When you’re looking for confidence, you just open your legs and there it is!

This week began with a late night movie.  Starting Monday with Bollywood is NOT my idea of fun.  Neither is staying up late on Friday night after extra posture clinics and another “film festival.”  At least on Friday, the movie wasn’t Bollywood.  We watched clips of Bikram from the 80’s-90’s making appearances on TV shows such as Merv Griffin and the like.  Everything he said back then is the same thing he says today.  I know that I “cannot start the Cadillac car with the Toyota key.”  It’s clear that his message hasn’t changed, although his arrogant demeanor certainly has.  He seemed to be a bit more genuine and authentic before he got all this fame and money.  Then again, I’m sure that’s the case for most people in Hollywood. 

After class on Wednesday, as we were laying in savasana, Bikram sang us a song.  It was a Hindi song so we didn’t know the words, nor could we understand them.  After he finished, I picked up my towel and mat and headed to the door, eager to get out of there.  I waited, along with all the other anxious yogis who wanted to leave the hot room.  The rule is, when Bikram is teaching, no one can leave the room until he has left.  So he walked to the back of the room, put on his shorts and came over to the door.  He stopped right there, his back against the door, as we were all waiting for him to exit so we could leave.  He looked at the crowd, at everyone except me and said, “not too bad?” and started signing again.  Then he looked directly at me, with a fierce stare.  He pointed to me and said, “You, you are beautiful, the most beautiful.  The most beautiful thing about you – your love.  Please, don’t give up on me!”  Never once blinking or losing eye contact with me, he turned around and left.  The guy standing next to me said, “well I guess he told you!”

On Wednesday night, because it was Halloween, we had a party.  Laura and I dressed up as Cirque du Soliel performers.  It was fun to see people all dressed up and embracing some of their creative sides that we don’t often get to see.  A group of guys (most of the males here at training) all got together and ordered costumes.  They were a group of Spartans who stormed into the party with their swords shouting, “LOCK THE KNEE. LOCK THE KNEE!!”  They were awesome!  We had to wait in line for 45 minutes to get some “food” which was all fried, meat filled, greasiness.  There were drinks, about five different options – all soda.  There was no water.  Let me preface this by saying, I am happy that we had this party instead of posture clinic/lecture/late night movie, however, after 7 weeks of two-a-days, we were dehydrated and thirsty.  We were starving for nutrients.  Our bodies were craving good old H2O and something decent to eat… not soda and samosas.

"LOCK THE KNEE! LOCK THE KNEE! LOCK THE KNEE!"

Cirque Performers

Since our training is “the best group yet,” and we finished the individual dialogue for each of the postures last week, this week we began stringing along 2, 3, and 4 postures at a time during posture clinics.  So many people thrived during this.  They remembered more of the dialogue than they thought they would.  They got up there and the nerves wore off after the first posture so by the third or fourth, they were rock stars.  Well, I said many, not all… not me.  I don’t know what it is about memorizing and reciting this stuff but I am sucking pretty badly at it and it’s not getting any easier.  During one of our posture clinics this week, I was up delivering Balancing Stick through Triangle, and after someone from the other group gave me some feedback.  This is a standard occurrence, people get up and deliver some postures and then others give them advice, critiques, etc.  People told me that I needed to have more confidence.  This one girl raised her hand and said, “when you’re looking for confidence, you just open your legs and there it is.”  She was right.  Every time I was lacking confidence and tried to get it, I opened my stance. It’s a more powerful position than standing with your feet together.  However, the double meaning of that statement was hilarious!  We all burst out into laughter, and it was for sure the best part of clinic that day.  That is certainly a memory we’ll all laugh about for years to come.  As for the getting the dialogue down, well, I certainly hope that fear doesn’t continue for years, or even months!  As the end of training approaches, the apprehension of not being able to get up on that podium and teach a whole 90-minute class using the dialogue for all 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises, scares the pants off of me!  I am just thankful for all those supportive yogis back home who will tell me I did great even if I didn’t… I’m banking on you guys!

Chika delivering Locust pose in Japanese during Posture Clinic 

(shh, you didn't see this photo)

Gabby taking a snooze in Posture Clinic

(nope, you didn't see this one either)

Lascel being, well, Lascel! Ohh the joys of Posture Clinic.

(You guessed it, this one didn't happen either)

Thursday, Jim Kallett lectured on teaching.  He said that the next two weeks we would be getting a lot of information from Bikram on teaching and postures.  I am really hoping Bikram goes over what the postures are supposed to look like when done correctly and how to correct students who might be doing them incorrectly.  I’m also really looking forward to learning about the benefits of each posture, both physically and medically. 

After Jim was done talking, he opened up the floor to questions.  In a previous lecture, he had discussed getting to your edge and pushing past it.  Someone asked how he suggested pushing past our edge.  His response, “your edge will change everyday, stop judging yourself, condemning yourself. Do the best you can and come back tomorrow. Don’t underestimate yourself. Stop fighting it, go with it, and learn how to move with it.” I’m going to take that advice and apply it to my edge right now – struggling with this damn dialogue! 

I was talking with Lascel about different postures, about how some of them come easy and some are hard.  There are certain postures where I wonder if I’ll ever get to “that” point and then there others where I got to that point on day 1, not even realizing that other people struggled with them.  Part of that is your body, your anatomy, the damage you’ve done to your joints over the years, the lifestyle you’ve lived up to this point, and some genetic predisposition.  Another part is practice… practice, practice, practice.  The more time you put into something, the harder you work at it, the better you’ll be.  You’ll see more drastic changes in your body and what it’s able to do, the more you practice.  That is true on the mental level as well.  If you tell yourself you can’t, you won’t.  If you tell yourself you can, you will.  When you combine the physical and the mental, well, you’re limitless.  When your mind and body work together, you might just get to “that” point. It’s amazing because when you’re ready, you’ll hear things that you’ve never heard before.  You’ll hear things that the teacher says EVERY single class, but didn’t register with your mind until you were ready to hear them.  That happened to me this week.  Lascel asked me if I could see my feet in Camel.  I looked at him with odd eyes, and said, “I don’t know, I’ve never looked!”  He was shocked.  I told him I hadn’t ever thought about it before.  He told me that his teachers tell him to look for his toes and if he couldn’t see those, to look for his towel.  So, the next day in class I did just that.  I looked for my feet; I didn’t see them.  Second set, I looked for my towel.  I saw that.  Then I thought, “my towel is awfully close to my feet…” and just like that, BOOM! I saw my toes!  I immediately flung out of the pose like a jackknife because I was so excited.  Now, the idea is to hold the posture so for any of you reading this and attempting to see your toes, please don’t jerk out and hurt yourself.  It won’t be worth it!  Although, seeing my toes was pretty gosh darn cool!

Lovely shot of our picnic on the floor- discussing how to see our toes in Camel.  Lascel swears that Ralph's makes the best fried chicken... ever!

This weekend wasn’t as exciting as last weekend but it was fun.  Going to the grocery store is pretty much a whole day excursion around here.  Waiting for the shuttle to take you to where you want to go, getting there, shopping, and then waiting for the shuttle to pick you back up; it’s so much longer than you’d expect a trip to the store to take.  However, Laura and I made the most of it on Saturday.  Since this was our adventure for the day, we turned our trip to Whole Foods into a field trip.  We walked around Plaza del Segundo, did some window-shopping and tried every flavor of yogurt that Pinkberry had to offer! The pomegranate and mango were aaamaaaazing!  On Sunday, we opted to try the bus system and venture over to Venice Beach, a place neither of us had been to before.  We went to Venice with a group of yogis.  We soaked up some November sunshine and loved every second of it.  We bought mangos from this lady walking around like those guys at ball games do, “Peanuts. Get yah peanuts he-ah!” The mango was so good, we called her back over for seconds.  This time we opted to try the “spicy” version with chili powder, lemon juice and salt.  DEEEELISH! We decided to walk on the boardwalk and head over to Santa Monica Beach.  On our way, we stopped at Muscle Beach where we naturally did more yoga.  Of course, we can’t seem to do yoga and not take pictures.  Our traveling yoga photo collection is growing.  It was a beautiful walk and by the time we reached the pier, it was a perfect opportunity for another photo session at sunset.  Those Pacific sunsets never get old! We saw the end of Route 66, took a ride on the Ferris wheel, and then decided it was time for something to eat.  We parted ways with the rest of our group, and Laura had been craving Italian, so we had a nice, little, romantic dinner for two at a cute Italian restaurant on the Santa Monica Promenade.  I love my yoga girlfriend.  It makes me sad to think that in two weeks she’ll be back in Canada, 10 hours away.  :’(

Mmm, mangos on the la playa.

Look what we can do! -Muscle Beach

Showing off our "muscles"

Toe Stand on the Balance Beam

Yogi Field Trip to Venice Beach

Can you say GORGEOUS?!

You can see the Santa Monica Pier in the background

On the Ferris Wheel

I’ve come to realize that despite my frustrations, annoyances, and aggravations with this place (TT that is), the hardest part is going to be leaving.  I have made some amazing friends and built some life-long relationships.  It’s a double-edged sword making such strong bonds with people here.  I mean, you can’t not when you spend 18ish hours a day with these people.  Going from seeing everyone so much to not being able to see them at all, is going to be a tough transition.  It’s exciting to think about visiting all my new friends across the globe, but the reality of how infrequently we’ll actually get to see each other is a sad one.  For now though, I’m going to make the most of these last two weeks.

443 yoga mats... airing out to dry

Namaste!