Groundhogs, Rats, Elephants, Gerbils & Puppies...Oh My!

Groundhog day. The teachers who have gone through this training are NOT kidding when they say it's like the movie "Groundhog Day." Funny movie when you're watching it from the comfort of your sofa at home, snuggled up and comfy. Not as funny when you are living it. Groundhogs. Animal number one this week. (I am trying to fit an animal theme into this blog entry...but not sure how successful I'm going to be!) I literally can't believe it when the alarm goes off and it's time to get up and go to yoga class AGAIN. Same alarm. Same get up and shower, eat same breakfast, prepare water bottles in the same fashion. Wear same clothes, walk down same way to yoga tent. Place mat in same area, near the edge of the mass of humanity. Take same class, same 90 minutes, same faces. Go to same buffet afterwards. Eat same food. Same, same, same. At least by noon, each day is a little different.

And yet, there is some comfort in the sameness of it all.

So, the pattern that I seem to see developing here is this...odd numbered weeks bad, even numbered weeks good. At least it would seem that the even numbered weeks have not contained anything that is "extreme" in the way of emotions or physical issues.

Just to review...week one was completely shocking, sights, sounds, crying during class most mornings, everything. Week two was not as much of a shock. Week three was the "intestinal issues" week. Week four didn't seem to be a big problem. Week five contained some anger. Week six...well...even numbered week.

So then, you can guess that week six was a "good" week for me. In the sense that "good" is as "good" as it can be when you are in yoga boot camp, concentration camp, prison, torture chamber, seclusion, compound, or whatever various names one assigns to this Bikram yoga teacher training. And believe me, there have been a LOT of names used this week.

I am sitting and gazing out the window at my view. The view for the past six weeks. Not a lot of green stuff outside my window. I currently reside in the East Tower of the Hilton and the lovely view is mostly of rooftops, the airport in the distance, hotels, and the mountains in the background. I am so sick of this view. If I press my face up against the glass (not highly recommended for obvious reasons) and crane my neck to the side, I can see some of the golf course near the hotel. There seems to be some green stuff over there. Grass, I think it is called. And trees. Tall green things. With fluffy green stuff on top. One of the visiting teachers here this week told us all that when we go back to our lives in the "real world," we will see everything differently. Even colors will be brighter. Duh. No shit. Right now, and for the past six weeks, I haven't seen much color at all. Not even outside my window. ANY color will be brighter than "gray."

Except for a tiny bit of green. There is a bit of green here and there. Green is okay as long as it is in nature. And not in your home. Or on your clothing. Or on your floors. Or on your jewelry. Or your dishes. Or on your dog's collar. Or anywhere near you. Some Indian superstition. No green here at Bikram yoga teacher training.

I miss green.

So, there was some comfort this week for me because, being a creature of habit and the organizational "freak" that some might label me, I felt good in knowing that I now have a routine. Finally. After six weeks, I feel like I have a routine. I know what to expect. Great comfort for me in that. Leaving my room on Monday morning to start another week, I felt good in that at least I knew what was coming. As far as the schedule. Of course, the staff never let you know anything too far ahead of time because they want you to practice "living in the moment" and to not anticipate things to come.

One of the things I've figured out is how, when, and what to eat in order to survive my day here. This took a few weeks to figure out. What I do is after the morning class is over, I head to the buffet with a friend or two and we have breakfast. This is usually around 10:30 in the morning. We seek out fruit and protein (oh, and all right...donut holes as well). One day when the watermelon chunks had been replaced by pineapple chunks, I thought we were going to have some sort of revolution. Creatures of habit, day after day after day...want their watermelon. When you're in a yoga posture in class and you dream about eating watermelon...and then they have the nerve to omit it from the buffet that day, well, that is just downright cruel.

And then...here's the good part. You start to wonder if Bikram and/or the Bikram staffers actually asked them to leave the watermelon off of the buffet line just as another method of torture. Now THAT is crazy.

Maybe they were just OUT of watermelon. Gosh...I can't wait to start thinking like a NORMAL person again!

This week seems to have had an animal theme of sorts. I saw a rat one morning as I was walking to the yoga tent. Let me explain...there are two routes one can take to get to the yoga tent or "compound" as some call it. This is an area that has been set up on one of the hotel parking lots, so you have to exit the hotel and walk a little ways to arrive at the yoga room and lecture room. The area is partitioned off by a chain link fence. In effect, once you are inside the fence, you can't get out again without signing OUT so that the staffers know you are gone. This is because there are some naughty trainees that apparently try to sign in, then sneak out of class or lecture. So, the staff now keeps a more watchful eye on the comings and goings in and out of the gate.

Anyway....I digress.

Route One is where you walk through the hotel hallways, past the casinos and shops and restaurants, "through" the noise and people who are hungover, smoking, drinking, and gambling. It's noisy and smelly. Route Two is where you walk behind the hotel, across another parking area where the loading dock is, where the tour buses park, and where the garbage dumpsters sit. It's quiet and smelly.

Thus, the rat sighting. I was walking along on my own, reciting dialogue out loud to no one in particular, when I noticed a fellow yogi up ahead stopping to take a photo of something. "What could she possibly find attractive enough along this route to take a PHOTO?" I thought to myself. Upon arriving closer to where she was standing, I saw the object of her photo shoot. Small and gray and furry, sunning himself near the curb.

Wait.

Sunning himself?

He's a rat.

Aren't rats nocturnal?

Unless something is WRONG WITH THEM????

Push paranoia aside and just keep walking. And talking. Keep reciting dialogue and just walk.

That was animal occurence number one.

And then there was the guy who practiced next to me on Friday night in class. He's a guy who is, to say the least, a bit "distracted" during his yoga class. He doesn't seem to focus on anything...yet he seems to focus on everything. Except his yoga. He brings a mini bar of sorts into the yoga room, setting up a couple of flavors of electrolyte beverage next to his mat, complete with a bag of ice, a cup and a straw, and sometimes a large cooler with water. As if that weren't distracting enough, apparently he had some nasal congestion on Friday night, as he decided that he would clear his nose by closing one nostril at a time with his finger and blowing loudly and forcefully out of the open nostril, thus "blowing his nose" without using a tissue.

Okay.

I get it.

You're in the yoga room and your nose is runny. Or stuffy. Or whatever.

And you need to blow it.

And there are no tissues.

Because it's not your home studio where the teacher can pass by with the tissue box because she is nice and there are only 30 people in class. No...this is a room full of 350 people. You have to bring your own tissues to this party.

And of course, my fellow yoga teacher trainee did NOT have his tissues. I guess tissues do not belong in mini bars.

Nor did he have the common sense to lean over and wipe and/or blow his nose INTO his towel from a safe distance.

No.

He BLEW his nose from a STANDING POSITION.

Not once.

Not twice.

Not three times.

He blew his nose...so many times that I lost COUNT!! I am not joking, people!

This reminded me of an animal (in more ways than one...) noise. Elephant perhaps. A big elephant trumpet.

Over and over again.

Now I know that those of you who are reading this who think that the very IDEA of being in a heated room for 90 minutes dripping with sweat and smelling other people's sweat is horrifying in and of itself. I know that you people have just read this episode about the Elephant Guy and are now even MORE horrified than you could've possibly imagined. I have nothing to say really. Go ahead and revel in your disgust. I mean, really. What can I say?

So, I had a mental debate with myself during the class. Do I look to my right and make a "teacher face" at Elephant Guy? Do I "shhhhh" him? Do I just SAY something to him, like, "Stop it, Elephant Guy! That is unsanitary and disgusting!" What is a girl to do in the Bikram yoga room where you are supposed to be QUIET and focus, concentrate one point in the mirror don't even blink your eyes???

Debate.

Mental debate.

Tell him off or ignore him?

I must say that I probably SHOULD have told him off. But I did not. I tried to focus concentrate one point in the mirror don't even blink my eyes and block him OUT. Just do the yoga. Don't think about the germs. Just do your yoga.

Maybe Elephant Guy was a "plant?" Like the staffers took away the watermelon? Maybe they are messing with me this week. Trying to "break" me.

I will not break. I will do my yoga. I will focus concentrate one point in the mirror and not blink my eyes.

I survived.

Whether or not I'll end up with a cold in a week is another question waiting to be answered.

I drank an extra "emergen-C" today. Or two or three.

Another animal reference came about quite by accident this week when a friend who was sitting near me in posture clinic, munching on trail mix during a break, said, "I feel like a gerbil eating these nuts and seeds."

To which I responded. "You ARE a gerbil, Molly. We are all gerbils. Think about it. We are in a cage. We can see out but we can't really GET out. We eat the same thing every day. We drink water from a bottle turned upside-down. We are on a "wheel" and although we keep running, we never seem to get anywhere. AND...we are nocturnal (by force...not by choice). Running at night and not sleeping after dark."

At least Molly and I had a great laugh at this comparison.

Molly and I had another laugh this week (not an animal reference, but still a good one) while making up dialogue (instructions) for your child in "vomit pose." Nice. I know you are excited about this story.

This came about because of Maggie being sick last week. I was telling Molly (mother of two kids about same age as Maggie) about feeling so sad for Mark and for Maggie, both of them having to deal with her being sick. And not just a cold, of course. The REAL "sick" kind of sick kid who is throwing up. Molly said, "And they never throw up in just one place. They always throw up on the way to the place where they think they should throw up.

And then after they are done, then they come and wake you. And tell you that they don't feel good. And then no one feels good. On top of that, there is clean up to do. So, we thought if only we could solve this issue. IF ONLY our kids could just know what to do about throwing up, maybe it would be easier for everyone. Hey...let's invent some dialogue so that they will know what to do!

So...our dialogue went something like this.

Vomit Pose. Children Only.

Lay down on your back. Eyes closed. Forehead clammy.

House quiet. Parent sleeping. Dog sleeping. Neighborhood sleeping.

Everyone sleeping.

Toss and turn. Start to get more clammy.

Salivate.

Salivate more.

Salivate more and more and more.

Take a deep breath and you sit up. Eyes closed. Breathing shallow.

Sit straight up. Wake up, wake up, wake up.

OPEN YOUR EYES. Breathing more rapid.

Look around the room.

Look around and search around.

Find the trash can.

Go directly to the trash can.

Do not move away from the trash can.

Trash can and your head always facing each other....

By the time we got to this point, we were laughing too hard to finish. Besides, the next part would've been too gross to think about, so we just left it at that.

Other highlights this week...

Rajashree was back this week, but only for Monday. She taught morning class and gave an overview of her lectures to come when she returns in the next couple of weeks. We were all delighted to see her.

I received a package from my studio at home this week. It was SO nice to get a box of "love" from everyone. I found everything inside to be of great comfort. There are little notes from people at the studio, bunches of them!! People are actually thinking about me! Wow! I can pull a few out every day and they make me smile. I am taping them up onto my "bulletin board" here in my hotel room. It's the picture hanging on the wall and I've taped up Maggie's pictures and card that she made for me for Mother's Day as well as the notes from everyone back home. It's on the wall near my bed and it makes me smile. I would take pictures of stuff and post them here if I wasn't so technologically challenged.

We had a teacher this week who would say "let the floor hold you" every time we went to lay on our backs in savasana (which is the 20 second rest between postures in the floor series for you non yogis). He said it in such a way that it was a great comfort to me. He didn't just say "let the floor hold you." He said, "Let the floor. Hold. You." I wish I could write it so that you could "hear" it. For whatever reason, it made me feel like the floor was really supporting me, holding me like a giant hand cradling my body. Nice feeling. He was "Mike from Chicago."

We were lucky enough this week to have current yoga champ Joseph Encinia for a posture clinic as well as having him teach a class this week. He is so full of JOY, this guy. Unreal. He literally can't stop smiling. He's young and cute enough to want to put in your pocket and take home. That's what all of us "moms" thought of him, anyway. Like a friendly smiling toy that we wanted to take home for our kids to play with. Just makes you happy just by looking at him. Like a puppy, a black lab puppy (trying again with the animal theme). We heard about him back in the first few weeks of training when David Buckner from Dallas was here and teaching class one day. He told us a story during class about a young kid who came into his yoga studio with arthritis so bad that he could hardly move his body. Long story short...he did what he could, little by little, one class at a time, started attending posture clinics and getting more serious about his yoga, until he told David that one day he would be competing in a local yoga competition. David said that he thought it was nice for this kid to have such a big dream, such a big and impossible dream. After the local competition, he moved on to bigger and better things. Long story short...not only is Joe now a Bikram yoga teacher, he is the current champ! He is amazing. He is full of energy and joy and everyone LOVED his class this week. What an inspiration. He did some demonstrations for us and the guy is really fantastic. Hard to believe that less than 10 years ago, he could hardly move his body. Google him...amazing yoga postures.

Joe explained to us "what's the big deal about the dialogue anyway." He told us how a friend of his invited him to a yoga class at a different hot studio where they do yoga in the heat, but they don't use the dialogue (specific instructions for what to do, how to do it, and the effect of doing it for each posture...to "talk" you through the postures during class...for those of you who are unfamiliar). So, this friend of his had practiced yoga for several years and he had seen her postures in his class. He noticed one day when he was teaching that while her postures were good, the student in class next to her who had only been practicing Bikram yoga for a couple of months actually had better form. He wondered how that could be?? Someone who has been practicing for four years ought to have the ability to outshine a newcomer, right? So, he attended the hot yoga studio with her one day and then he said he understood it all. At the other yoga studio, they did not have the precise instructions that the Bikram studio gives everyone. The instructions are valuable because they are exact and precise and they teach you to enter the posture properly, moving each part of the body in sequence and with precision, how to remain in the posture with breathing techniques, and how to exit the posture again with correct sequence and precision and safety. It's all about the technique! Many other types of yoga don't teach such precise technique and it's "okay" to do it however you want to do it. But, really, it's not. It's really all about the technique. If you don't have the proper technique, then you really aren't getting the benefits of the posture for your body, inside and out, and you may be doing something that is unsafe. So simple really. Just follow the dialogue!

Don't get me wrong. All yoga is good yoga. But Joe was just emphasizing to us what he sees as the value in having this dialogue that Bikram has created.

Thursday afternoon and evening we were treated to lecture by Jon Burras, known as the "Fascia Guy." While he did say the word "fascia" over a gazillion times, his lectures were fascinating and thought-provoking. Unfortunately for us, he was only here for a day. I don't think he covered as much material as he has in previous trainings and I found that I was wishing he had more time with us. His website is JonBurras.com if you want to learn more about his subject area.

A totally hilarious thing happened during his lecture. At least for me. He was talking about how the fascia in the body becomes hardened in some cases due to injury or age or lack of proper exercise. He said that this occurs due to "hydrogen bonding." Now, this is funny because for about the past six months, at home Mark has been explaining the way everything in the universe works to Maggie and it all seems to come down to "hydrogen bonding." Maggie is now trained to answer Daddy's questions ("Why does the sun rise, Mag?" "Why are you sneezing?" "Why is Murphy continuing to pee on the carpet?" "Why is Mommy gone for so long?") with the answer..."It's because of hydrogen bonding, Daddy!" One day way back, the answer really was hydrogen bonding and being the chemist that he is, Mark explained this in detail for Maggie who had a sort of glazed-over look on her face.

We were all sad on Thursday night to say good-bye (for now) to Diane Ducharme. Diane has been with us for a couple of weeks now and we all have nothing but love for her. She walked into the lecture hall on Thursday night and went to the front and we all clapped and stood up for her. We didn't stop clapping until she TOLD us to stop it.

Then we sat down and she tried to talk, but she just smiled and didn't say anything for a moment. Not sure, but I think she was feeling sad to be leaving us, too. So, she stood quietly, smiling at us.

And we started clapping again. And we stood up again. And we all got sort of teary-eyed. We clapped and clapped until she told us to stop it (again).

She told us that she would see us again and we look forward to her return. I think that she is the most beloved of all the staff. She is just so "real" and she has such a way of making everyone feel at ease and, well, just like themselves. What a great gift...to be able to make whoever you are with feel like "themself."

If you EVER have the opportunity to attend a class or posture clinic led by Diane, don't hesitate to go. You will not regret it. She is amazing.

We were treated to lecture by Bikram on Thursday night after The Fascia Guy finished. We were all very happy to be told that Monday would be a "holiday" for us. We have only morning class on Monday and the rest of the day off. We are all overjoyed to hear this, as we have MUCH studying and sleeping to do this weekend!

Some interesting quotes this week...

"automatical" Bikram

"go for shopping" Bikram

"Everyone has something special, something they can do better than anyone else, but you never know what it is until someone or something shows brings it out of you. That's what yoga does. It opens doors." Bikram

"My class, no way you can tell me you're sorry...you didn't know what to do, how to do, right way. No excuses. Same every time. Exact, precise, same instructions every time. You have to LISTEN." Bikram

"I HATE lazy people!" Bikram

"Take care of the body and everything else will follow. Happiness. Goodness." Bikram