heaven. Yes after going 2 years with pretty much never even taking water to class I have already resigned myself to taking water WITH ice into the class with me! Mind you its just one regular water bottle, I haven't got a "water tower of shame". Some people look like they are prepared to spend a week hiking in the outback with all the supplies they bring in. lol

Well, I think thats all my thoughts for today. We're searching the TV channels in hope of a good movie and going to settle in, eat some popcorn and prob fall asleep within minutes. Enjoy your Easter weekend everyone ;-)

P.S. This morning's class was taught by Brandy, who is the current world champion. I loved it and had a strong class that made me feel like I was finally getting into my groove with things. Lets just hope it lasts! :-) She had some comments I wanted to record but they have totally slipped my mind for now? Lets hope they come to me later :-)

Thirsty Thursday

So we are starting to get a taste of what life for the next 9 weeks is going to be like. Bikram kept us up till 4 a.m. this morning watching a Hindu movie. Oy! It was obviously a movie he really enjoyed and afterwards he had some really insightful comments about yoga and its place in the world and the beautiful way that it doesn't discriminate against anyone no matter what colour, sex or race etc which is a rarity these days.

I would have liked to have taken notes as some of the things he said were so eloquent but honestly at 4 a.m. my brain just was not functioning. We will have plenty more lectures with him so hopefully the topic comes up again - and hopefully at a more reasonable hour.

The class this morning was taught by Emmy who is a reknowned teacher and adored by many. She was fabulous, looks stunning for her age (86!) and had such energy. Unfortunately for me, it was my worst class to date as I felt totally nauseous through the whole class and spent most of the time just trying not to throw up. I couldn't even drink water - hence the "Thirsty Thursday" title for this post.

(I have a heap of notes from her class I want to write about but will have to wait till Saturday as simply don't have time tonight. Along with more pics to upload but the internet service runs so slowly with everyone using it all at once in what little spare time we have.)

I came back from class and lay down until it was time for the posture clinic to start by which time I started to feel marginally better and could actually get some food and liquids down. My food of choice? Peanut butter sandwich. How random considering I never eat it at home but my roommate had some and it as the ONLY thing that didn't make my stomach turn at the thought of eating it. So the random food cravings everyone warns about have started already.

Then it was back to the lecture room where more yogis delivered their half moon dialogue. We are over the 200 mark but there are still 230 to go so we'll be doing it for a few more days yet.

Bikram took this afternoon's class and I rocked it and felt the best I had all day. I nailed all the postures, did what felt like my best standing bow posture since arriving here, AND got my appetite back. This time I had an unrelenting craving for french fries - so thats what I got. Disgusting greasy fries - upsized, with a burger and coke - upsized. And I devoured EVERY bit of it. Heaven!

So now we're about to head back to the lecture room where I will sit back and digest and watch the show...... :-)

Hump Day

Well I've made if half way through the first week! I'm trying to just look at that as an acomplishment in itself and not think about how many more classes, lectures and late nights are to come because that all feels a little too daunting. i.e. I am counting the number of classes we have done to date but I can't quite bring myself to add up the number of classes we will do in total over the 9 weeks! Maybe when we're in week 5 and I know I'm safely over the halfway mark.

At the same time I don't want to wish my time here away as if there is one thing that everyone agrees on it is that the 9 weeks will fly be and we will all be back in the real world before we know what has hit us. Certainly to be able to take 9 weeks from our regular lifestyles to go and do something we love is an invaluable gift and opportunity and so I want to try and relish every moment (some obviously more than others).

So last night we were only kept up till midnight doing Posture clinic - early by Bikram's standards. Then it was up and ready for class by 8 a.m. this morning. I certainly did not feel like class at all when the alarm went off, but I have to admit that afterwards I did feel revitalised. A reminder of how well this yoga works.

It also helped that I had my first reasonably strong class since we've been here. Yay! The class was taught by another one of Bikram's first Teachers, Marlee who has such great energy. It helped that the heat and humidity were far more within what felt like a normal range and she was purposely kind to us so that we had energy for our 2nd class later in the day. You can't imagine how much we appreciated that :-)

She called the Half Tortoise Pose / Ardha-Kurmasana her "Thank God" pose. Now I'm sure she means thanking God because we are bowing in the posture, but I think there will be plenty of times when I'm in it and say, "thank God" because it means we're 3/4's of the way through the class. lol

For the first time since I've been here I managed to get my forehead to knee in both sets of standing head to knee and didn't fall out. Always a nice achievement. In fact I felt strong in all the standing postures and wasn't just going through the motions which is all I have managed in the previous classes.

So then the day was spent in posture clinic again. With 430 yogis having to deliver their Half Moon dialogue its going to go for days. We're not even halfway yet, and are going back after dinner tonight at 9:30pm for another session.

Our 5pm class was taken by Waan (sp?) and again it was a great class. By no means easy, but I got through it really well and was able to get into full extension of all the postures again.

He had a wonderful insight about the art of complaining where he said that "complaining is a sign of life" and that as a teacher if there is one thing we can count on its that students will ALWAYS find something to complain about. So I apologise now to all my teachers :-)

I had another strong class that I felt comfortable in (well as comfortable as one can be in a hot room) and I managed to do all postures to the full extent without too much trouble.

So now we're on a dinner break and then its back at 9:30pm for some more dialogue clinic and then a Hindu movie so who knows what time things will finish up tonight? Lets just hope its a short movie!

Thanks for all your messages everyone, and Sean for sending us love and energy from the Gold Coast studio. It means a lot when you're so far from home. Namasate xx

Two for Tuesday

Today was our first day of double classes and posture clinics. A taste of things to come.

The 8a.m. class this morning was lead by Jim Kallet, one of Bikrams first ever teacher trainees. He has a lovely energy about him and I really enjoyed his teaching style.

They room was at a better temp too which made a HUGE difference. I think in light of the mass exodus in class yesterday afernoon they realised the heat and humidity needed to be adjusted and so the class was cooler. Which by NO means, means it even NEAR cool, it was just less hot. It still felt as humid as some of our days on the Coast and so was a fairly tough class none the less.

I took it really easy, and didn't push in any of the postures so was able to make it through without having to sit down at all. A small measure of success in the Bikram TT World :-) And after yesterday's insane class my goal was going to be just to not run from the room screaming!

So there are a few things that are done differently here. In the 2nd set of Pada Hastasana there is no moving the hips to relax the back, its just straight into hands underneath the heels. He said the reason being, that the body has already been there before so is warmed up enough already.

In Standing Head to Knee / Dandayamana Janushirasna they really emphasize that the grip is just below the toes not in the arch of the foot, so I feel l need to move mine up a little which in turn will help me flex the foot better.

Finally in Head to Knee with Stretching / Janushirasana with Paschimotthanasana (whew!) when you are in the final position with both legs out in front of you, your head has to come down in line with your feet so that there are no wrinkles in the back of your neck. It made a huge difference to how far down I could get my body and it is something I have heard in class before but for some reason didn't register until today?

After class we had posture clinic with Bikram and starting going through Ardha Chandrasana. This is where you have to stand up in front of Bikram and all the 430 yogis and present the first posture. Needless to say its probably going to be the most nerve wracking part of this whole training experience - and no I haven't volunteered to go up yet.

Its amazing just listening to everyone's different styles, personalities and accents. And Bikram, despite all his (sometimes not so funny) jokes and piss-taking, is really very compassionate and seems to know instinctly what each person needs to hear. He said the reason he gets every single trainee to come up and do this is not so that he can see if you know the dialogue or not but rather to get to meet us and see who it is that is going to be out there representing his brand. You've got to give him points for that I reckon as I don't know if any other worldwide business owners could say they know ALL their staff?

When the trainee from Christchurch in NZ came up he asked how their studio was after the earthquake. As it turns out it needs to be totally rebuilt and so Bikram said to tell the studio owner to call him so that he could arrange to help out with funding the re-build so that the studio could re-open as soon as possible. Cool eh! He also spoke of various other charity events that he is contributing to around the world in light of all the recent natural disasters.

So we were in posture clinic all aft until the 5pm class which Bikram took. Again it was pretty hot and humid so I took it really easy. I didn't feel like I had any energy at all and wasn't practicing even close to my full potential. But hey, at this stage I'm still taking it very easy (maybe a little too easy?) and not trying to proove anything to anyone. There is still a long way to go, so I'm really pacing myself.

I need to figure out what is going to work for me the best in terms of getting a quick energy fix though as we only had half an hour between the end of the posture clinic at 4:30 and the start of class so no time to digest anything and I hadn't eaten since lunch at 11:00am. I can see my diet rapidly filling up with pills and various packets of mixes rather than actual food! :-)

Now its 9pm and we're about to head back down to the lecture room for our 2nd posture clinic for the day which is due to start at 9:30. Yes that 9:30 PM folks. Oy! It looks like this is where the sleep deprivation begins.........

Pics are of the Hot Room, and me after class this morning with my water bottle. Something I haven't taken to class in over 2 years but there is NO way I am going to class without it here. Its already a distraction though and I find myself drinking even when I'm not thirsty but rather as something to take my focus of how friggin hot it is!