A short update from the past couple of weeks:
Let me start off by telling you that the movie of last night, "Krrish" (of which we only watched the second part!), was a good 3 hours long! Not terrible of course; in fact, this movie had a little bit of everything: Matrix influence, alien invasion, comedy, musical, eye candy for the ladies (apparently there is only one actor that exists in India!), drama, deception, back-stabbing, family values...well-rounded, but at 2 in the morning it is often easy to forget such things!
Bikram came back with a vengeance this week! "I heard you guys were done with posture clinics at 11pm every night!...well, not tonight!" Ha, Tuesday was our latest night yet -- bed at 4:45 in the morning. Which made the morning fun actually! Rachel gets quite giddy on two hours of sleep (and she laughs at the stupid things I do, which only encourages my antics!).
And now, at present time...
As we enter into week 6, I find it unbelievable that I will actually be expected to teach a class in, hm, 4 weeks or so. When I think about the time left it seems like we have so far to go...until I picture myself up in front of a studio full of students who don't know exactly how to do each posture! Then I truly think that there is NO WAY I will be even remotely close to being capable of teaching a 90-minute Bikram class. Eesh.
David and Karen made it out here (Sherry was here a couple of weeks ago -- again, Sherry, THANKS for the wonderful meal that Wednesday!)...it is really nice to have familiar faces around, even if it just somebody to say hello to when you are signing in for morning class. In the words of Michael Z, "It is the same class you have always done!", and when faces are there like Sherry, David, Karen or Joseph, it always reminds me of that. It is almost like I'm back in Dallas or something, walking into the lovely studio on Mockingbird...mmmm...
We have had some good laughs recently, along with plenty of crying! Today was split as far as the actual classes were concerned -- 50/50, which is always interesting to see! I swear, I wanted to drive my vehicle out of here after class this morning; tonight, I could have gone on for 2 more hours...silly body, I wish I could be more consistent and predictable in the practice. But that seems to be the point of Bikram yoga...you do it, even when it is hard!
You stay in the room, no matter how hot you feel.
You push yourself, even when your body is screaming at you.
You breathe in and out through the nose, even when your heart is pounding so fast.
I love it. What an interesting life the Bikram yogis lead...
Peace, love, yoga hugs!
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
"With your smiling, happy face..."
"I took Motrin for you man!"
...this is what I woke up saying to my dear, hurting elbow this morning. For some reason unknown to me, elfow (elbow) decided that this was not quite the vacation that it had signed up for! -- consequently, bruising, burning, nerve pain, and general ANGER were various ways of it showing its blatant unhappiness about being here.
Tough luck man, you got 7 more weeks of being here! Even if you paid me "3 Trillion Spirit Dollars", you would have no luck with getting out of here. Deal with it!
Cilantro/jalepeno hummus has officially made Rachel's day complete (and it isn't even noon yet!). Our weekly outing to Trader Joe's proved to be quite successful, though I'm afraid we were a bit over-indulgent this time.
"Chocolate-covered cherries?? Well, we need them for our fruit intake!"
"Gummy vitamins?!? It's like CANDY and GOODNESS all in one bite!"
"Original or Cilantro Hummus? Um, yes please."
I'm sure Rachel wrote about it already, but we discovered ANOTHER saving grace for our weekends (sorry Health Nutz, you've got competition!). Native Cafe has officially become our place to eat at on Saturdays (trust me, if they were open Sundays, we would be there today as well!). There menu was full of amazing vegan salads, wraps, bowls, desserts (FYI: Carrot cake + dream frosting = ONE HAPPY YOGI!)...we were in absolute heaven....mmm, almost as happy as we were when we were at Target sipping our Kombuchas.
Ahem, moving on. I think food has officially consumed too much of my blogging time.
Training?? Oh yes, that is exactly why I came out here in the first place. Ok, week 2 was...well...challenging.
Physically: My body was exhausted almost the entire time! I think I had one class (out of 11, which is so pitiful!) where I actually felt relatively OK. There were several classes where I found myself in tears just making myself sit-up from Savasana. Poor Jim -- his classes have always been my weakest (Friday evening being no exception)...I was literally in tears from half-tortoise till the end of class. I made it, but just barely.
Mentally: They are definitely working on breaking down our minds. I first thought it was an accident that the lecture room was so flippin hot during the afternoon lectures. Seriously, 300+ people in a tiny room in tiny chairs with no air circulation is enough to drive anybody mad...ha, which is exactly what they want! It is almost comical -- they have "Sleep Patrol" staff walking up an down the aisles during lecture. Let me tell you, the hot room and the tired body and the long lectures do not always encourage your best mental clarity!
Emotionally: The ups and downs are absolutely unbelievable! You guys are lucky that I'm only getting to blog on the weekends, because mid-week (ha, mid-day, mid-lecture, mid-class!) is definitely a key time to break down. Things start popping up left and right!
In class -- "Why am I crying right now? It's just half-moon pose!"
In lecture -- one moment you are taking furious notes and nodding in eager agreement, the next...furious thoughts running around your head wondering WHAT THE HECK they are talking about!!
In MOVIES -- oh wow, these are the best!! I almost always start off on this high thinking, "ok, tonight I'm going to love this movie!" I'll have my tea, my snacks -- life is good!...3 hours later, I want to curse 1)the people who hired these horrible actors, 2) the composer who wrote this terrible music, 3) the world for creating cameras to capture such awful moments that you have to sit and watch, 4) the chair company for making their chairs SO INSANELY uncomfortable, etc...
Phew, ok. All that being said, we only had one late-night movie this week (compared to our two from last week)...now I really feel puny, because I know that this is NOTHING compared to what is to come. Eesh. We officially started the Maha Bharat series...wait, strike that, EPIC MOVIE of the history of India on Thursday. I really want to pay attention and soak it all in, but the combination of the late nights and the over-dramatized, well, everything!, makes it quite difficult! I've never been one for soap-operas which, unfortunately, is exactly what this feels like. But, lots of time to grow and strengthen my mind into loving it, right?? :-)
And then the weekends come. And in our time of reflection and stillness we actually laugh about it. We laugh about the guy who had the guts to bring his entire comforter down to the movie this week. We laugh about how long Emmy took to let us actually sit down in Triangle pose (trust me, it was long!). We laugh about how we drip with sweat before our classes even begin. We laugh about how Minh was so tired that he said he was from Richardson (instead of Grapevine). We laugh at our CPR training (and how if anybody we know starts choking we are going to just pounce on them!). We laugh at all the little things that made us cry sporadically. We laugh at how every single time we were eating this week was "the happiest we have ever been!" (the same went for each time we crawled into bed, or got out of lecture early, or had time to lay down before class)... :-)
The biggest lesson I have learned this week? How helpful the "smiling, happy face" is going to be for the next 7 weeks...please, when I call you in tears, feel free to remind me of that fact! Lord, give me the clarity to keep that in my heart.
Peace, love, and yoga hugs!
...this is what I woke up saying to my dear, hurting elbow this morning. For some reason unknown to me, elfow (elbow) decided that this was not quite the vacation that it had signed up for! -- consequently, bruising, burning, nerve pain, and general ANGER were various ways of it showing its blatant unhappiness about being here.
Tough luck man, you got 7 more weeks of being here! Even if you paid me "3 Trillion Spirit Dollars", you would have no luck with getting out of here. Deal with it!
Cilantro/jalepeno hummus has officially made Rachel's day complete (and it isn't even noon yet!). Our weekly outing to Trader Joe's proved to be quite successful, though I'm afraid we were a bit over-indulgent this time.
"Chocolate-covered cherries?? Well, we need them for our fruit intake!"
"Gummy vitamins?!? It's like CANDY and GOODNESS all in one bite!"
"Original or Cilantro Hummus? Um, yes please."
I'm sure Rachel wrote about it already, but we discovered ANOTHER saving grace for our weekends (sorry Health Nutz, you've got competition!). Native Cafe has officially become our place to eat at on Saturdays (trust me, if they were open Sundays, we would be there today as well!). There menu was full of amazing vegan salads, wraps, bowls, desserts (FYI: Carrot cake + dream frosting = ONE HAPPY YOGI!)...we were in absolute heaven....mmm, almost as happy as we were when we were at Target sipping our Kombuchas.
Ahem, moving on. I think food has officially consumed too much of my blogging time.
Training?? Oh yes, that is exactly why I came out here in the first place. Ok, week 2 was...well...challenging.
Physically: My body was exhausted almost the entire time! I think I had one class (out of 11, which is so pitiful!) where I actually felt relatively OK. There were several classes where I found myself in tears just making myself sit-up from Savasana. Poor Jim -- his classes have always been my weakest (Friday evening being no exception)...I was literally in tears from half-tortoise till the end of class. I made it, but just barely.
Mentally: They are definitely working on breaking down our minds. I first thought it was an accident that the lecture room was so flippin hot during the afternoon lectures. Seriously, 300+ people in a tiny room in tiny chairs with no air circulation is enough to drive anybody mad...ha, which is exactly what they want! It is almost comical -- they have "Sleep Patrol" staff walking up an down the aisles during lecture. Let me tell you, the hot room and the tired body and the long lectures do not always encourage your best mental clarity!
Emotionally: The ups and downs are absolutely unbelievable! You guys are lucky that I'm only getting to blog on the weekends, because mid-week (ha, mid-day, mid-lecture, mid-class!) is definitely a key time to break down. Things start popping up left and right!
In class -- "Why am I crying right now? It's just half-moon pose!"
In lecture -- one moment you are taking furious notes and nodding in eager agreement, the next...furious thoughts running around your head wondering WHAT THE HECK they are talking about!!
In MOVIES -- oh wow, these are the best!! I almost always start off on this high thinking, "ok, tonight I'm going to love this movie!" I'll have my tea, my snacks -- life is good!...3 hours later, I want to curse 1)the people who hired these horrible actors, 2) the composer who wrote this terrible music, 3) the world for creating cameras to capture such awful moments that you have to sit and watch, 4) the chair company for making their chairs SO INSANELY uncomfortable, etc...
Phew, ok. All that being said, we only had one late-night movie this week (compared to our two from last week)...now I really feel puny, because I know that this is NOTHING compared to what is to come. Eesh. We officially started the Maha Bharat series...wait, strike that, EPIC MOVIE of the history of India on Thursday. I really want to pay attention and soak it all in, but the combination of the late nights and the over-dramatized, well, everything!, makes it quite difficult! I've never been one for soap-operas which, unfortunately, is exactly what this feels like. But, lots of time to grow and strengthen my mind into loving it, right?? :-)
And then the weekends come. And in our time of reflection and stillness we actually laugh about it. We laugh about the guy who had the guts to bring his entire comforter down to the movie this week. We laugh about how long Emmy took to let us actually sit down in Triangle pose (trust me, it was long!). We laugh about how we drip with sweat before our classes even begin. We laugh about how Minh was so tired that he said he was from Richardson (instead of Grapevine). We laugh at our CPR training (and how if anybody we know starts choking we are going to just pounce on them!). We laugh at all the little things that made us cry sporadically. We laugh at how every single time we were eating this week was "the happiest we have ever been!" (the same went for each time we crawled into bed, or got out of lecture early, or had time to lay down before class)... :-)
The biggest lesson I have learned this week? How helpful the "smiling, happy face" is going to be for the next 7 weeks...please, when I call you in tears, feel free to remind me of that fact! Lord, give me the clarity to keep that in my heart.
Peace, love, and yoga hugs!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Grapefruit and Cottage Cheese
Haha no, not at the same time! But those were two of our spontaneous purchases this afternoon that we knew we just "had to have!". I'm telling you, the food mentality over here is weird, almost desperate, and we find ourselves just stocking up on anything and everything..."just in case". Our table is loaded with fruits, nuts, nut butters, avocados, cereals, protein shakes, bars of every shape and size (thanks Stinky!), soups, beans, tuna, Indian food and, of course, chocolate! Don't judge -- two emotional women are definitely going to need their dark chocolate fix on occasion!
I'm not entirely sure how to sum up the first week in a tiny blog entry. Let's start with a few random facts from the week!
-I touched my chin to my shoulder for an ENTIRE side of Standing Bow Pulling (Z, that was for you!).
-I see my feet almost every time we do floor bow! Hurray!
-I managed to get sunburned after, hm, 20 minutes in the pool...for those of you who were placing bets on when THAT was going to happen, it was officially day 6! You can stop laughing now -- it only lasted about 18 hours!
-9 yoga classes + 2 Indian movies + 3 lectures + countless "Half Moon" dialogues + 3 hours sleep/night + an amazing sushi dinner = one GOOFY trio of yogis!
-official cry/almost cry count for the week = 6.
-the Dallas/Grapevine crew officially birthed an idea for an amazing talent show entry...more on that later!
The weekend was absolutely lovely, because we actually had time to regroup and reflect on everything that had happened this week. Even though there were pretty rough times throughout the week, Rachel and I still found ourselves being so incredibly thankful for being here. My last night in Dallas found me "nearly breaking down" every half hour or so, and I'm pretty sure it was because I had finally absorbed how amazing it was to be coming here. I knew that this was going to be challenging, horrible, beautiful, outstanding...life-changing. It truly has been, and we only have just begun this wonderful journey.
Wow, that was pretty corny. Sorry, I'm getting like that recently. But you chose to read this blog entry, so I'm officially NOT apologizing to you!
Oh! An address for those of you requesting one:
Desert Springs, A JW Marriott Resort & Spa
74855 Country Club Drive
Room #4116
Palm Desert, CA 92260
You know, if you have extra blueberry muffins lying around (or even a good lemon poppy seed -- we aren't picky!), feel free to send them this way. I have also been in the market for a good hug recently (as well as a foot rub!), so if you can find a way to box those up please, do not hesitate to do so! ;-)
Alright, time to take my freshly pedicured feet to bed (yes, I fell victim to the "I worked hard all week and my feet are tired and look terrible and I'll pull so much harder in stretching pose if they look nice" ploy...terrible, I know!). I was weak.
Peace, love, yoga hugs!!
I'm not entirely sure how to sum up the first week in a tiny blog entry. Let's start with a few random facts from the week!
-I touched my chin to my shoulder for an ENTIRE side of Standing Bow Pulling (Z, that was for you!).
-I see my feet almost every time we do floor bow! Hurray!
-I managed to get sunburned after, hm, 20 minutes in the pool...for those of you who were placing bets on when THAT was going to happen, it was officially day 6! You can stop laughing now -- it only lasted about 18 hours!
-9 yoga classes + 2 Indian movies + 3 lectures + countless "Half Moon" dialogues + 3 hours sleep/night + an amazing sushi dinner = one GOOFY trio of yogis!
-official cry/almost cry count for the week = 6.
-the Dallas/Grapevine crew officially birthed an idea for an amazing talent show entry...more on that later!
The weekend was absolutely lovely, because we actually had time to regroup and reflect on everything that had happened this week. Even though there were pretty rough times throughout the week, Rachel and I still found ourselves being so incredibly thankful for being here. My last night in Dallas found me "nearly breaking down" every half hour or so, and I'm pretty sure it was because I had finally absorbed how amazing it was to be coming here. I knew that this was going to be challenging, horrible, beautiful, outstanding...life-changing. It truly has been, and we only have just begun this wonderful journey.
Wow, that was pretty corny. Sorry, I'm getting like that recently. But you chose to read this blog entry, so I'm officially NOT apologizing to you!
Oh! An address for those of you requesting one:
Desert Springs, A JW Marriott Resort & Spa
74855 Country Club Drive
Room #4116
Palm Desert, CA 92260
You know, if you have extra blueberry muffins lying around (or even a good lemon poppy seed -- we aren't picky!), feel free to send them this way. I have also been in the market for a good hug recently (as well as a foot rub!), so if you can find a way to box those up please, do not hesitate to do so! ;-)
Alright, time to take my freshly pedicured feet to bed (yes, I fell victim to the "I worked hard all week and my feet are tired and look terrible and I'll pull so much harder in stretching pose if they look nice" ploy...terrible, I know!). I was weak.
Peace, love, yoga hugs!!
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