This week was a continuation of more hard work from last week. However I think the trials and tribulations of last week forced me to accept that I am really going to have to do the hard work here and so I was in a much better place, mentally.
However, the hard work this week ramped up as we went through dialogue a lot faster than last week, even doing 2 or 3 postures some days. Sometimes we only had 2 hours to memorize the posture. Now that we are getting better at teaching the postures, the teachers marking us are expecting more - strong pronunciation on the important parts, command on the hard parts and clarity on the setup - 2 hours is nowhere near enough to memorize a full page word by word and perfect how you will say it on top of that.
Then there is also the small problem of the brain not wanting any more postures crammed into it, I spent many late nights this week trying to convince my mind to get just one more posture in there, and not mix it up with any of the other ones I have already said The rest of my free time is spent trying to ground myself and calm my mind as it feels split into a million different pieces or perhaps has completely taken a vacation at some point? Either way it was really tough to focus this week but there were also a lot of great moments which made it a good one, I can safely say not nearly as rough as the last one!
Monday I did 2 postures in posture clinic including the hardest (Triangle) and got amazing feedback, I practiced Triangle a lot on Sunday night and I needed to practice saying it in a commanding voice so I put on my deepest voice and it somehow worked and the teachers liked it. It felt so strange to get up there and say it like that but I got used to sounding strong by the end of the week and I feel now like I have a new tool I can use when teaching class. For the yoga classes on Monday I was able to continue the trend of not sitting down in postures even when I'm tired and overall it felt good to just get through more and more full classes and do all the postures to the best of my ability.
Tuesday we had more posture clinic and we had a really cool teacher named Lisa from Texas, she was so positive and direct and had so much energy. She took everyone who did a posture and was able to pinpoint exactly what they needed to improve on and she had some pretty hilarious techniques for people to try out. She made quite a few people shake out the hair, or run out of the room and run back in while everyone clapped for them, little things to get them excited about giving the dialogue and teaching. She gave everyone the suggestion to use 'jazz hands' while we're talking which really worked and just made you more open and confident when you stepped up to the front to teach.
That night we had a senior teacher named Mike do the class and he came in to 'Eye of the Tiger' playing, wearing a robe and escorted by two female yoga teachers, when he whipped off his robe he was wearing tight tiger yoga shorts on underneath! He started out the class by telling us we needed to have fun and anyone who wanted to leave the room at any time should feel free to. He had some really funny jokes and I laughed through the whole class. For the first time I was able to only drink water about 3 times during class, when he allowed us to and suddenly I realized why they try to get us to stop drinking water in class!
In yoga you use deep breathing to warm your body from the inside out and create energy and focus right throughout your core, which allows you to meditate and put everything you've got into every posture. When you drink water it disrupts the flow of your breathing and also cools down your insides which means you have to work hard just to get back to the state where you are focused and controlled enough to be working hard in each posture, it's a huge waste of time and energy. The class was just what I needed as I was already starting to stress out from dialogue and the atmosphere was getting a bit heavy with everyone anticipating a tough week in posture clinic so it was a welcome change!
Wednesday was more yoga, more posture clinic and more dialogue. In posture clinic I started getting up a bit earlier to present my dialogue instead of waiting until the end and stressing out the whole time and it was a lot better. The rest of the week went by well and I found myself thinking near the end of the week about coming back home. I am really looking forward to coming back and teaching yoga and living such a healthy lifestyle. I am also excited to start a new step in my career since I have not working for quite a while now, but I guess I worked so much in England I hopefully can make up for the time off ;)
I was also thinking about some trippy things that have happened in yoga class:
1. A feeling of being high during one of the yoga classes in week 2. I can't explain it other than the whole yoga room seemed to get brighter and I felt like I was kind of floating and part of the energy of the room.
2. I have been having random memories come into my mind when I am doing certain postures, especially back bends where the muscles and tissues are compressed. Things like a specific day I had when I was 10 years old or a time I spent with my family when I was 13.
3. I sometimes have inspirational dreams for some of my writing, I have a dream that is almost like a movie then it always ends with my closing a book or writing in a journal. These dreams are vivid and I can always remember them to write them down when I wake up. They usually only happen once a year or so but I have already had two since I've been here.
4. In one class that Bikram taught, my '3rd eye' opened, which is essentially your 6th sense and it means the middle of your body is completely open and in harmony. I got a sense of how intense a yoga class here really is - and I felt overwhelmed by the power of the room and the practice and had to stop for a minute.
So yep I am pretty much having some weird experiences and no, I'm not having drugs or alcohol but I'm not really trying to make sense of them right now and just go with the flow. A weird thing that has happened this week is that energy has been flowing out and all around of my body like crazy. It feels weird. The only way I can describe it is like you can actually feel energy particles kind of moving around and bumping each other inside your body, almost like you are vibrating. It has made me feel really unfocused because it's a new feeling and I am also not sure if it's negative or positive energy.
I have also had energy releases where I have physically felt a weight come out of my body when I release an old emotion I have been hanging onto, like regret from a past occurrence or sadness for the way something went. The left side of my lower back stretched out one class when I was doing a backbend and I suddenly felt a release in the lower left side and I could feel it spreading down my legs and it hurt, it felt like negative energy had been stuck in there. I am sure there is a more scientific reason for this and I think it was my kidneys getting fresh blood but whatever it was the weird feeling staying in my lower back and leg for a few days then suddenly it was gone and I felt much better.
The energy that has been running around my body has been pretty strange but this week we talked about the energy we should be feeling from working out so much and channeling it into a positive way by thinking and acting positively and identifying and changing negative thought and behavior patterns. I realized that this is true because the energy was neither negative or positive and it was interesting to learn that I had the power to change it in either way that I wanted. Think of what a huge impact this could have on your life, your body... Anyways.
I have also noticed a lot of senior teachers and tougher teachers have seemed to roll in and I think the next few weeks could get pretty interesting, as in I am going to get killed even more so keep tuning in.
Miss you guys soooooo much. x Ju
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