Live in the moment but not for the moment, because the best is yet to come.

Well, this week started with a bust.  Monday – BOOM – Migraine.  Awesome.  It happened in the hot room.  Monday night was actually a hot class (as far as hot goes here at the Radisson… more on that in a bit).  It was a loud class; “Boss” was practically yelling into the mic (or so it seemed to me that night). It was a bright class (no brighter than normal, but fluorescent lights are nothing if not bright). What a wonderful combination: heat + loudness + bright lights + migraine = HELL!  I went to the “nurse,” whom is really a massage therapist posing as our healthcare provider, and she gave me the cure-all for migraines.  Anyone who suffers from these God forsaken headaches needs to try this.  It is a remedy that will blow your mind.  Are you ready for this?  Grab a pen and paper; you won’t want to miss this.  Brace yourself.  If you have a migraine here at TT and you go see our “nurse,” she will give you ONE regular strength capsule of Tylenol and send you on your merry way back into the torture chamber of heat, yelling, and fluorescent lights.  Best part is, you don’t even need water to take it.  It just goes down on it’s own!  I know, I told you… Blown away right?  “Can you imagine?!”… after all these years, I finally found relief! Someone should bottle this and call it “Misery.”

If you try to get rich by bottling this, you might just need to work out a few kinks first, mainly the side effects.  The amazing remedy that it is, it’s blemished.  I suffered some unpleasant side effects. I was really hoping to feel better but instead, after the magic wore off, I ended up with a headache that lasted three and a half days.  Yeah, that might make people in the real world a little bit annoyed.  No worries though, if you want to market your product to those here in the Yoga Bubble, you’ll have no problems.  You see, we’re bulletproof, money-proof, wind-proof, sex-proof and above all else we are side-effect proof!  Well, clearly I’m the exception to the rule, but don’t let me discourage you.

We are assigned lines in the hot room.  They change daily and sequentially.  Since there are so many of us, we only get to see ourselves in the mirror every two weeks.  Everyone looks forward to those days in the front two rows.  After practicing behind rows upon rows of sweaty, mirror blocking yogis, when the day arrives for you to see yourself and how your practice has either improved or gone to shit, it adds a little bit of excitement to the mundane routine here in at TT.  All week we were anticipating Friday, not only because it was the end of the week, but also because it was our day, our day to park our mats on row 1!  Well, of course that went out the window when they announced that it was Recertification Week so there would be an extra 100 teachers joining us in the hot room.  Guess which rows were reserved especially for them?  You guessed it, rows 1 and 2 of course!  So, needless to say, my experience in row 1 in the mirror turned into an experience back in row 9 with more sweaty feet (upon other body parts) in front of me blocking the mirror.

Not only did the teachers seeking recertification join us, but Rajashree came back this week too.  She went through all the postures with us, using Ashley as a model. It was incredible to watch her do the postures and amazing to see how far she can get her flexible body into some of those postures.  Unfortunately, the setup wasn’t the most ideal, they were standing on a risen stage that was about 2 feet off the ground.  So, unless you were sitting in the front row (and I wasn’t), you couldn’t really see the details of what Ashley was doing and Rajashree was explaining.  It became next to impossible when she started going over the floor series and Ashley was laying down on that 2 foot stage and the rest of us were sitting in chairs, some 20 rows back and not on any type of incline.  However, it was great to learn more about the postures from Rajashree.  We also had an OB/Gyn come in and talk to us.  This was definitely a time-filling lecture with no relevance to yoga whatsoever.  The good news? He was funny and we were let out at 11 pm.  He told this one joke that got a huge response from the trainees here:

“A woman goes to a priest to get his blessing for her 5th marriage.  He looks at her and says, ‘The Catholic Church doesn’t allow divorce and you’ve been married and divorced FOUR times?  Why should allow God allow this one?’  She says, ‘Well, my first husband was a psychologist, all he did was talk. My second husband was a gynecologist, all he did was look.  My third husband was a contractor, he never finished the job.  My fourth husband was a politician, all he did was kick my ass.  This one is a lawyer, so at least he’ll screw me well.” 

Additionally, to kill more time, we had chiropractor/nutritionist come lecture us.  By lecture, I am referring to his very polished salesman tactics of getting people to believe in his product and think they NEED to buy this and they NEED to buy this NOW.  What was he selling you ask?  Well, he was hired to formulate an electrolyte-replenishing product for Bikram.  So, naturally, he was selling us that.  Let me first tell you that if you want to sell people a product they have to consume, you should make it either taste good or be intoxicating.  This product is neither of the two.  Bikram Balance might carry his name, it might get his stamp of approval, and who knows, it might even work.  That being said, there are tons of products out there that work AND taste halfway decent.  I will say, that some of the information he talked about regarding electrolyte balance and nutrition was actually pretty interesting. Bikrams in house council lawyer who talked about our rights and obligations as teachers… Blah, blah, blah…

There is a whole new meaning to “Friday night lights.”  After class on Friday, they announced to us that we had to sign in at 10:45 pm.  For what, we had no idea.  We never have any idea.  It could have been a lecture, a movie, a posture clinic, who knows what.  So begrudgingly, we all made our way back to the lecture hall to sign-in at 10:45 on a Friday night only to sit around until 12:30 before anyone moved.  At that time, the doors opened and we made our way into the lecture hall for what turned out to be hours on end of Mahabharata.  What is that you ask?  Only the most exhilarating of Sanskrit “Great Eipic of the Bharata Dynasty” made into a fascinating TV mini-series.  It is some of the best Indy acting I have ever seen with the most remarkable English subtitles that conveniently leave half of the scripted translation up to the viewer’s imagination.  Well, I suppose that would be a bit disheartening to some, but no, not us.  Laura and I drank tea, practiced dialogue and kicked ourselves for not sneaking out and heading back to our warm beds where the magical world of sleep awaited.  Not of much surprise, that was not something we got a lot of this week. 

After a full 3 hours of sleep, we marched right back into the hot room for Saturday morning class.  Grouchy, tired, irritated, and cold… yes cold, we practiced yoga.  Well, for this class, I use the term “practice” very lightly.  I honestly don’t know what the deal is with our “hot” room but it is at best, slightly warm.  A beloved friend, who I won’t name, said, “I sweat more sleeping than I do in here!”  I was under the impression that our classes here were going to be insanely hot but aside from a select few, the vast majority of our classes have been done in sub-standard heat.  I would venture to say that the hot room on Saturday was 90F, and I’m being generous.  Both Jim Kallett and Rajashree acknowledge the fact that the room just wasn’t hot enough.  Laura and I practiced next to each other, thank goodness. Despite getting yelled at from a girl in the row in front of us, we used our time wisely and discussed our weekend plans. We decided that we weren’t going to let our pent up anger and frustrations towards the completely irrational ongonings here at TT ruin our weekend, after all it was our last weekend here.  So, we opted to make the most of it and we rented a car, AKA – our “magic carpet ride.”

You just finished week 8, what are you going to do next?...

– We’re going to DISNEYLAND!!!

… And that’s just what we did!  People say that Disney is the happiest place on earth, and you know what, they’re right.  Aside from the little blip with it being a tad chilly.  (Anyone who knows me can attest that a tad chilly to most people equates to Arctic cold, freezing temps in my world.)  I was “where dreams come true” with friends only dreams could produce.  On Saturday, Laura, Dan, and I headed to Anaheim and we were able to check another thing off of our “LA To-Do List.”  We met someone famous, and by famous, we’re talking A-list famous.  I have been waiting my whole life to say this, and now I finally can.  I met Mickey Mouse!  I might be 29-years old, but I am still a kid at heart.  We stood in line and took advantage of the photo opp (a girl needs proof after all!).  We even slipped him a little smooch.  After our star sighting, there was something else we needed to do.  Something else we had been waiting a very long time to do.  Something both Laura and I had done with our dads when we were younger.  Something that left a lasting impression on us for years that we just couldn’t put off anymore.  That something… Space Mountain!  All these years later, and it didn’t disappoint! You should have seen the three of us parading around the place like we were kids… kids at Christmas… or kids at Disney… or better yet, all three!  Literally, it was Christmastime at Disneyland and we made sure that we embraced every last drop of our inner child.  We skipped and sang.  We went on rides and wore Mouse ears.  Oh, and we indulged in sweets, lots and lots of sweets.  We had hot cocoa, Jelly Belly’s, chocolates, caramel, cotton candy, and flavored sugar.  It was the perfect, balanced diet of a 6-year old!  It was magic.

A little caffeine to get our day started... and keep us awake!

A 'lil smooch for Mickey!

Minnie Christmas Hats!

SPACE MOUNTAIN!!!!

Yogi Love.... it was SO warm.  Can't you tell?

Fish faces look so much cooler in 3D

This is going to be the photo for our Christmas card :)

Sunday, is supposed to be a day of rest.  Here at TT, we revel in the idea of Sunday because it is our one day to be free.  Sunday is a the day where we don’t have to set our alarms, although despite exhaustion, I still get up at the same time I have to every other day of the week for class.  It’s the day where we can wear jeans or dresses, we can put on make-up and do our hair, we can wear jewelry and shoes!  It’s actually quite difficult to distinguish who is a yogi here on Sundays… that is, until you see someone carrying that amazing invention we call a Hydroflask.  Yep, that “water bottle” rightfully deserves it’s own class and name.  It’s actually teetering on the fence of being magical.  It keeps cold things cold (and I mean ICE cold) for 24 hours.  It keeps hot things hot (and I mean steaming hot) for 12 hours.  There are 443 dehydrated yogis running around this joint, but even on Sundays, we carry those sacred containers with us making us very easily detectable.  That is, unless you’ve got a magic carpet ride to show you a whole new world!  We used ours to go to another farmer’s market, go grocery shopping, get Laura a dress for graduation and me a faaaabuloouuus Thai massage (this one wasn’t sketchy like the place before).  That was all before getting sushi for dinner (YUMM) and frozen yogurt at Pinkberry for dessert (DOUBLE YUMM).  The best part of it all was simply driving around, blasting country music, and singing at the top of our lungs.

Pinkberry Bliss with our favorite yogurt master Antonio

Despite the disgruntling week here at TT, the weekend really made up for it. Everywhere we go, people ask if we are sisters.  Biologically, we might not be, but we like to think that we were destined to find each other.  We believe that we are “soul sisters” and let me tell you, sisters are family for life!

I was seriously considering titling this week's post "F**K the Process.  Let's go on a Magic Carpet Ride," but I heard something this week that really resonated with me and I think it's far more fitting.  So, let me end with this: Live in the moment but not for the moment, because the best is yet to come. 

Namaste!