Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Week Sixxxxy!

I had to call it that because I'm in Group 6 for posture clinic and that is our cheer when someone from our group gets up to teach. Speaking of my group, they are awesome! Everyone genuinely likes each other and I am so grateful to have such a cool and supportive group because it really makes all of the difference. I am spending at least 20 hrs a week in a small room with these people and I'm sure if you didn't have a group you fit in with it would be hard.

For posture clinic you are always with your group then you rotate with one other group, so there are forty students in the room watching you give dialogue, 20 in each group. My group is great because everyone likes to jump up fast and say their dialogue but no on is doing it because they are a perfectionist or trying to show off. Everyone is a really good mix of ambitious and laid back which is hard to find! I can honestly mingle around and sit with any different person in my group and be happy, they are all great.

We went out for dinner on Saturday night and it was a lot of fun, and kind of cute because we all wanted to hang out together in our free time. However, the weekend sadly went by too quickly and I came to Monday feeling unprepared mentally and physically for the long week ahead, not to mention I had not memorized enough dialogue - I think I hid it somewhere in my room to try to get away from it for a bit!

Luckily on Monday morning Bikram's wife, Rajashree taught our yoga class and she told us she would be visiting all week and we should treat week 6 as a time to reflect on how things had gone so far. She specifically asked us not to think of our expectations for ourselves, such as whether we should have physically pushed ourselves more, but rather focus on how we had changed through the weeks and how we had been able to survive for so long and do such a great job.

Then she announced that we would have no posture clinic that day since she was giving lectures day and night! It was the best news and even better news was that lecture started half an hour later, at 1pm instead of 12:30. Monday actually felt like a vacation, just because of the extra 1/2 hour and no pressure to study dialogue!

The rest of the week went by really quickly, with lots of lectures from Rajashree on the medical benefits of each posture. She asked for volunteers to go on the stage if they were having problems with their postures. When Triangle Pose came along I wanted to go up on the stage since I was feeling like my Triangle wasn't awesome, but no one had corrected me on it yet. I got up there on the stage and got into the posture and suddenly she was pushing my hips down way beyond where I could go, my knees and legs were about to give out and she was telling me to stretch my arm up to the ceiling then telling me to touch my toes with the other, over and over.

The worst thing was that I was on stage in front of 300 people and they were all invited by Rajashree to give their input on what we should be doing better. I have never heard anything like it in my life, it was 300 people yelling at me to SIT DOWN MORE, PUSH YOUR LEG BACK, SIT DOWN, SIT DOWN, SIT DOWN, LOWER, LEG BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was thinking wow my triangle must really suck, judging by their reaction and at the same time just trying not to fall over as I was being bent around, it was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life!!! If I knew I was going to be in that situation I would have thought twice about getting up there, but after I got down I started thinking it was kind of funny and I am sure some people back home will find the humor in me on stage, getting yelled at by 300 people!!

I had to ask a few of my friends later if they thought I was getting yelled at a lot more than others and they just laughed and said no, the audience was really giving it to everyone who was up there. Either way, I had my best class that night because I was really working on getting down more in Triangle!

This week three teachers arrived from my studio in Richmond - Carol, Candice and Natasha! Carol has been one of my favorite teachers for years and Natasha graduated this spring, she was really helpful leading up to training by answering my millions of questions and giving me a sense of what to expect while I'm here. Candice taught me few years ago and she was a really great teacher, now she owns a studio in Langley and her Mom is here doing the training with us! It was so amazing to see them, and of course first thing on Monday morning Carol was in my posture clinic!

I felt really unprepared for the posture as I had not studied enough but I felt I needed to get up and take advantage of any feedback she could give me. I went up last and midway through the posture I forgot the words!!! It was really embarrassing but she had some good advice for me about not stopping talking when I'm teaching a class, even if the words didn't come to me. I felt a little silly afterwards but it was good to mess up in front of someone who understands and who could empathize and provide me with some good advice for overcoming the same obstacle in the future.

The rest of the week was more exhausting than I thought it would be, especially since we had less posture clinic. However, it was like we were on a bit of a momentum and suddenly we had a chance to relax and reflect and then the tiredness set in and my body suddenly began to really hurt and feel drained in each class. I did get a chance to reflect which was great and I realized all of the things I have learned like love, compassion, patience and obviously most of all, hard work!!!! It was good to kind of reset my mind and intention and just take a breather to prepare for week 7. We ended up having some really great lectures near the end of the week about health benefits of the postures and everyone was genuinely interested which made the mood and atmosphere a lot of fun, overall it was a great week.

We're in week 9 now and I'm far behind in my posting but I'll keep trying to catch up, even if I have to post a couple at home! I'll see you guys in less than a week!!!!

x Julia