Thanksgiving

Today is American Thanksgiving. We were told earlier last week that we would be having a Thanksgiving dinner [totally paid for by Bikram himself] for all 300 of us but we didn't know any details.

So this morning after yoga class, we were told we had the rest of the morning and afternoon off and just had to sign in at 4:00 for dinner. Wow! A whole morning off...what do we do? Most of us just napped! Besides the nap, I got a haircut from Anthony, one of the yogi's here.

After the meal, it was open-mike and anyone could get up on the little platform stage and sing, play guitar, whatever. It was great fun. We have some seriously talented people here at training.

Sabre, Lisa, Me, Melissa

Our great staff (standing) - Christina, Cathy, Misha. Visiting teachers (sitting) Molly, Lisa

Group 8'er's

Manali

Dialogue Done!!

Yay!! We finished the last posture Wednesday afternoon - what a relief! The picture pretty much says it all. When we arrived at the lecture tent that evening, the staff had the techno-music on full force, and people were dancing everywhere. That went for a half-hour, then back to the business of learning!

Lynn gave a really, really interesting lecture on the business end of yoga, the etiquette, awareness, and responsibilities required of new yoga teachers. It was so informative, I didn't even mind that it went until 12:30! Actually, that's a relatively early night in Bikramland. ;0

One to go!!

I finished Rabbit yesterday and Head-to-Knee today, and now that there is only one left, I am finally getting less nervous getting up there in front of the teachers. I guess that is progress!

Last night was a late night as Bikram is back. We had an interesting lecture by him, and then it was Mahabarat time...until 2 am. Lecture again tonight - I wonder what time we will be sleeping tonight.

But the best news of all is Melissa arrives in about 2 hours!!!! I can't wait to see her. She will be here for a whole week so that is wonderful.

I have an hour now to get the last posture, Spine Twist, locked into my brain before lecture.

Wait!!! Melissa just walked in the door....yaaaay...crying again...

Week 7 and 75 classes done!

I thought when I had my emotional breakdown in week 3, I had pretty much cleared out the toxins in my cells. Wrong! Week 7 was another emotional week. It was a combination of lack of sleep [although not so bad since Bikram wasn't here most of the week], the pressure of memorizing dialogue, then saying the dialogue in Posture Clinic, plus the two yoga classes a day have been catching up to me. All my body parts have atrophied!

It is said that you keep all the memories of all your old hurts and injuries, whether emotional or physical, in the cells of your body. The yoga enables you to release these memories [and toxins] out of your system. Since I was a smoker for 30 years, even though I have not smoked for 5 years now, I would imagine some of those toxins were still in me. And let's face it, NO ONE [least of all me], goes through life without being emotionally or physically hurt or scarred at some point. This baggage can stay suppressed inside you. If you don't get it out, it shows up in the form of illness or dis-ease. In my case, it showed up as a buddha-belly, symbolically "stuffing my emotions in".

Physically, my body hasn't changed that much since I started here 7 weeks ago. I have lost some of my buddha-belly but I thought I would have lost some of that extra 30 lbs I have been carrying for the last 5 years. You burn 700-900 calories per class x 2 classes a day = 1400-1800 calories! A lot of students here are actually gaining weight. According to the teachers here, once we leave teacher training, in the next 3-6 months our bodies will be completely transformed. The excess weight will just melt away - I can't wait for that! Right now though, the body needs to hang onto those calories to get us through training.

I also now realize that taking a few yoga classes is not going to magically get rid of all of my baggage. It is a life-long journey, but once you give yourself permission to just let go of the crap from your past instead of clinging to it, it becomes easier and easier to move forward [in so many ways].


Damian from our Edmonton studio came for a visit. He went to teacher training with Melissa S.
Me and the Zen Master!

CPR

There was no Posture Clinic friday night which was just fine with me. Instead we had Nurse Lee showing some informational DVD's in preparation for our CPR course on Saturday afternoon.

At the end of friday evening's session, Manali made us all sit up straight, close our eyes, and she sang THE most beautiful meditation. I wish she did that every friday night. It was like she gave all of us a bit of CPR to get us to the finish line in two weeks.

Saturday morning, we had the most peaceful, serene class with Alison from Arizona. I don't know whether the serenity was from Alison's voice, or Manali's meditation the night before, or everyone was of one mind, or a combination of all of the above, but it was such a lovely class.

I have posted some pictures below of our CPR Saturday. My thanks to Pernille for leaving her camera here for me to use.