Do you smell that?

Halfway into week 9 here (THE LAST WEEK!!!!).... I thought I'd try and reminisce over week 8 plus the past couple days here at yoga camp. Biggest news of all is that on Thursday of last week I deleived Spine Twisting Posture which marked the END of posture clinics!!! Now all 26 are in the brain, its just a matter of sorting out the muck.

Week 8, let's see...I have no idea. It came. It went. It's over now and thats all I care about.

This past weekend was fantastic because it was the very last weekend here at teacher training! Last weekend of swirling dirty laundry in the tub and then hanging up the mass to stink up the balcony. Couldnt find my favorite white tank top one night, leaned over the edge and there was this white thing in the water. To test to see if the mass was fish or tank, Marcie dropped our watermelon off the ledge right next the blob. It didn't move, and the morning light confirmed...favorite tank now rests with the Koi.

Bikram here having world champ demonstrate Standing Bow (she did this cold and in jeans!)

A strange and unfortunate bout of sadness entered our lives on Sunday when Marcie went for her hair appointment with a senior teacher who claimed to be a "stylist". I knew it wasn't good when I got her text "Um. Hm." Suffice it to say that this teacher, whose name I won't mention, gave my dear Marcie a full on Mullet with a capital M. Why? We can't figure it out, but there it is, haunting our final days at yoga camp. A fellow trainee is going to attempt to fix it tonight so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Last night was our latest night spent in lecture. At some point around 2 am I crawled into the aisle and tried to sleep on the floor. Next thing I knew, in the middle of the trippiest of dreams, Marcie was poking me awake to leave. We walked outside and it was freakin daylight! We had spent all night, until 5:40 am in the lecutre hall, son of a bitch, and were right back in the yoga room this morning at 8am. :( It's the best of times and the worst of times, and all I can say is WTF.

We all pitched in to buy Bikram a real Samurai sword and gave it to him last night. He seemed pleased. Graduation is Saturday at 3pm. 3 more days 3 more days 3 more days. I smell the sweet scent of normal life with my mind's nose. Unfortunatly I also smell the familiar aroma of farts in the hot room with my real nose.

Going Strong!

Week 7 is over, wow! This week went by strangely fast. Lots of time spent in posture clinics, only 5 postures left to cram into my brain, YES!! Monday, when I delivered Locust, I had to go back and say the 3 postures preceding it, which sucked at the time but I learned a lot about myself under pressure.....I get the job done at the expense of lots of weird hand gestures. During my Full Locust, for some stupid reason I decided to throw in a little jazz hand action to try and make people laugh, which really didn't go over very well. No random silliness on the podium: lesson learned. Bow and Fixed Firm went fine. This morning I practiced saying the whole class up until Fixed Firm Pose, and I got so winded I nearly fainted. Yikes, guess I have to remember to breathe up there when making my students kill themselves. But overall I felt really good about how much dialogue I could recall without really thinking about it. Its one hell of a balance between trying to say the postures verbatim while actually watching the studnets and being present with what they're doing. Teaching this yoga, I can already tell, is going to be one of my greatest adventures.

Yesterday we got the (in my mind much dreaded) chakra talk. Yeah yeah we're energy centers and have oras, I really do want to beleive you lady. Dr. Ann Marie Bennstrom presented the talk, and had a lot of tempting, crazy, interesting things to say. She's a live one.

Rajashree taught a few classes and lectured on the specifics of different postures. More awesome visiting teachers, and this week two of our staff Marc and Mari taught class, which rocked!

Everyday is the same, I'm starting to feel the monatany of it all. Waking up every single morning absolutley resistant to suffering in the heat, then having no choice but going through the class, feeling amazing afterwards, only to go through the same process again in the evening. What must 9 weeks of that do to a person? I have absolutely no idea.

Well, my eyebrows have taken the form of albino caterpillars, and distract me from my meditating in standing bow pulling pose. Just the thought of getting them waxed, now THAT brings me true happiness :)

ONLY 2 MORE WEEKS AND I"M A CERTIFIED BIKRAM YOGA TEACHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Never did like camp

FFS! Week 6 scratched off the list baby!

First and foremost let me annouce I made these in the corner of the our room with a hot water kettle...

Started out with 8 but this was taken when the meal was down to 3.

Good week, started off in a sour mood with a head cold but thanks to Zicam, Vitamin C, and having no choice, I was feeling all better by Tuesday. :)


This week was all about posture clinics, and pushing through them at full throttle. Everyday was the exact same, Class followed by 4 hour posture clinic, followed by class again, followed by 4 more hours of "just get them in and out of the posture!" I started off the week great when I nailed triangle and standing seperate leg head to knee. Sadly it all came crashing down on me Thur night when I for the first time so far I froze like a damn deer in the headlights during tree and toe stand. Couldn't get a word out, just stared at the bodies. I think I mumbeld "crimeny"...the old brain sounded like a run down a/c unit with a piece of tape flappin in the vent. Fun times.. I redeemed myself Fri with Wind Removing and Cobra, both went really well, and I'm at the point where I have to start giving corrections. Now on through floor series!

What else, let's see...a couple lectures from Dr. Das....here's a picture. Yay. Cervical Spondylosis and Yoga therapy. You just gotta love it.

This morning marked my 67th class, inconceivable! Thats 100 and 1/2 hours spent in the hot room thus far, I just did the math on my cell phone calculator. I'm feeling like that one species of sea annemmone, whom after being poked in the side so many times eventually no longer feels it. I like how any organism is capable of adapting to crap situations. Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and by golly jean I beleive it. Having diarreah in the desert, trying to study on the toilet and eventually nodding off...rock bottom: you know it when you get there.

Bikram only taught twice this week, and Rajashree only once :( All the visiting teachers were fantastic though, as usual. I snapped a picture of one of Bikram's beloved cars.

Not much else to report, going into week 7 here and feeling pretty good. I miss rain like the dickens! The most comforting thought I can conjure up is sitting in a rainstorm somewhere eating a steak medium rare.

Three more weeks in the yoga bubble, where the men paint their toenails and the women don't shave. I'll be a monkey when I get outta here, giggling and wiggling in the presence normal society. Be confident in that.