Category: Yoga

Well, somehow I ended up in Acapulco, Mexico… AGAIN! The Fall 2018 Bikram Yoga Teacher Training was going on and my friend Andrew, who went home during week 1 of my training but who I stayed in touch with and became great friends with, was attending and graduating. I had debated visiting, weighing pros and cons and making it overly complicated before I finally booked tickets. I had friends from my training there and figured I had nothing to lose. A good resort/yoga vacation sounded wonderful.

This was my 3rd time in Acapulco and each time, going with a different perspective: once as a guest, once as a student, and once as a visiting teacher. The city, especially the resort, felt like home by now.

 

Wednesday, November 28 

I finished packing early in the morning then made my way to Dad’s house to drop Elliott off. I will forever be grateful to not have to pack contact solution anymore!

Elliott ran around my Dad’s house looking for him, my stepmom, and/or my stepsister but no one was home. I snuggled him goodbye and drove myself to the airport. My Dad usually took me in the past but he suggested I become a real adult and drive myself and park in a lot. Plus, that is cheaper than an Uber. I signed up with FastPark and shuttled over to the airport.

If you are a regular reader of my blogs, you know that I ALWAYS print my boarding pass. I will check-in online/on my phone but still print the boarding pass when I get to the airport. I feel more comfortable having a printed version than I do having it on my phone. Call me old fashioned? Anyway, I never use a mobile boarding pass but for some reason, I did this time. Not surprisingly, IT. DID. NOT. WORK. I was the only person in the security line (so much for TSA Pre-Check) and had to turn around and go to the gate to print my boarding pass. Sigh. That is what I get for trying to be modern.

Aeromexico did not have a kiosk so I had to check in at the counter. The lady made me check my carry-on bag, claiming it was too heavy. Apparently, the limit was 22lbs and mine was 32lbs. I really did not want to check my bag because I did not want it to get lost in Mexico City when I changed planes; I do not trust airports! There was no other option though so I obliged and moved on with my life.

No one was at the airport. It was only 11am but the international gate was empty. I video chatted with Lidia for a quick minute (she graduated with me from training last year and was already in Mexico!) and exchanged my USD to pesos. I continued my Law & Order SVU binge on HULU until it was time to board and texted with Steven. I definitely got there too early and had a long wait but I would rather that than be rushed around or stressed out.

 

I fell asleep almost the second I sat down in my seat on the plane. There was no one else in my row so I made myself quite comfortable and was out like a light. I missed the snacks, drinks, everything. The 2.5 hour flight obviously went by fast!

The Mexico City airport is a nightmare but I was so used to it by then that I navigated it like a professional. I recalled my first time being there and feeling panicked that I could not find anything or read the signs. I hate feeling lost. Not anymore, though! I had not eaten since breakfast but opted to wait on getting a snack; it was a short layover and I knew I was going to grab dinner with the group when I arrived in Acapulco.

The flight to Acapulco ended up being slightly delayed but we eventually boarded. It is such a nightmare to fly to Acapulco because you have to ‘board the bus’ that drives you to the plane and then board the plane from there. It is always a hassle. Luckily, my seat on the plane was near where they load the luggage and I saw my bag on the conveyor belt so I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. The flight to Acapulco is a little less than an hour so I passed the time by reading a book and was sure to be awake for snacks and drinks!

The Acapulco airport looked AMAZING. It was so different from a year ago; completely remodeled and modern. I had to re-learn where the baggage claim and taxi area were but the place is small so it was not difficult at all. The resort is very close to the airport so the taxi ride was short and cheap. I was SO excited when he turned onto the long driveway leading up to the lobby.

My plan was to mooch off of Lidia and her friend and stay in their room until they left Friday night and then move to Andrew’s room for the last 2 nights. That way, I would not have to spend money on a hotel room. A few nights before I left though, I had a nightmare about getting murdered or something ridiculous happening to me and no one at the hotel having record of me staying there. Plus, I was making it complicated and difficult in my head about having to change rooms and everything so I ended up booking my own room at the very last minute. The room was 40% off so it was not too terrible of a price. Anyway, I tell you that part of the story because when the taxi pulled up to the gate, the gate guy looked up my reservation! Had I not had my own reservation, would they have let me in?! Whew.

When we turned in, I was so overcome with feelings and emotions and memories. I wanted to cry! I immediately connected to the WiFi and messaged Lidia and Andrew that I was there. It was 7pm and they were just getting out of the evening yoga class. Everyone was walking through the lobby in their yoga clothes and hotel robes while I waited to check-in and I eventually saw Lidia and her teacher friend, Alex (Alexandra), from back home in New York. I saw other people from my graduation class, too: Marilu, Angie, and Tom. Manali recognized me. I embraced everyone’s gross, sweaty hugs (and y’all know I am not a hugger so that is just how happy I was!).

Lidia said we were going to eat dinner at Tavola (what we called ‘the Italian place’ during my training; Lidia, Maryla, and I ate there just about every Saturday night) at 8pm so once I was checked in, I headed over to my tower to my room. The bellhop tried to take my bag and help me but I politely informed I was overly familiar with the place and knew exactly where I was going. I passed the awesome swings, the flamingo, the swans, and Chula Vista as I made my way to the elevator. There, I ran into Andrew! Good timing.

I settled into my room and got changed/cleaned up for dinner. Lidia, Alex, Tom, Marilu, and I had dinner together and it was so wonderful. The trainees usually ate in Chula Vista (the hotel buffet) but were treated with the fancier Tavola that night but we did not want their food and we opted for a private table with a waiter. The waitress recognized Lidia and I from last year! She was our waitress every week and she welcomed us back. Some things never change.

 

The 5 of us ate WAY too much food but I had not eaten since breakfast so I was starved. We chatted and caught up for a couple of hours and reminisced about our time there last year. As the trainees all trickled out for their evening lecture at 10pm, we enjoyed our dessert and the fact that as visiting teachers, we did not have to go with them! It was so nice to be ‘on the other side’ of things! I loved catching up with everyone but before we knew it, it was nearly 11pm so we said our goodnights and headed to our rooms.

It was weird being in my room without Leah, my roommate from training. I texted her to tell her how much I missed her! The room was quiet so I read myself to sleep and anticipated the next day’s classes and lectures.

 

Thursday, November 29

The morning yoga class started at 8:30am so I woke up with plenty of time to get ready and walk down there. The weather was cold and rainy and I was a little disappointed that my room did not have a robe for me to wear down to the hot room like I did every day last year. Bougie! When I got there, Tom was already there stretching. He told me not to bother to sign-in (whoo hoo) and to grab any extra mat for class. He warned me about some mats being “too short” so I went on a hunt. I found one and claimed my spot in the hot room on one of the front lines. I did not WANT to be in the front but for some reason, they made week 9 of training the re-certification week so all teachers had to be in the front. Oh well. Tom came to put his mat next to mine and you know what? I had grabbed a short mat! Exactly what he told me NOT to do. I found a NEW mat and got settled in, ready for class with my friends! It was great to hear Manali and her classic catchphrases again.

Anurag taught. It was my first yoga class in a week and a half (I had been sick) so it was a slight struggle but I felt good. The room was fairly cold which was a shock because it was never that cold during our training. Apparently, some of the morning classes had been like that throughout their 9 weeks this time. Ignoring the temperature, it was really comfortable and energizing to be taking class with 100 other yogis! I loved getting to practice with my friends and the trainees. Anurag remembered my name and corrected one of my postures which caught me off guard. Not that he corrected me (I am not perfect) but that someone knew my name. I was never a ‘stand out’ at my training so I never feel ‘memorable.’ I sometimes have self esteem issues, lol.

After class, I ran into Manali again and she officially welcomed me. She told Lidia and I that we needed to go to lecture in the afternoon to introduce ourselves. I was hoping I would avoid having to do that but when Manali says do something, you just do it.

Lidia, Alex, and I decided to go to the Beach Club to get a burger. We cleaned up and met in the lobby but apparently they did not open until noon. Because I did not book my visit through the ‘Bikram package,’ I did not get food vouchers for Chula Vista. That place is expensive so I told Lidia and Alex to go ahead and use their vouchers to eat and I happily went back to my warm room. I was not very hungry anyway so I ate a protein bar, read my book, and took a short nap before lecture.

At noon, we all headed over to the lecture hall. Memories! It was overwhelming enough to be back in the hot room earlier in the morning but to be in the lecture room again was oddly nice. I busted Lidia for wearing green (no green!); a rule we had all completely forgotten about. Luckily it was just her sweater and she could take it off or I bet Manali would have made her change clothes before Bikram arrived.

Me and a few other visiting teachers all took turns introducing ourselves in front of the trainees; our name, where we are from, when we graduated, some advice, etc. I was not as nervous as I thought I would be – I guess teaching on a podium every week managed to cure my stage freight a little?

It was definitely weird to be on the other side. I had 62 faces of all ages, ethnicity, backgrounds, etc. staring at me as if I could somehow say something magical to them that would make their lives be better. I remember BEING them though, and not that long ago. It was their LAST week of training, their second to LAST day before graduation – they were finished! It might have looked like they were listening but if there is one thing you get very good at during training… it is looking like you are listening but actually being asleep! I totally relate, guys. I had some things I wanted to say but panicked and do not even remember what came out of my mouth. I probably rambled. I survived and found my seat in the back row.

Tom escaped lecture rather quickly but somehow Lidia, Alex, and I got stuck. Bikram arrived in true Bikram fashion (late and blinged out) and we felt trapped, like we could not leave without someone saying something to us. So, we sat and listened to lecture. I could not believe I was listening to Bikram again in that room. The 3 of us laughed at some of the crazy things he said I texted Leah the whole time. We sneaked out about 2 hours into lecture during the commotion as they transitioned to posture clinic. See ya!

We sat outside at Starbucks in the lobby, talked, and split a giant bag of potato chips until it was time to get ready for the evening yoga class. I went to my room to change and oh. my gosh. my face was RED. RED. I had no idea why it was so red and why I was breaking out so badly. When I got to the hot room, I asked Lidia and Alex why they did not tell me my face was so red! Lidia said she did not notice (a lie, but I appreciate her effort) and Alex said she did not know me well enough to know if that was just how my face always was (incredibly fair point). GRR!

The mat I used in the morning was garbage. It was thick foam and made it super difficult to balance in the balancing postures. My foot had cramped up so many times. There was no way I was using that mat again so I found a bag of new mats still in their packaging that looked like the flat ones we had at my training and I opened one. I probably was not SUPPOSED to do that but that is what happened so…. yeah. Lidia and Alex busted me but then followed my footsteps and got ones for themselves, too. We tried to be sneaky but Tom caught on to what we had done the chances of someone else noticing too were fairly high, but no one else said anything. Oh well.

Lidia and I took the chance to do one of our famous photo shoots before class. Duh.

The evening class was with Bikram and the teachers were all in the front again. I was 100% sure he did not know my name but was hoping not to get picked on by him anyway. He catches everything and who knows how he will judge your practice! Luckily, he left me alone (and the room was nice and toasty). Class was very difficult and I was instantly sore. I forgot how tough his classes were! I was not trying to show off but there is something about being in his class that makes you WANT to work harder and hold the posture longer and push yourself. Class was long, as usual when he teaches. I forgot how much I missed his class, though. It might be tough and he might yell or whatever but he is still compassionate and it is nice to be pushed that hard. He played one of his songs during the final savasana and he sang along with it. The man is an oddball but boy do I love being in final savasana listening to him sing along to his music.

Lidia and Alex had an extra dinner voucher for Chula Vista so after class, I cleaned up and joined them downstairs. It felt like it had warmed up a little bit so I wore shorts but that was a HUGE mistake because the mosquitoes were a nightmare. It was, however, nice eating in Chula Vista again. Later in the evening, Tom joined us and we skipped the evening lecture and stayed up late talking. We closed Chula Vista down (they were cleaning around us!). I feel like I got to know Tom a lot more and it was nice getting to know Alex, too. We talked about our careers, lives, relationships, families, everything. For some reason, things started to click with me during our chat and I felt a new wave of acceptance of how my year had played out. For the first time in months I actually believed I was going to be okay again and excited for the opportunities and changes that are coming up.

It was a rainy, chill day and my body was tired from doing two classes. I read my book until I fell asleep.

 

Friday, November 30

I woke up feeling SOOOO sore. I 100% did NOT want to go to the morning class but I managed to pull myself together by reminding myself, “you did this for 9 weeks, you can do it for 2 days.” Oy. I started to get my yoga clothes on and realized… I was wearing green! Oops. Luckily, I am a girl who over packed and had another option. Manali and the staff would have really given me hell for that.

The weather was still cold and rainy so I hurried to the hot room to get warm. We lined up on the front row again and prepared for class. My body ached, I was exhausted. Bikram Yoga is very ‘mental’ sometimes so I made up my mind to shake it off and power through.

We were stretching and simultaneously all looked up and realized something at the same time: Jim was teaching. Jim! I have a very love/hate relationship with the guy. I love what he has to say. He is impressively knowledgeable and has great advice for us (once you get past some of the pseudo science). I wish I could record what he says and write down the little nuggets of information later so I can remember always. Love that. However… I hate holding postures for 5 minutes while he shares that information. He holds postures for so long. SO. LONG. It was exhausting. My legs and arms were shaking the whole class. I struggled a lot through class but managed. Did I mention my body hurt?!

Andrew and I were both wearing animal print so I snagged a photo, even though my face was still bright red. Also, I look like a very lush potato next to Andrew. He is not human.

Since our presence was not requested at the afternoon lecture, we took our time getting ready after class. I was suddenly very grateful to have my own room and get ready at my own leisure. Lidia, Alex, and I met at the Beach Club at 12:30pm to try to get burgers once again. It was chilly outside but comfortable. I was convinced the menu was different but they still had their delicious chips and salsa (they really have the BEST pico and their chips are heavenly) and burgers. I was pretty hungry and chowed down.

After lunch, we met Tom at Starbucks and hung out and passed the time. Andrew came by to talk to us for a little but which was nice since I had not seen or talked to him much since I had arrived. I had expected that when I booked my tickets (I remember what it was like to be on our last day before graduation and be so busy) but he felt bad and had spent a lot of time apologizing. If anyone could understand how he was feeling, it was me! You spend 9 weeks with these people and they become your world; I was not about to ask him to put them on the back burner to spend more time with me. It was not a problem but I was thankful that Lidia, Alex, and Tom were visiting also so I would have at least some company. Lidia and Alex were unfortunately leaving in the afternoon so we just tried to enjoy our last few hours together. We talked all-things yoga and I loved it, of course. Get any group of yogis together and there is always an instant bond and conversation topic!

Eventually, I had to succumb to my exhaustion. I needed to rest for a few minutes before the evening class (the FINAL class of their teacher training). We parted ways and I napped in my room. I met them back in the lobby before the evening class and we said our goodbyes! It was so nice to meet Alex and get to know her and I always love seeing Lidia and hate saying goodbye to her. We hugged forever, of course. They had gotten to Acapulco a few days before I did and I wished I had decided earlier to go and spent the whole week with them instead of just a few days. Sad! I will miss my Bikram Bestie.

Tom and I got to the hot room at 4:30pm, ready for the 5pm class. The trainees started showing up and taking pictures in their all-black outfits to celebrate their FINAL class of the 9 weeks. Tom and I sat back and watched them enjoy their moment. We tried to put our mats in the back row so the students could be in the front but the staff forced us to stay in the front because it was still technically “recert week.” Boo. We tried, though! We watched them hug it out and reminisced about our last class.

Eventually, everyone was photoed-out and ready for class but Bikram did not show up until close to 6pm! That means by the time class started, some of us had already been in the heat for 90 minutes. Tom and I were drenched. In true Bikram fashion, he surprised us all with something unexpected and started a dance party BEFORE class. He put on a song I cannot remember right now (but you can watch them dancing and hear it here) and started dancing with different people one by one. Eventually, the whole class was dancing. Tom grabbed me and we danced until everyone circled up (what you see in the video). A lot of the recert teachers and visiting teachers stood back and simply watched them soak up their moment. Tom and I are hiding in the linked video but we are back there!

Bikram finally got on the podium and made a casual comment about it potentially being the last teacher training for awhile so he wanted to celebrate before class, too. WHAT? How could he drop a bomb like that before class? With no additional information? Who knows if he was serious or not, though. Eventually class started and as you could imagine, it was a long one. We celebrated with the ‘last class Coke’ at the first party time. Tom brought me a can and despite not drinking soda, I took a sip anyway and actually drank probably half of it by the time class was over. Damn, it was a good Coke.

There were a lot of pauses and breaks for demos and we all survived. My group had played a few “tricks” on Bikram during class by singing and doing crazy things during class and this group had a lot of the planned. Some of them landed, some of them did not as much but it was a fun attempt! When class was over, the room went wild. They were pounding on the ground (as is tradition) and it was exciting! Bikram talked for a little bit but when he was finished, everyone started hugging and celebrating. People were crying. Flashbacks!! Again, Tom and I sat back and watched them. We were so proud of them! It felt like we had just graduated and brought us back to how we felt during our last class. When all was said and done, we had been in the hot room for just over 3.5 hours so as you can imagine, there were a lot of sweaty hugs.

Lidia and Alex had given me their last few Chula Vista dinner vouchers so I cleaned up and went downstairs for dinner. I sat with a few students and got to know them. They asked me questions about teaching and it was cool to be able to have those types of conversations with them. It was the first time I had the opportunity to get to know some of them so it was nice. They had to go to the final lecture though so as they left, the teachers gathered to eat and talk. It was just as nice to get to know some of the other visiting teachers, some of which I had known OF for awhile (or been Facebook friends with even though we had never met in person) so it was good to put names to faces and meet in person. We shared our experiences, studios, and teaching stories. It was fun! Most of them wanted to go to the final lecture though so they took off. Tom and I were the only ones who hung back and we talked for a little bit longer. I was so thankful Tom was there and I had someone to talk to. He had been there for 3 weeks and had gotten to know a lot of the students and visiting teachers as they passed through. I do not think I would be able to do this experience again for a full 3 weeks!

 

Saturday, December 1

I woke up around 11am after 12 hours of sleep. Yes, 12! It was glorious and I felt like a new person. I showered and since it looked cloudy out still, I put on regular clothes and decided to go grab a sandwich for lunch. As I walked over there, apparently the sun HAD finally decided to show itself in Acapulco so I quickly went back to my room and threw that swimsuit on. I had packed 3, ready to be in the sun all day/every day but it had been cold and rainy every moment so far. I went down the pool and enjoyed my sandwich and read my book while I soaked up as much sun as I could get.

Tom joined me and we chatted about all sorts of things and got about 3 hours of sun. It was so nice to be in the sun and I got a little mini-tan (hooray). I would have been okay by myself for the day but once again, I was grateful that Tom was there and that I had company! I did not visit training to spend time with any certain person or people, I went for myself. Selfishly, I was glad to have the company. He and I had socialized at training but never really got to know each other too well so it was great to have this opportunity. We shared our secrets from training and talked about careers, houses, traveling, everything. I opened up about all the big decisions I had to make in the near future and my long to-do list when I got home and he gave me the exact words of encouragement I needed to hear. He was taking 3 months to travel so after leaving Acapulco, he had big plans to travel around. How fun! I do not think I could go travel for 3 months at a time but I was still a little envious of adventures but super excited for him too. Before we knew it, it was time to get ready for graduation.

As I got ready for my THIRD Bikram Yoga Teacher Training graduation (I still cannot believe I sat through 3 of those), I thought about my graduation and the emotions I had. It still feels unreal that it has been a year already; sometimes it feels like yesterday and sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. I have had so much happen since graduation… so many ups and downs… what a rollercoaster. My dress had green in it but I did not care and made my way down to graduation.

I messaged Andrew and told him to give me his camera so I could take photos of him during the demo (he made Demo Team!) and whatnot for him. It was still hot outside and I wish I could have spent more time at the pool and I suppose I could have skipped graduation and stayed in the sun but there was no way I was going to miss Andrew’s demo performance and see him get his certificate.

Graduation started late (not shocking – trust the process) and lasted a lifetime and a half. It seemed to go on forever but it was nice to hear their words of wisdom and encouragement and remind myself of all the reasons I wanted to be a teacher and why I love this yoga (even though sometimes I hate it/blame it for the bad things that happened this year). Andrew did AMAZING on the Demo Team and Tom and I cheered him on. I tried to record it from my seat on his camera but I was not sitting in the correct spot so it was tough to see him in it. He also won the Bengal Tiger Strength and got a fancy trophy and bouquet of flowers. What a superstar! I was so proud of him. He overcame so much to get to that moment!

I was Andrew’s personal photographer after the ceremony was complete and forced him to take photos with people. Guys are so bad about getting pictures even though they want pictures and in a moment like that where there is so much going on and so many emotions, there is no way he could remember to get photos. I forced him and he thanked me later!

At one point, Manali called for all of the visiting/recert teachers to get on stage and I did not go initially but then realized, “hey, that’s me!” and ran up on stage!

Tom threw a big party in his room last year and it was so much fun. He was ready for another big party and invited a few people to his room in the main tower (the nicer tower) where he had an AWESOME wrap-around balcony and view from the top floor. I told him 100 times to tell the students but he never did and I was the only one who showed up! More for us. We split a bottle of champagne and enjoyed the view. We finally made our way down to the special graduation dinner. They got hosed because it was at Chula Vista and the same food they had the entire time. Ours was Chula Vista food but at least it was out by the pool with a grill and live music. Theirs was definitely not special.

After dinner, Tom and I went to the bar. During our graduation, there were a LOT of people at the bar but this year’s group was much better than us and their bar was empty. We had 2 rounds of drinks and swapped some fun scandals and stories from our training. What a trip. Tom is amazing at carrying on a conversation and it was just so easy to talk to him! It was nice to be laughing and enjoying myself again, too. I could breathe and felt relaxed; it was nice.

We went back to his room and took a shot of tequila. Suddenly, there was a huge fireworks show outside and we definitely had the best seats in the house! It was awesome. We made our way down to the dance party next and danced with the students and other teachers for awhile. Their dance party was so different than ours! It just goes to show that every training is SO different than the one before it (but also so similar).

Once everyone was all danced out, Tom and I went back to the bar. By this point, there were a handful of other teachers/students there so we joined them and had another few rounds. Tom and I were the last ones standing and shut the place down around 2am. Neither of us could believe that we were the last ones standing! Where were all the students?!

 

Sunday, December 2

I lazily woke up, feeling crummy and tired. I had to get up and get going though as the shuttle to the airport was leaving at 10:30am. I packed, cleaned up, and got ready to go. Andrew came by my room and gave me a sweatshirt he got for me and we said our goodbyes as he walked me down to the lobby. We parted ways and then Tom joined me to say goodbye. It is always sad saying goodbye to people, especially after such a lovely trip.

The shuttle took me to the airport and I definitely got there too early because I had a lot of time to waste. They did not make me check my bag this time which was suspect considering I was forced to on the way there. I read my book and ate a muffin from Starbucks. There were students from training at the airport and I briefly socialized with them in line before boarding.

I read for the short plane ride to Mexico City. In Mexico City, I ran into Marilu and we split a pizza and got to visit during our short layovers. It was good to see her and get to say goodbye to her since I had missed her at the hotel.

I boarded the final flight home (fun fact: they gate-checked my bag!) and sat down next to my seat mate. I got my book out to read (I was really into this book! I had started it Friday after finishing my first one last Thursday night… I love Kindles) and he immediately started talking to me. Sigh. I politely engaged in conversation and every time I thought we were finished, he would keep it going. I shut my Kindle and finally embraced my fate. We actually ended up having an awesome conversation. We talked about all sorts of things but he got me started on yoga and kept asking more questions about Bikram Yoga and why it was the greatest and whatnot. Once I get going on yoga… no stopping! Especially if he was going to keep asking questions and was interested in learning more. We talked about health things and other exercises and before we knew it, we were landing in Houston. We did say our names but it was hard to hear him so I did not catch it. Before everyone “oohs and ahhs” over this – he was definitely way older than me and it was not a flirty meet-cute on a plane. Do not make something out of nothing; I know how y’all are (and while I am at it, I am just friends with Tom and Andrew too). Anyway, I think I talked him into trying out the Bikram studio near him in Meyerland and I hope he followed through and went! He was the nicest guy! I did NOT want to talk to him when I first sat down but it ended up being great. I needed that.

We landed in Houston and I said goodbye to my nameless friend. I grabbed my bag and made my way to the FastPark shuttle to get my car. It was almost 7pm and I was sleepy. My Dad had my flight info wrong and thought I was landing around 3pm so I turned my phone on to him worried about where I was. Oops.

I made my way to his house to reunite with my sweet Elliott and visited with him and my stepmom and stepsister for a little bit. The whole drive home, I talked myself into going straight to bed and NOT unpacking right away (which I always do) but not surprisingly, I ended up unpacking right away and starting laundry. Elliott and I crashed shortly after!

—

I debated a long time if I was going to go to Mexico and visit Andrew and everyone but kept hesitating. Finally, I booked the trip and was so happy I did. It was such a great, relaxing, rejuvenating trip and exactly what I needed. I needed to be there at that time and with those people. I needed to be heard by my like-minded yogis and hear their words. They said and did nothing special but for some reason, everything resonated with me so much more although I cannot explain why. I needed to reset. My therapist told me I cannot keep going to Mexico to reset myself buuuuuuuut I respectfully disagreed (just kidding!). Who knows where the next teacher training will be (or if there will be one at all) and who knows if a visit to the new location will make me feel the same was as visiting Acapulco did. I might not always have training in Acapulco to visit but I will always have the yoga and I will always have Acapulco. I feel refreshed after the trip and in the week after being home, I went to yoga 5 times… the most I had gone in a single week in months. It feels great to be connected to the yoga again after feeling angry, empty, and broken for so long. I hope this feeling carries me through the holidays and all the upcoming changes into the new year!

Congratulations to all of the Fall 2018 class! I did not get a chance to talk to all 62 of y’all but I have no doubt you will go out there and be wonderful teachers and make a difference.

Until next time,

Jillian

 

PS – this was blog post #50!

Wow, what a journey. We finished 96 class in 9 weeks and can officially call ourselves certified Bikram Yoga instructors. I never thought this moment would get here and the feelings are so surreal. This was never my dream or part of my life plan until recently and I am so happy, thankful, and lucky to have been able to achieve it. As you can probably imagine, the last week was a rollercoaster of emotions but we all pushed through and finished strong!

 

Monday 11/13/16 – Day 58
I accidentally woke up early but remembered that something was going on with the planets and Venus and Jupiter aligning before the sunrise. It was 6:30am so I opened the door to take a look but then realized I did not have my contacts in and could not see a single thing… I went back to sleep until my alarm. Hey, I tried.

Deborah, a visiting teacher, led the morning class. She led the make-up class last Saturday and I had heard good things about it and had made a comment that I hoped she taught again. Lucky me. I absolutely LOVED her class. To me, it was the textbook definition of a perfect class. Her dialogue was great, her energy was good, she was calm and compassionate but also firm and encouraging. She was amazing. I was 110% able to get into my zone and after a few postures, my stiff body loosened up and I did very well. I felt so strong and capable, especially during Triangle pose. She kept reminding us to connect her words to our body and I was completely on the same page as her. We were vibing and she did not even know it. I loved every second of class. She reminded us that there is no past and no future, only the present; everything else is an illusion. We have to live where we are now. If we had spent every day of the last 9 weeks looking forward and stressing out about how much longer we had, we would have never made it. Instead, we lived moment to moment and now here we were, almost finished.

I felt so relaxed at the end of class and sank into my final savasana. She did the thing I like where teachers say to relax our feet, relax our ankles, etc. all the way up the body and then her savasana song came on. From the first note, I smiled. It was my favorite song of all time: I Want to Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston. I actually started crying a little bit, for the first time since week 3 probably. Perfect class, perfect song. Everything had aligned and I felt so overwhelmed with happiness. It sounds so silly but I could not help myself!

I headed back to the room after class and Leah told me an interesting story about a conversation she had with someone on staff. The person was nicer to Leah than she had been last week and did a complete 180 degree turn from everything. She told Leah to take it easy and that everything was her own fault (not Leah’s) and it was her own karma, something Leah and I had already decided was the case. She also said that she loved Leah and she was a great person which was even more interesting since she had told another trainee to stay away from Leah because Leah was “bad news.” It was fascinating to hear of such an attitude change! It was the attitude she should have had towards Leah since the beginning of this rib ordeal. Better late than never I suppose. We will probably know which version is her true personality but at least she was being more kind.

My stomach was hurting a little and I did not want breakfast but I went down anyway to get some fruit. I somehow ended up with a plate of food which did not help. That is the problem with buffets. I skipped my omelet and opted for mostly fruit and a little bit of eggs and sausage. I also decided to try the french toast for the first time and it was delicious. I am so glad to have not had discovered that earlier or that probably would have been my go-to breakfast. The most interesting part of breakfast was our talk about the morning class. Some loved it (me) and some hated it. We then started talking about we liked/disliked about it and it was so crazy to see how differently we all felt. We talked about other teachers too and compared notes and there were very few that aligned. It just goes to show that we are all so different but more importantly, when we are teachers, that not everyone will like you and/or your class.

I went to the pool afterward to try and study but lasted about 5 minutes until I got too tired to focus. It was hot as hell outside and I felt like my insides were cooking. I prefer my body to be a good rare but the sun was heating me up to a medium well so I had to get out of there. I had enough time to go back to my room and rinse off before taking our 6-day photo and the afternoon lecture. On the way back, I ran into Deborah and confessed to her and fangirled about how much I enjoyed her class and how the song, even though upbeat and happy, put me in tears. She gave me a hug and told me it was all for me. It was not, we know that, but I appreciated the sentiment. The universe was definitely on my side though.

For our 6-day photo, we did spine twisting whilst sitting on the ledge of the stone bridge. Thank you to my volunteer models and risk takers: Leslie, Michele, Johanna, Irmina, Rose, and Kim (photographer)! People were waiting for us to finish so they could walk by but all of them were happy to wait; Micael said he liked my daily pictures and looked forward to whatever posture/posing was next. I am glad people enjoyed them so much!

Before the afternoon lecture, Manali talked a lot more about graduation and our flights home. I wish I could explain the feeling more but I know y’all understand how I feel: the feeling of wanting to stay forever but wanting to leave immediately. I sometimes do not feel sad about leaving and just want to get the heck out but at other times, I do get sad and a little emotional about it. 9 weeks used to seem like a lifetime but now it seemed like nothing at all. I am ready to go but I know I will miss it. It can be a little surreal to see the light a the end of the tunnel though. Hell, to even SEE the tunnel is crazy.

The afternoon lecture was supposed to be our final posture clinic with Bikram to go over the last two postures but after about 30 minutes of that, he switched topics and talked about chronic skeletal diseases and their causes/solutions. I will give you a hint on the solution… yoga. Bikram yoga, to be precise. I listened but because we had heard some of this before, I mostly worked on another doodle and only took notes occasionally. I turned my phone on (I usually have it in airplane mode during class to save battery) and that worked out well because my co-workers were messaging me and emailing me about seating arrangement changes in the office that were happening this week. Why they (not my co-workers, it was out of their hands), could not wait 1 more week to do this until I got back, I will never know.

Bikram let us out early around 3:20pm. He said he had to make some calls. Whatever the reason, I was grateful. I snacked on popcorn and started my week 9 blog. I needed to stay on top of it this week so that I could have something to post on my final day home without the added stress of having to write it before graduation on Saturday.

During the short break, my head started to really hurt so I was not excited for class. Lidia and I were both there early and we broke the rules and took some pictures in the hot room before people started showing up. When Danni got there, she put her mat near mine, Lidia’s, Karl’s, and Diana’s and said she hoped being around strong people would hide her or give her energy. I told her that surely she meant them and not me and she made a comment about how she has never seen me skip a posture or leave the room (truth) so maybe she was on to something. However, Danni is the real champ because she is the only person I know of who did not sit down at all, not once, during the very first class ever 9 weeks ago. That class was torture so anyone who survived and did the whole thing deserves an award!

 

I told Leah I did not think Bikram would come because he sounded so sick during class but he showed up to teach. It was the most boring, non-Bikram-like class of all time. His energy was low and he seemed pissed off most of the class. My head was killing me, my body kept randomly cramping, and stomach started hurting. I wanted to give up but I reminded myself that I have had significantly worse classes before and did not quit then so I could not start now, especially after the conversation I just had with Danni and it being week 9. I thought Bikram would step it up as class went on because he sometimes does that but it never happened and he even later admitted that he did not feel well, that it was a boring class, and that his throat was hurting him. He even had the staff turn the fans back on in between the first and second set of Head to Knee with Stretching and yelled at Manali about why they were turned off in the first place. I did not think it was excessively hot in the room, not more than usual, but I appreciated the fans at the end there.

I decided to skip dinner and stay in the room because I felt so gross. My friend Alex had done the most amazing thing ever and had emailed me all of the Taylor Swift songs from her new album so I did not have to wait another week to listen to them. I will still buy the album when I get home of course but it was such an awesome surprise. Alex – you are the real MVP of the this 9 weeks!! My ability to sit and do nothing is limited so doing nothing lasted about 5 minutes before I got up and started packing up my stuff. I packed an entire suitcase up, reorganized/consolidated my remaining stuff, listened to the TS album, and danced around the room. I took headache medicine but since you should not take it on an empty stomach, I had a protein bar and some saltine crackers despite not being hungry at all. My head still hurt but whatever, worse things have happened. Also, my legs looked so swollen! What the hell.

I grabbed a chocolate bar on my way to the evening lecture in hopes that it would help with my headache. It did! Bikram was not feeling well so our evening lecture consisted of watching a few more episodes of Mahabharat (the TV show we started at the beginning of training). I accidentally fell asleep for probably about 20 minutes but I was so uncomfortable that it did not last long. He surprisingly let us out at midnight. It is funny to watch us all run and scatter when he says goodnight!

 

Tuesday 11/14/17 – Day 59
I was up a little later than I would have liked to be the night before because I realized I needed to start getting myself back into the real world and making plans for next week to visit people. I unintentionally woke up early and responded to some of those late night messages until it was time to get up for class.

The morning class was with Ashley. I was not excited because I did not care for her last class very much and I was feeling tired. Kirsty and I talked about how our minds and bodies were mentally starting to quit just knowing that it was week 9 but I knew we would have to fight that mindset and finish strong. The class had, in my opinion, extremely low energy and was quite boring. However, the things that I did not like last time about her class either did not happen or I did not notice them (mostly her inflection changing so much that I felt tricked in postures). Despite the low energy, I had a decent class and I liked it more than her first one. I started off stiff but got better as class went on. The balancing series was tough and I kept falling. I apologize to my mat neighbors for being such a distraction! They left the fans on again during the floor series which was awesome. Maybe that will be a regular thing this final week; a little treat for us as we wrap up.

Housekeeping was already in our room when I got back which was really bizarre. They never came that early before. I did not want to be in the way so I sat on the patio and enjoyed the outdoors for a little bit. Leah sent me a message: she had apparently gotten really sick in the room so she sent housekeeping up and went to the doctor’s office who put her on an IV. She had a stomach infection, probably from the pain medication they had put her on. Taryn is a nurse back at home and she had warned Leah that the medicine they were giving her may do that so Leah had stopped taking it but I guess it was too late. I felt so bad for her. She could not catch a break!

I got ready and headed to breakfast. It was a nice day and since I was not going to the pool, I took my time. The egg guy was different and was a mess so we made jokes about how spoiled we have been to have a preference of which egg guy is there. Good Lord. We also had some interesting conversations about the different teaches we have had and how we feel about them, a continuation from Monday’s breakfast conversation. I love that we all feel so differently.

I took care of some things in my room (scheduled stuff, updated my calendar, went through emails, etc.) and blogged until it was time to head down and take the 5-day photo. I took some photos of the property on my way. We did Standing Separate Leg Stretching this time. Thank you to my volunteer models: Ilka, Rocio, Yoasil, Mari, and Tina (photographer). People actually wait to see the photo-of-the-day so no pressure, right?

The afternoon lecture part posture clinic, part lecture, and part Mahabharat. We went through Head to Knee with Stretching and Bikram stood or sat on just about everyone who went up for corrections. It blows my mind how he just jumps on people and goes for. He is so confident he will not actually hurt anyone! To be fair, he never has. He was actually really upset when he heard Leah broke her rib doing advanced stuff and last week he made a comment about how the advanced series will die with him because people do not do it correctly and get hurt all of the time. Only he can teach and supervise it, apparently (and Emmy Cleaves probably). After that, we watched Mahabharat until 4pm.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Anything that works is right.” -Bikram
• “Every American is either sick or lost.” -Bikram
• “Yoga helps to do everything better and faster.” -Bikram

Laju taught the evening class instead of Bikram because Bikram wanted to TAKE the evening class with us. All of the staff and visiting teachers got to be front and center in the room with him. He was a mess! Bikram was a horrible, horrible student and NOT because he cannot do the postures (he can do just about all of them even if he looked a little crazy getting into them) but because he could not help himself and walked around correcting people and talking. It was actually pretty funny. Laju kept getting distracted and messing up the dialogue. She warned us we would have students like that one day. I hope not! Bikram demoed a few advanced postures for us, too. He might be a little “beyond repair” (as Manali says) but he sure is a talented guy. Impressive stuff.

It was an easy class but it was a strong one. I struggled a little bit with Standing Bow but it was overall a good class, definitely better than the morning. Geof, Taryn’s brother/a visiting teacher, was in front of me and kept making me laugh with his crazy faces and dance moves. He got to practice next to Taryn though and that had to have been exciting for both of them (staff/teachers usually practice behind all of us). They left the fans on again during the floor series. I obviously cannot be pleased because while I liked them on and I liked being able to breath, they cooled me off too much. Cannot win!

I was not hungry but went down to eat anyway. Huge mistake. The buffet can be so enticing and I always end up eating too much. The fish looked good so I grabbed some of that, the BBQ looked good so I took a little bit of that, and the chicken was basically schnitzel so I of course had to grab some of that (and later had another piece). I had my salad and fruit to balance me out but seesh. Then, because I apparently hate myself, I had 3 pieces of dessert. Had I stayed in my dang room, I would not have eaten until I was actually hungry and even then would have only had a protein bar or something simple. So much for minding my food the last week and trying to de-bloat before graduation/going home.

My mom and I video chatted for about 5 minutes and then I worked on my blog until the evening lecture, trying to stay on top of it.

Bikram complained about the evening class before lecture. He said it was too slow and “oh my God… 2 sets of everything! So long!” That made us laugh. If anyone knows how he feels, it is us! We watched another Hindu/Bollywood movie for the evening lecture: Jab Tak Hai Jaan. It was a love story and I think the majority of us were super into it. I know I was! I was getting annoyed with it when I thought he was going to choose this other girl over his true love. Leah and I had a serious conversation about it when we got back to the room so that should tell you how strongly we felt about it. It was an awesome movie. My only wish was that all of these movies were not SO incredibly long but otherwise, I have liked them all. It would not surprise me if I re-watched some of them at home… do not worry, I will not make any of you watch them with me. The movie ended around 1:20am.

 

Wednesday 11/15/17 – Day 60
Despite our late night, Alicia, Kirsty, Tina, Diana and I woke up early and met on the beach at 6:30am for the 4-day photo. We wanted to have softer lighting than the harsh middle-of-the-day sun and since we do not get to see the sunsets anymore, the sunrise was our only option. We almost decided to not do it because we were so tired from the movie night but we were all committed and I appreciate them for that! We did Triangle pose, replicating a picture that Bikram, his wife, and his kids took a few years ago. Thank you to my volunteer models: Tina, Alicia, Kirsty, and Diana (photographer). I think this was my favorite one so far!

The photo only took a couple of minutes and sign-in for the morning class was not until 8am so we all headed back to our rooms to try and get a little more sleep. I managed to squeeze in another 20 minutes, better than nothing. When I got the morning class, it felt like we had taken the Triangle picture days ago. Time is crazy here.

Christian taught the morning class. I was feeling so tired, stiff, and sick. I felt defeated and like I was giving up but I was trying to hang in there. I enjoyed his class more than I did the first time, especially because he was not so strict with the water. When he practices with us as a student, he drinks ALL of the time so I was glad to hear him lighten up with us since he could not even follow his own teachings. I guess what I wrote in last week’s post implied that I hated his class but I really do not hate it. Is it my favorite? No. Is it my least favorite? No. He is a clever, high energy, good teacher but because of that, I find it difficult to get into meditation and if I had taken his class every day as a new student, I am not sure I would have ever fallen in love with the yoga. Meditation is half of the practice and without it, you do not get all the benefits. Anyway, I know I am alone on my feelings toward it all but that is okay. I prefer dialogue classes, y’all know that. Call me a purist! I surprisingly had a very good, strong class even though the room was a little cold. Thankfully, Micael turned the fans off for the floor series.

I was not very hungry but went down to eat breakfast anyway. Kelly and I talked about our feelings about this coming to an end and she said something very profound that I liked quite a bit: “I look forward to missing it.” We know we are going to miss it but we cannot miss it while we are here! It was a quick meal because I wanted to take a nap before the afternoon lecture, which I managed to do for about an hour. It was another beautiful day so I felt a little guilty for not spending my time near the pool but I just had to rest. Unfortunately, I woke up feeling worse. I had sneezed a lot in the morning class and after my nap, I felt more congested, sneezed more, and had a headache. Whoo hoo.

I laid on the floor in the lecture room before the afternoon lecture started. I felt like absolute crap. Vinny and Tom joined me and tried to tell me I was not sick and that I was not sneezing and that I was fine. In other words, that I could not LET myself be sick and I had to will it out of me. They jokingly told me I was making it all up and it got a laugh out of me. Vinny and I talked more about our first classes/our home studios/why we went to training. He also tried to describe to me how to do a headstand. I will try it one day when I am feeling better… maybe.

The afternoon lecture consisted of several episodes of the TV show, Mahabharat. Bikram insisted that watching the show/reading the book will solve all of our problems and I do not doubt him but I just cannot with that show anymore. I truly liked it at the beginning but we have jumped around so much that it has lost me. I never know what is going on and when he explains it, it makes it worse. He talked a lot more than usual while we were watching it, telling us to pay attention to certain parts. It was interesting but we watched it for almost 4 hours. Normally, we get out of the afternoon lecture at 4pm and have class at 5pm but he kept us there until 4:45pm and pushed class back to 5:30pm. He was in a foul mood at the end so I was nervous that he would be tough on us in class.

Sure enough, class was a mess. I did not want to be there but as we all know by now, that was not an option. They said it was tradition for the guys to all be in the middle of the room so our 11 guys took the center and the brunt of it. Troopers. Bikram was clearly upset with us and yelled at us just before the floor series. He called us disrespectful for not paying attention to the TV show and equated it to him coming into our church and smoking a cigarette or scratching his butt. He said we were helpless and never going to go anywhere in life because we refused to learn. And so on, and so on, and so on. Look, I understand that reaction but to be fair, MOST people were NOT behaving in a disrespectful way. Some were, most were not. Admittedly, I did fall asleep for about 20 minutes so I did feel a little guilty.

It is normal when people behave like children to turn around and treat them like children. I get it. However, maybe it would benefit him to look at it from our perspective for a minute. You put 70 people in a room who know nothing about Hinduism and this stuff. Then, you have them watch bits and pieces of episodes and episodes out of order, making it nearly impossible to follow along in an understandable way. Top it off with bad subtitles, a FREEZING room, and uncomfortable chairs and you are almost asking for us to stop paying attention. I personally find the topic very interesting and want to read the books on it when I get home but I cannot follow along this way. I try to pay attention but it can be difficult. Anyway, he got upset by it and actually left the hot room during our first savasana. I did not even see him leave but suddenly Manali was teaching the class. Leah told me afterward that he saw her basically throw the microphone at her and storm out. Yikes. Manali later tried to say he had a meeting to go to but I do not think any of us believed that. I told you it was a mess. The room was cold and the fans stayed on during the floor series. I barely broke a sweat but managed to do alright, despite only being able to breathe through one nostril.

I skipped dinner in favor of a protein bar/crackers and rest in my room. I was not hungry but if I did not eat before the evening lecture, where I suspected Bikram would keep us up late as a kind of punishment for the afternoon, I knew I would be starved later. I grabbed an ice cream on my way to lecture though. I have a problem.

Manali shared her “Bikram story” with us finally. I think it helped me and Leah understand her a little bit more and somewhat forgive the things she said to people/the way she treated people sometimes. I think her natural state is a nice, caring, loving person but sometimes the dark side comes out. We all have that side of us, though. Being in a situation like this, and especially in a situation like hers, probably amplified it. I have always liked Manali but just been frustrated and confused by various behaviors. I think it was all a good lesson for everyone and a reminder not to judge people until you really know them. Her sharing helped me really know her. She also talked about graduation/our flights and told us to “please go back home.” We are trying, Manali!

Bikram finished posture clinic with our final posture, Spine Twisting. I had a question about if people were allowed to grab the towel/extend their leg but was afraid to ask it because you never know what he will say (dumb question, etc.). However, he said it was a good question and he meant to talk about it but had forgotten. Whew. Afterward, he talked about chakras, kundalini, the mind, and the body. All of that stuff was really interesting and thankfully, he only kept us until 12:30am.

5 things you need to help control your mind:

• Faith
• Self Control
• Determination
• Concentration
• Patience

Sidenote: Wednesday marked my 400th consecutive class!

 

Thursday 11/16/17 – Day 61
I still felt sick when I woke up but I survived. Anurag led the morning class but before he got started, the staff dressed up in wigs, danced around the hot room, and gave out free stuff (shorts, CDs, books, etc.). It was a weird little striptease but it was hilarious and a fun way to kick off the 2nd to last day. It was a little tough to transition from all the excitement to doing yoga, though! I could not breathe out of my nose, a huge problem when you are supposed to ONLY use your nose to breathe. I felt so awful and all but sneezed on Vinny during the floor series (I tired to cover quickly and he said it did not reach him but I still felt bad). It always grossed me out when I saw people blowing their nose into their towels in the past but I got over that really quickly when I did not have a choice; first time for everything. No way was I leaving the hot room. The standing series went by fast but it felt like the floor series dragged on forever, possibly because I felt like death. I did well and had a good class otherwise. My body physically did not hate me this week (minus the congestion/cold).

I was not hungry and felt awful so I stayed in my room for breakfast. I eventually had a protein bar but mostly because I took medicine and did not want to take it on an empty stomach. I video chatted with Katy and Paul for an hour or so. They were in Morocco this time and wherever they were looked so beautiful! Katy told me how much of a change she has seen in me and how happy she was that I got so much out of it. The 3 of us talked dialogue and how it may be difficult to transition back home after all of this. I am so glad and lucky to have them in my yoga family and to have had their support before, during, and after training. I had been feeling all over the place with my emotions, too. It seems like that always happens when I already have a call scheduled with them; timing is funny like that. As we approached the end, I was feeling reminded of how I felt during my visit in the Spring and then add that with my own feelings of the Fall training ending and it was a lot. I cried and I hate when I do that, even though I know it was fine. I was having a difficult time explaining it all to them but at the end of the day, I know it will all be okay and that the feelings would pass.

We took our 3-day photo before the afternoon lecture. Tanya was scheduled but was feeling sick but with how successful the whole ‘project’ had been, it was easy to find someone to take her place. We did Full Locust on the rocks near the pond the swans live in. I am not sure if we were technically allowed to be climbing up there, but oh well. The shot came out great! Thank you to my volunteer models: Sara, Henrik, and Ilka (photographer, who told me I had a perfect/muscular body; thanks girl!).

Lidia walked into lecture with a sandwich and asked if I wanted half. I had skipped breakfast so… that worked out incredibly well. I was pretty hungry. Vinny gave me an empty Coke can for the last class, too. During the last class, we are supposed to do a Coke toast during our water break and take a photo. Bikram loves Coke so it is tradition. I do not drink soda (for about 6 years minus the occasional Fresca and Vodka drink or Cherry Limeade from Sonic which has Sprite… both are incredibly rare though) so I did not want to go buy a Coke just to throw it away/waste it. Vinny was kind enough to give me the empty can so I could pretend for the photo. I also gave my departing flight info to Manali. It was getting real! Tom and Vinny reminded me again that I was not sick and asked about my fake illness (they did this every time they saw me since the first day I started feeling bad). I wish it had been all mental and trust me, I tried to “will” it away! Axry and I took a selfie, too. Love her.

Bikram did not have a lecture planned so we did a Q&A session where we were allowed to ask anything. We asked about the ‘no green’ rule, tattoos, different things about postures/timing/teaching, how to open a studio of our own, how to address incredibly sick/broken students, and a handful of other things. He answered almost every question but he is Bikram and likes to talk so some answers were incredibly long. When the answer gets long, the point sometimes gets a little lost and we go on a tangent but someone always had another question to help bring him back around. It was a good lecture and I think we all learned a lot.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “No. Who said that? Fuck them.” -Bikram, in response to someone asking if we should alternate our grips in class
• “You will never have had a better time in your life than this 9 weeks.” -Bikram
• “You will have a wonderful life, I guarantee it.” -Bikram

We were allowed to take photos before the evening class so we obviously did. My phone overheated though and acted really weird! Scary. For the last class on Friday night, we are supposed to wear all black so I assumed we would have another round of photos at that time, too.

The evening class with Bikram was finished in a record 87 minutes. He was on a roll. The standing series flew by and I managed to snag a compliment for my floor Bow. I had remembered before class that I brought Flonase so I used some of that but I still felt like garbage during the class. The inversion postures were torture; too much pressure built up in my head. I refused to skip a posture though. Not this late in the game. The crazy part of it was that my body was completely fine. I was nailing the postures and everything else, I just could not breathe/wanted to die when my head was upside down.

The hotel had a special dinner for us in Tavola (the Italian restaurant) instead of Chula Vista. Debatable on whether or not it was a genuine gift to us or if it was because the hotel had another conference going on and Chula Vista was busy… but it was nice nonetheless. The food was awesome and everyone looked so nice. I was hoping there would be pizza but when we got there, we did not see any. I got a plate full of other food and just as we sat down, they put pizza out. We swarmed to get some. It was such a nice dinner and we all laughed so much. We looked/felt/acted drunk but without the alcohol. Drunk on happiness, maybe?! I will miss them all.

They passed out our group shirts before the evening lecture and I loved them so much; they were so much better than the Spring shirts. Some people were still dressed up from dinner because we were to have an autograph/book signing thing with Bikram so they wanted to look nice. I did not really care so I had arrived casual and ended up throwing my new shirt on. I still looked cute! Kiley and I practiced our 2-Day photo for Friday and that was an absolute mess but we were laughing and others were laughing with (or AT) us so it was all good. We figured out the trick to the pose, though!

Bikram did his autograph signing which took about 2 hours and during that time, we all just enjoyed each other’s company. I had Bikram sign a book, my paper dialogue, and my journal. It was a low-key, casual night and was a nice break and nice way to spend one of our last nights together. Jana and I had a lovely talk, we always do, and Alicia and I paired up to take pictures and be ridiculous. I often times forget that she is only 18! I wish I could remember all of the crazy things we say/do but just know that we laughed and had a fun evening. H.A.G.S.!

At midnight, Bikram tried to start a movie but told us it was optional. I heard “if you want to stay…” and immediately started packing up my stuff. I enjoy the Bollywood movies but they are always 3+ hours long and it was midnight! He changed his mind though and told us to all go to bed. Bless his soul! My phone had died and I had been feeling worse as the night went on so I was thrilled.

 

Friday 11/17/17 – Day 62
I must have knocked out because I woke up drooling but also feeling extra sick. I was so happy we did not have to watch the movie the night before. I do wish I knew what the name of it was though so I could watch it at home one day.

It was a little bit of emotional morning; difficult to put into words. Leah and I woke up and immediately started talking about how it was the last day and how strange it was that it was finally here. I could not fathom it. When we walked down the stairs to the hot room, it was our last morning doing that. Everything was the last and it was exciting but it was sad. As others arrived, people started exchanging hugs and it was just a mess. If I had learned anything here, it was to just let yourself feel an emotion so I did not fight it and let it happen. Sigh.

Jim was back and taught the morning class. We were allowed to take photos again so we grabbed another group photo but I do not think we ever were able to grab one with ALL of us. It seemed we were always missing at least 1 person. We tried, though.

Jim talked to all of us before class but it was difficult to hear him so I have no idea what he said. I like the guy but once again, I prefer him in the lecture room than in the hot room. He was still crazy about the line and lectured someone about Toe Stand again but that was just classic Jim. He was doing dialogue for the first time ever and I could see the clock and he was surprisingly right on schedule. We were on the floor at the right time but class still went over by 15 minutes. I stand by my comment from an earlier post: he cannot teach a 90 minute class. I forgot he did not play savasana songs too but I was glad he did not because I probably would have cried. Instead, he talked but again, I could barely hear him. He was so soft spoken. There was something he said in the middle of class that I know I liked but I could not remember it long enough to write it down after class. I blame my illness. I had a decent class even though I felt so sick. There was way too much pressure built up in my head and the floor series was so tough. Being horizontal made it tough to breathe.

I had breakfast and then started packing up my stuff a little bit more. I did not want to go sit in the sun because I felt so sick. I met up with Kiley before the afternoon lecture to day our 2-day photo, though. We did pada-hastasana by the pool and it was tricky. We thought we had figured out the trick from our inspiration photo but it was not working. We asked Tina to help smash us together and she came over and had us laughing so hard, making it more difficult to balance! Kiley eventually had the brilliant idea that we each do the posture on our own and then grab each other instead of instantly grabbing each other and boom, it worked and we got a great shot! Everyone loved it. Thank you to Kiley, Tina (for her assistance), and Alicia (photographer). We got some crazy looks at the pool from the hotel guests but such is life!

Thank you, everyone who participated in the photo-a-day. I was completely surprised at how popular it got and it was so unexpected to see everyone fall in love with it!

Denise presented Manali and the staff with flowers before the afternoon lecture and Manali cried which of course made us teary eyed. Okay, I cannot speak for everyone but it made me teary eyed. Karla announced that she was 3 months pregnant, too!! I had noticed her doing modified postures in the hot room during the morning class but did not recognize them as the pregnancy postures but it suddenly made perfect sense. We were all so excited for her!

Jim went through our names for graduation to make sure he would say them all correctly during the ceremony and then he gave a lecture on teaching and what to expect. Unfortunately for us, it was 100% the exact same as one of his lectures earlier in the training. I compared my old notes and it was essentially word for word and all of the same stories. The only new thing Jim mentioned but that everyone had said throughout training was that Bikram teaches to each person differently: some he praises, some he embarrasses, some he ignores. It has nothing to do with how he feels about us individually, all he does is a hold up a mirror and show us what we need. I know I need validation, so maybe I was intentionally being ignored because that was what I needed? Breakthrough? I was bummed Bikram was not there with us; I was already starting to miss the guy. We were out by 4pm and everyone scattered to get ready for the FINAL class. AHH!

We all dressed in black (tradition) and took some photos before class.

The final class was THE BEST. It was so much fun. The energy and adrenaline was palpable. Everyone was hugging and taking pictures and just so excited. We normally took up 4 rows but we all squeeze into just 3 so we could be close. It was special. Lidia, Alicia, and I put our mats together near Tina and Kirsty in the front row and everyone fed off of each other’s energy. I had an amazing class but I think we ALL did. How could we not? I even went all the way back in my back bend like I could do before training. I saw stars and wanted to pass out when I came up, but I did it. It was the last class so I had to no matter what!

During our first water break, we all did a cheers with our Coca Cola cans and took a picture. I toasted with a can full of water but I took a sip of Alicia’s so I could participate despite my no-soda lifestyle and wow… just that sip alone had me burping the rest of class. I do not know how everyone was actually able to drink it and do class!

I snagged a compliment on my Standing Bow and Toe Stand (after he told me to lean back a little more). I love my Toe Stand so I was happy to finally get a little praise on that. I told you I need validation! We did a bunch of stuff to play with Bikram during class, too. Tiina had planned a few things out and we were organized and ready. Last minute, Kirsty threw in another thing for us to do and we spread it down the rows like a game of telephone just before class. I love a good team effort.

• For the first part of Awkward pose, for the first set of it, when Bikram said “you’re trying to fall down backwards,” we all actually fell down backwards. It was AWESOME. Kirsty and I looked at each other in the mirror and gave each other the ‘go’ and we went for it. Then everyone started collapsing like dominoes. He laughed and loved it. He told us we had “good choreography!”
• Before Standing Pull Pulling pose, we slapped hands with our neighbors before starting. Less effective and was a lot slower than we thought but we did it anyway.
• Bikram loves to sing us songs from his albums and there was one he always sang the most: I’m Feeling Lonely. We all knew the lyrics to one of the parts by the end so when we went into the right side of Triangle, we all started singing. He joined us in the middle and you could tell he totally loved it. I was so glad Anurag got video! He told that we cheated him though because singing means we did not hold the posture as long as we should have. For the left side, he called out Sara again and we all started singing some song he always sings to her. I forget the name of it but it has the name Sara in it!
• During Wind Removing pose, some people decided to make fart noises. That was not on our official list of things to do but it was still funny.
• We all linked arms for the first set of Full Locust (why our mats were placed so close together at the beginning) and we came up together. That was way more difficult than I think any of us thought it would be but it was fun.
• As always, we yelled WOO before Camel pose.

Other memorable moments of our final class were when he and Anurag did a demo of their crazy abdominal tricks before our first savasana and how we had to do 4 sets of Cobra because we were “so good” and “picture worthy.” We shouted we wanted to do a 5th! He had us look in the mirror (normally you look up) and that had us laughing. We also looked in the mirror for Bow but luckily we did not have to do 4 sets of that one. We were all laughing and making jokes the whole time, actually. The best was when Bikram said to “always keep your knees open” (in context to a posture!!!) and I looked at Alicia and said, “definitely not good life advice.” It was a very fun, strong class with amazing energy. Before the final breathing, we stomped and pounded on the ground. After the final breathing, it was 10x crazier. Instead of clapping, we followed tradition and just pounded on the ground as hard and as loud as we could while cheering and screaming. That was it – we were finished. What a surreal feeling it was! Of course we all start crying and then hugging each other. I held it together until Lidia and I hugged… then I lost it. We both did. Then we realized we hate crying and hate hugging and we let go and got ourselves together… temporarily. Everyone hugged everyone and we were all one big, sweaty, sappy mess. I CANNOT BELIEVE WE DID IT. We got in one big circle for a group hug, put Bikram in the middle of it, and all rushed forward to hug him while he jumped up and down in the middle and we all chanted his name. It was amazing. We also took our last group photo! People hugged and lingered in the hot room forever. Some of us, myself included, did not want to leave it. By the end, the floor was covered in water and Coca Cola spills, plastic cups, and towels everywhere. It was weird to leave there for the final time: happy, sad, ready, emotional. That feeling you get when you know you just did something major and you are proud and you do not want to let go quite yet, even though it is time.

Class photos (always look for the giant blue HydroFlask and you will find me):

 

Standing Head to Knee:

 

Us singing in Triangle pose:

 

One of our many sets of Cobra:

 

Linking arms in Full Locust:

 

Post-class photos:

 

Group hug:

 

Singing during our group photo:

 

I got cleaned up and headed to Chula Vista for our last dinner there. They had a BBQ for us again which meant I got to have more of their amazing chorizo! Lidia, Alicia, Maryla, and I ate quickly and then went over to Tavola, the Italian place, for one last round of desserts with them. We loved that chocolate ball!

We had one last lecture that evening. Everyone had been telling us it would be a special one and that we were going to get the biggest gift of all time. Bikram himself had told us before that we were going to review the breathing during the last lecture so we assumed it had something to do with that, but we were not sure. Everyone still had high energy from the last class and people were still getting emotional. By that point, I was more excited than anything. We had done it and that was it. The end. Did I want to leave? No. Did I want to stay and do 11 more classes and 10 more lectures? Also no. So what can you do besides embrace the moment for what it is? Mari had told me that she wanted her daughters to be like me when they get old and that was so sweet. The love we all have for each other was overflowing.

We did, in fact, review the breathing in the final lecture and yes, we did receive a special gift. I will not share what was talked about and what we did because I do not want to ruin it for any readers who may go to training one day. You can know everything up until this lecture and still be 100% surprised by everything and have your own experience but let this one be a real surprise for yourself. I think we can all agree it was a good lecture and we got a lot out of it. It was our last, and it was sad. We were out just after midnight but Leah and I were up late again, talking in disbelief that it was actually all over.

 

Saturday 11/18/17 – Day 63 – GRADUATION DAY
There was an optional class in the morning for most of us but required for the demo team so they could get warmed up for their performance during graduation. I wanted to go but I decided to sleep with no alarm and let fate take its chance. If I woke up naturally in time, I would go. If not, I would miss it. I slept until 9:30am and missed the class.

I video chatted with mom for a few minutes. She told me how proud she was of me and my first thought was a standard “thank you” and my second, silent, thought was more along the lines of “you have no freaking idea.” I mean really, I am proud of myself and I understand that others are proud of me too and I so appreciate that but this experience… no matter how hard I have tried to explain it to y’all, is unexplainable. Everyone SHOULD be proud of us. After accomplishing that, hell yes. What a journey.

I blogged for a little bit before heading to breakfast with Maryla at 11am. I ate quickly because my nieces and dad were all available to chat so I headed back to my room. I talked to Bailey and Jessica first. Bailey was cute and told me she missed me and told me about her dance class. I called dad and Suzette next and once again, Elliott started licking them like crazy when he heard my voice. I could not believe I would finally get to see him again in just one more day.

After talking to everyone, I went to the pool with Maryla and Alicia for the little time we had left before we needed to get ready for graduation. It was going to be our last pool time! Everything was the last this, the last that. Wrecks. We had a fun time at the pool, laughing and being dumb. Of course we talked about dialogue and our first classes and how crazy that it was all over. Standard, last day stuff!

On my way back to my room, I stopped to video call Bailey again and show her the flamingos at the hotel and then headed up to get ready for graduation. EEK! It was quickly approaching. Leah, Alicia, and I got ready together and then headed down to the lecture room. Everyone looked so amazing dressed up! It was so hard to believe we were finally at that moment. After 9 weeks. We took pictures until 3pm when it was time to get the ceremony started.

We listened to the Upsanas and a speech from Bikram’s Guru, Bishnu Ghosh. Manali, Anurag, Laju, Jim, everyone spoke at some point. The demo team performed and did AMAZING! Training cheated them this year though because they got leftover outfits from previous years instead of a matching set like they normally do. But they looked amazing and did so well. My girls Alicia and Lidia were in the front row, Alicia front and center, and they killed it. Actually, a lot of people from Group 3 were on the demo team so I was proud of our group! I was so proud of them! I took video of it all on my phone and then had to charge my phone the rest of the ceremony so it would be ready for pictures afterward.

They gave out awards and we heard an amazing speech from our valedictorian, Matt. His words made me cry. He compared the 26 postures to our 9 weeks here and it was perfection. Sara won an award and Bikram said she could not have it unless she sang for us again (she sings Opera). She did and somehow she managed to pick the most perfect song. The lyrics were spot on and her voice was so beautiful it gave me goosebumps.

Awards:

• Flower Petal Blooming – Karen
• Bengal Tiger Strength – Polina
• English Bulldog Determination – Vinny
• Dialogue – Kirsty
• Anatomy – Sara
• Yogi – Fernando
• Yogini – Alicia

After awards, we finally graduated!

The photographers they brought in to take photos were horrendous. The cameras were garbage and had a bad delay. I just knew the photos would be bad quality and sure enough, they were. Below is my official, once in a lifetime photo with Bikram and my certificate and it is actually amazing compared to some people’s… but incredibly awful compared to the Spring training’s photos. It was so unfortunate that these were our photos. Better than nothing, yes, but very unfortunate. Bikram’s eyes are closed in some people’s and the lighting and framing is a nightmare. Some people did not even get their photo!! Insane.

PS – My 1-Day photo to complete my photo countdown was, on Instagram, a picture of just me and my certificate (1 day, 1 person) BUT on Facebook, it was a group photo (1 day, 1 yoga family).

We took a bunch of photos afterward!

After it was all said and done, I headed to my room to charge my phone for a few minutes and grab Leah to go to a small, secret after party in someone’s room for a champagne toast. It felt like college with the drinks, snacks, crowded room, dim lighting, and music. Hilarious. Lidia, Alicia, and I left when it was time for dinner because we were starving. We took the long way to avoid too much cobblestone and Denise told us we looked like we belonged on Sex in the City with our nice outfits, heals, the wind in our hair, and our proud struts. We were feeling fabulous. Dinner was by the pool and the weather was great. It was the same Chula Vista food… just outside by the pool. We had some random guys at our table so we ate and then headed out.

Alicia was leaving early Sunday and had not packed so the 3 of us went to her room to basically watch her pack and do nothing. I blogged for a little bit but did not make much progress. We listened to music, reminisced, and tried not to think about how sad we were. In reality, we laughed a lot and it was so fun. Alicia’s yogini trophy was huge and she had forgotten to pack it in her stuff so I had to halfway repack her bag. First the cake cutting at the dance party, then the helping people find their seats at graduation (the demo team did not know where they were sitting and they all went to the wrong spots which would mess up our order so I fixed it, of course), and then this. Lidia was right in saying that I could not help myself to take over things!

Once she was packed, or mostly packed, we went down to the bar/lounge area of the resort: our first time there in 9 weeks. A handful of people were already down there enjoying a beverage or 2 or 10. I was not going to have anything but Denise had ordered a glass of wine for someone else and then that person left so I did not want it to go to waste… call me a team player.

We hung out there for a little bit then went to the dance party in our lecture room to say goodbye to staff and anyone who was in there. I talked to Manali for a bit and despite everything that happened with Andrew and Leah and everything I had seen her do/heard about her doing, I could not help but like her. Talk about a 180 degree turn. Well, I never hated her so… maybe a 90 degree turn. Things started to get a little more emotional saying goodbye to people there. I did not cry but it was sad. I hate goodbyes and would rather seclude myself and disappear quietly BUT I decided to be an adult and face it all head on. Everyone got a hug. Europeans like to kiss you on the cheek, too, so talk about being out of my comfort zone. Hooray for growth!

We went back to the bar to say goodbye to the people there and that was when the real waterworks turned on. Alicia lost it and I was doing everything in my power to keep myself together. When I hugged Kirsty though, it was game over. I cried. Not sorry about it. You spend 9, life changing, amazing weeks with these people and you get VERY close with some of them, you cannot help but feel torn up when you have to leave. Especially since we live all over the world! It will not be easy to visit each other. Not impossible, but not easy.

I refused to say goodbye to Lidia and Alicia because 1. I did not think I could handle it and 2. I knew I would see them in the morning. I was back in my room by 11pm. I finished packing and got ready for bed and once I was in bed, it hit me. All of it. It was not really ending. It was not over. I refused. I texted Andrew that I was sad and he was so sweet to video chat me and talk it out with me. I am looking forward to the day he graduates next Fall and when he will understand all of the feelings I was poorly describing to him. Only someone who has been through this will ever understand. It is the most insane, overwhelming emotion. You all think I am a great writer (and thank you for your kind words) but I cannot put down how we felt. I just cannot. You know the feeling I am talking about: the feeling of being ready to leave but not wanting to? Something like that. I do not know. Leah got back so she joined our chat and then the two of us stayed up until close to 2am, running on adrenaline, talking about it all until we finally talked ourselves to sleep.

 

Sunday 11/19/17 – Day 64
Alicia was in the first group of people leaving and had to be in the lobby at 7am. I woke up, had my last breakfast at Chula Vista/said goodbye to the wonderful Gilberto the omelet guy, and then headed to the lobby for the first round of final goodbyes. It was so sad to have to see people go!

The Mundomex guys had our official photo print outs and I was so disappointed in the quality of the photo. Such is life. They did not have any of them labeled and since they do not know all of their names, Ali volunteered me to label all of the envelopes. People were coming over to get their photo and Kathi shook her head, laughed, and told me I could not help myself to take charge. People in line were making comments that I should have run the training! Not going to happen, but thanks guys!

We gave our final hugs. I hated seeing Alicia go! Our little baby (she was 18, the youngest here) off into the world. Wah. Lidia and I were so sad and tried to hold back tears. We might have cried a little bit after she left. Shh. We went to Starbucks so Lidia could get coffee and we decided to eat our feelings and get chocolate truffles. We missed her already.

I headed back to my room to finish packing because my shuttle left 2 hours later. Leah was awake and we continued all of the typical “last day” discussions and talked about how sad and happy and everything we were. I tried to blog and had a panic attack because the text was not appearing in the editor and I thought I lost it all! All my hard work. The look on my face must had been very bad because Leah froze and looked like she was about to have to scoop me off of the floor. It was okay though, it recovered and all was not lost. Whew. As if I was not already emotionally fragile from goodbyes… I do not think I could have tolerated a lost blog post that I spent all week working on.

When it was my time to go at 9am, I headed to the lobby. Leah helped me carry my stuff down and so kindly made comments like “goodbye room,” “goodbye elevator,” “goodbye beach,” “goodbye Chula Vista,” “goodbye flamingos,” “goodbye chair swings,” “goodbye lobby.” Thank you, Leah! That was not torture at all! Now that it was time to go, I did not want to! Of course. Maryla was in the lobby getting ready for he first class so I said my goodbye to her and then Lidia came down to wait with us. The wait to get on the shuttle was excruciating. I hate goodbyes so long, drawn out ones are so rough. Why did this training have to continue to push me?! The Mundomex guys said it was time and that is when it got even worse. Lidia and I hugged, hard, and started crying. I love everyone I met and became friends with but saying goodbye to Alicia earlier in the morning and now Lidia… brutal. I always cried the most hugging Lidia. My Bikram bestie. I exchanged hugs with everyone who had come to send us off and hugged Leah one last time before loading up.

Sophia, Kiley, Denise and I were all on the same flight so it was nice to be able to travel with my friends and navigate the way. It also helped me keep my emotions a little more in check! The ride to the airport was short but felt like a lifetime. Sophia’s bags and boxes were accidentally left at the hotel so they had to go back for her stuff but Denise, Kiley, and I went ahead and checked in. My bags were overweight on the way in, of course, but one of them was in the proper weight range on the way back so it cost me less. Little victory. Axry, a staff member, went along for the ride and snagged this photo of us at the airport.

Kiley, Denise, and I talked while we waited for our flight. We talked about all the crazy things that happened at training and everything under the sun. I heard some rather surprising and disappointing things! But, we laughed and enjoyed each other’s company. I was thankful we got just a few more moments together.

It was a short flight to Mexico City, about 40 minutes. I studied dialogue and tried to sleep but we were in Mexico City before I knew it. I do not know why but being in Mexico City still gave me a weird feeling. I had come a long way in the 9 weeks but Mexico City… that place might always be a sore spot for me. Again, I was thankful to be with friends to help distract my mind. We could not find our flights on the departure board but we knew we had a lot of time so we had lunch. We lost Sophia somewhere along the way and Denise went to check out the special lounge she had access to. Kiley and I went to a restaurant/bar and ate our weight in food. I got beef tacos and french fries because why not? I also had a glass of red wine. Sue me. We talked about training, our fears in going home, and everything. All we knew for 9 weeks was yoga, so of course all conversations were about yoga. The best part about it all was that Kiley and I had been friends from the beginning so it was enjoyable and easy to sit and converse, easier than if it had been someone I only kind of knew. After we ate, we found our flights and said goodbye. The last goodbye!

I found a charging station and got WiFi to semi-work and started checking in with people at home and people still at the hotel. I could not imagine how the people who were leaving in the evening or the next day felt… having to say goodbye literally ALL day to people. Suddenly I was grateful to have left in the morning. My flight was supposed to leave at 3pm but we left a little late. I was so anxious to get going at that point. Once I was alone, it was more of a “let’s get this show on the road” feeling. As Kiley described it at the Acapulco airport, being away from the hotel made the idea of leaving a little “less romantic.” Spot on.

The plane was small and not full at all. I had the row to myself! I was exhausted from being up late Saturday and getting up early so I was hoping the glass of wine would help me sleep a little bit. It did; I slept for nearly the first 2 hours of the flight and woke up just in time for the airplane snacks. I ate, studied the breathing exercise to a good enough state, and then started reading the Red Book (Bikram’s first beginner’s book). It was so interesting! I wished I had read it before training. Michele, a visiting teacher, mentioned that we could always ‘brand’ ourselves and make our own yoga pages and reading that book started giving me ideas for something like that. Maybe one day.

As we started our descent into Houston, the sun set and the trees were unblocking and blocking the lights and it made the city look like it was twinkling. My heart started to swell at the sight of all of it. I had the song “I’m Coming Home” by J.Cole stuck in my head, specifically these lyrics:

I’m coming home
I’m coming home
Tell the world that I’m coming home
Let the rain
Wash away
All the pain of yesterday
I know my kingdom awaits
And they’ve forgiven my mistakes
I’m coming home
I’m coming home
Tell the world I’m coming

On my way TO Acapulco, I had the song “Here Comes the Sun” in my head and now that one. The brain has a funny way of remembering the most fitting things to help set the mood. I started getting teary-eyed… tears of happiness. Pure happiness. I could not believe I had just done teacher training for 9 weeks in Acapulco, Mexico and that I was returning as a certified instructor. The emotion and sense of accomplishment was overwhelming. I missed my friends already but in that moment, it was so nice to finally be home. I was ready to hug my family, see my dog, see my friends, and lay in my bed.

I turned my phone on when we landed around 5:45pm and saw that my mom was in the airport, she had also returned from her Mexico trip just a few minutes before me and was waiting for me at baggage claim. I got off the plane and as I walked out and through the airport, I was… giddy? I could not stop laughing AND crying. Hysterically. I was texting my best friend and it was just all making me laugh even more, which made me cry even more. I was so happy and so emotional. Others were looking at me like I was crazy, as expected, but I knew they had no idea that I had not been in the USA for 9 weeks! To see and hear English again, to feel comfortable and familiar, everything. I was a wreck but in the best of ways. It was finally real. The idea of “home” was no longer out of reach! Being in Houston also signified the official end of the trip. My teacher training journey will never be over, there will always be things to learn and ways to grow, but my yoga bubble was officially popped and it was all over.

I saw my mom, Robert, and their friends at baggage claim while they waited for their bags. Such a small world that we would be there at the same but it worked out well because they were going to be out of town for Thanksgiving and I was not sure I would see them before they left. So, I was thankful we at least had that brief moment! They waited for me while I got my bags and we headed out together. Dad and Suzette were waiting for me in the car outside so I said goodbye to mom and Robert and headed out. I started getting texts congratulating me on being home and I sent messages to all of my yoga friends telling them I had made it safely AND with both bags (always a worry of mine). Shout out to Kelsey for letting me borrow her amazing suitcases. Dad and Suzette pulled up and I all but sprinted over to their car, through the road. I started chanting “USA, USA, USA”  and gave my dad a big hug. We loaded the car and headed to their house!

I told them about the day and answered questions but I instantly started to feel a little… off. I had talked about yoga for 9 weeks and I was very self conscious talking to them, people not in my yoga bubble. I did not want to talk too much about yoga because I knew they were not as interested in the subject as I am, plus they had read my blog and already knew everything that I had done. They told me about things going on with them and that felt a little more natural to sit and listen instead of talking. First time in my life, probably, that it felt natural to be a little more silent. I obviously had a lot to say and I was excited so I know I did a little rambling, though. I tried hard to keep myself in check.

We got to their house shortly after and it was finally time to be reunited with my sweet puppy, Elliott. Dad and Suzette went inside first to plug my phone in and get the video going and then I came in behind them. I was SO happy to see him! He looked at me, confused at first, then ran over and got in his spot in my lap. His tail was wagging a million miles an hour. He kept looking at my dad and then back at me, as if he did not think it was real! Dad kept saying, “I told you she was coming back!” Maggie, our family dog who lived with my mom post-divorce but who recently moved in with my dad post-hurricane Harvey, was there. She looked so much better than I had seen her in years and dad had warned me to be gentle and move slowly with her (she is at least 14 years old at this point and partially blind/deaf), but I forgot and reached too quickly and startled her. It was good to see her, too.

Kelsey, my step sister, was there and Alex, my brother, arrived shortly after. We all caught up for a little bit. I could feel that I was different already in a way that I cannot really explain. Their discussion on the the latest TV shows did not interest me and neither did spending the time to go back and watch everything I recorded on my DVR while I was gone. The idea of sitting and watching TV for hours on hours did not seem fun. I started to get a little overwhelmed so I said my goodbyes, loaded up my car (which Alex had driven over in), and took us back. Alex lives in my apartment complex in another building so it was good to get his help loading my stuff up without a lot of extra hassle. Elliott was SO excited to be back in the apartment. He ran around everywhere and then I took him outside and he had to sniff and pee on everything. I texted my neighbor, Luke, that we were back and he brought Barkley, his dog, down. She was pretty excited to see Elliott but I think Elliott was more excited to see Luke! I was happy to see both of them and we chatted outside before I got too cold (I was not dressed for the cooler weather!) and headed back home.

I unpacked everything, started laundry, and had a lot of trouble sleeping. I tossed and turned quite a bit all through the night. I struggled to get comfortable. Who knew it would be more difficult to adjust back home than it was to adjust to leaving?! Either way, I was happy to be back, with Elliott snuggled up beside me. That was it. Welcome to your new life, Jillian.

 

Training Summary
This was the best experience of my entire life. I wanted to go to training for 100 reasons but one of the big ones was because I wanted to be challenged. Mission accomplished. Training was a huge challenge, if not the biggest one of my life so far. The yoga part of it (2 classes a day) never scared me going into it but the mental part of it was intimidating and I was so nervous to go. Despite a few upsets, minor frustrations with people, a little drama, and 2 rough weeks that looking back on, were not that rough, I did fine. I loved the environment; I thrive in a camp-like setting. I made enough alone time for myself to keep me grounded and I think that helped a lot too. I feel changed and different, but in a good way. A better way. I hope others see it, too. I feel like I know myself more and understand the world more. I feel proud of myself, a feeling I have struggled with in the past. If I could do this, I can do anything now.

I am so thankful to everyone who helped make this trip possible for me (my job, my family, my friends) and to everyone who helped support me along the way. I know, first hand, that this can be more difficult on the people at home. I also know that people went out of their way to help me while I was away with watching Elliott, checking on my apartment, etc. I appreciate it all. I am thankful for the friends I met here and the experiences I had. We are all so lucky to have met each other and even though we are all going off in our separate directions and even though most of us will not talk regularly, we all know in our hearts that we have a loving, supportive, yoga family forever. I know that if I am ever in one of the 21 countries represented here, I can call up someone from training, even if they were not my #BikramBestie, and meet up with them/take a class together/teach at their studio and that is a warm feeling. I know that when I teach my first class and post it on the group page, everyone will show me love and support and that I will do the same for them. Not to mention, all of our visiting teachers who we connected with to support us as we move on with our lives. I love it. My heart has grown 10x being here and it is overwhelming! I hope to never lose this feeling.

To my Bikram girls, you know who you are, you made this wonderful for me. It would not have been the same without you and I love you all forever!

I need to make one special shout out: Before coming, one of my biggest worries was my roommate. Who was it going to be? Were we going to get along? Someone even told me to pay the extra $4k and not have a roommate. I am so glad I did not do that because Leah, my roommate, was one of my favorite parts of training and there was no way I could have done this without her. We got along from the start and even though we did not always hang out in classes/lectures, we spent a lot of time in the evenings after the day ended or during breaks between activities in our room talking and laughing. About everything. We trusted each other and got to vent about frustrations, talk each other off of ledges, motivate each other (especially with the dialogue), study together, and everything. We spent so many days/nights just laughing hysterically, sometimes a little delusional, at each other and the dumb crap stuff our yoga brains would come up with. We constantly, jokingly laughed about how “bougie” we had gotten about having clean bath robes to wear to class and little things like that. There are a lot of great memories. We also had so many serious conversations about life and yoga (like the one night we stayed up until 1am having a SERIOUS talk about Triangle pose). We have a lot of similar views and while we never fully opened up and shared our full life stories with each other, we definitely understood each other and supported each other and that made everything so much easier. I could not have been more lucky getting assigned a room with her!

There are so many more things I am going to miss, too: finding the perfect spot in the hot room and the daily conversation you have with yourself about if you should go in the center or not (the center was cooler, but directly in front of Bikram), the sarcastic comments we made to each other under our breaths during lecture (highest regards to Alicia and Vinny for that… every day was funnier than the previous), how Bikram pronounced the word “sauna” and how Alicia and I laughed every time, and the list goes on.

They constantly describe teacher training as a life-changing experience. I believe a person can have more than one life-changing experience but I do agree, this 100% was one of them and a big one nonetheless. Everything about this experience from leaving my job/dog/family/friends for 9 weeks to actually saying goodbye instead of my preferred method of sneaking out quietly pushed me out of my comfort zone. I spent 9 weeks out of my comfort zone, in a yoga bubble, and I feel so changed and bulletproof for it. I know it might have looked like a vacation to an outsider and yes, we were at a beautiful resort and had great weather and outstanding amenities, but it was not always a vacation. We had long, 18 hour days that pushed us beyond every limitation we could imagine. Some cracked, some just bent a little bit, but we all went through our own journey… together. It was so much more mentally difficult than I thought it would be, so much more enjoyable than I thought it would be, so much more everything than I thought it would be. I could have never dreamed up something so rewarding and worthwhile. It was absolutely worth every sacrifice and hardship. I am so proud of myself, of all of us.

 

Training Quotes
Most are Bikram’s, others are indicated with their name.

• Food in Chula Vista. -Manali
• Check check.
• My hearty request… -Manali
• How you guys are doing? -Manali
• You can balance you can balance you can balance… -Manali
• Bounce, and bounce, and bounce, and bounce…
• What is the best food? No food.
• Men are 3 things: dog, pig, goat.
• Are you thinking what I am thinking?
• No pain, no gain. No money, no honey.
• 99% right is 100% wrong.
• Chicken shit.
• My way or the highway.
• Good things come in the small packages.
• Quality over quantity.
• I hate lazy people.
• Too good is no good.
• Wind blows, fire burns. water cools, Bikram works.
• Yes or no?
• Ask me why!
• I suck your ass like a leech.
• I jump on your coffin box.
• Don’t look so sad.
• Do it from the heart.
• Fuck Zara.
• God gave you brain. Learn how to use it.
• If women lose the hand (or grip), no future with a man.
• Humans are slaves of the bad habits.
• Mind gone with the wind.
• Blind cannot lead the blind.
• Can I teach you how to swim?
• That’s called Bikram.
• Steel to the fire, it gets soft.
• I didn’t need to explain, I proved it already.
• They’re all my students.
• A Apple, B Bat, C Cat.
• Mental masturbation.
• Did I prove it?
• Can’t start a Mercedes with a Toyota key.
• Ass out. Ass front.
• How many times did you go back and forth, “yes I will go to training, no I will not, yes I will, I will borrow the money, steal the money, I am going.”
• Get in, get in! -Manali
• Sit up on your mats! -Manali
• You got it!
• Ahhh thank you!
• It’s a good news!

 

My Name Is…
Bikram had a habit of always telling us what his name was (or asking us what his name was). Hint: the answer was NEVER Bikram. Here is a list of names I started keeping during week 7 and no, I will not explain any because I find it more entertaining this way. If you were there, you know! Also, if you remember any that I missed, send them my way!

• Mr. Garbage Collector
• Janitor
• Mr. India
• Mr. Perfectionist
• Mr. Knee
• Monty Hall
• Mr. Rabbit
• Mr. Hollywood

 

Savasana Songs
Songs that teachers played during final savasana that I remembered long enough to write down after class or that people had sent in the group chat.

• Songs from Bikram’s CDs
• Bikram actually singing to us
• Man in the Mirror – Michael Jackson
• Wagon Wheel – Darius Rucker
• Livin’ in the Moment – Jazon Mraz
• One – Mary J Blige and U2
• Still Standing – Elton John
• Hot in Here – Nelly
• I Feel It Coming – the Weeknd
• Shanti Ashtangi – Madonna
• Take me to Church – Hozier
• “Love” poem by Rajashree from the CD Kavita

Jolina, a visiting teacher who stayed with us the entire 9 weeks like a champ, put together an amazing YouTube playlist for us with a lot more! So amazing of her to do!

 

Movies

• Awaken: The Autobiography of Yogananda
• Kaho Naa… Pyaar Hai
• Jodhaa Akbar
• Jab Tak Hai Jaan
• Mahabharat (TV show)

 

Random Statistics

• Number of classes or lectures I missed: 0
• Number of times I signed in late: 0
• Number of make-up classes: 0
• Number of times I left the hot room: 0
• Number of times I skipped a posture: 0 (with the exception of the very first class during week 1 where everyone, except Danni, had to sit down at least once or face death because it was so brutal)
• Number of yoga classes: 96 (unless you did a make-up)
• Minutes of yoga: roughly 9,000
• Number of earthquakes: 3

 

My Subjective Advice to Future Trainees

• Go in with zero expectations, no matter what you have read here/other blogs, no matter what you have been told, and no matter what THEY tell you. We had no additional doctor lectures/speech therapists/sanksrit classes as they promised. Expect nothing (including sympathy).
• Take everything “with a grain of salt.” Not all of their feedback is valid or necessary and not everything the staff/Bikram tells you is true.
• Focus and take of yourself. Build relationships but stay out of the drama. Know that if you get sick, you are almost entirely on your own.
• Take it one day, one moment, at a time and you will get through it.
• Enjoy yourself. Take it easy but take it seriously. Do not stress too much (especially with dialogue), you will be okay.
• There is no process to back up their “trust the process” motto but just… trust it, whatever it may be. Do not fight the disorganization and chaos or try to fix it. Ignore it or laugh at it and move on. You cannot control things.
• Come knowing some of the dialogue. The more you know, the better time you will have the more sleep you will get. Definitely know Half Moon, at a minimum, but do yourself a favor and learn Spine Twisting too. Obviously learn all of it if you can, maybe not perfectly but at least to some degree.
• You will be tired. Get over it. Do not complain about it. You can sleep on the weekends.
• The real world exists out here. The bubble is great and you should absolutely embrace being in it while you can but it is not real. Be prepared for a big adjustment when you go home.
• Listen to what visiting teachers say. Yes, it is repetitive and can get old (it did for me), but know that they have been through it and trust that they just want to be helpful. Listen and you might hear something new.
• Bring a puzzle book or something to doodle on/with during long nights. Otherwise, do what so many people here did and copy them off of the internet into your notebook.
• Pack lightly. You do not need as many clothes as you think you do AND you can buy things at the Walmart or local store once you are there (shampoo, etc.)! I brought WAY too many t-shirts (too hot for sleeves… plus, pit stains), sweaters for the lecture room (you can only wear one at a time anyway), jeans (HA!), socks/real shoes (yeah, right), and underwear (you are in yoga clothes 90% of the time, you do not need underwear). You (women… I cannot speak for the guys) need clothes for the hot room, some tank tops, some yoga pants (for lectures, posture clinics), bathing suits, and sandals. Bring a few nice outfits for special dinners and obviously a formal outfit for graduation. You can do laundry and it is not that expensive so take advantage of that. I did not need to bring 2 suitcases.
• Never doubt or regret your decision to go to training. You may have given up a lot to go but trust that you did the right thing. 

 

Thank you for reading! Until the next adventure…

Jillian

 

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Post-Training Life
Monday was a struggle. I was incredibly over-stimulated returning to work. I barely slept the night before so not only was I exhausted, but the act of driving, hearing the radio in my car, the street lights, the CHRISTMAS lights, the cooler weather, everything… was a lot to take in at once. When I got to the office, I was so happy to see my co-workers and they appeared to be happy to see me. I moved my desk to my new office; new life, new office. It was a tough day trying to get back into the swing of things but everyone was patient with my silly questions and I managed. It was a lot to take in. I had lunch at Chipotle with my best friend Kelsey and it was so nice to see her, too! She said I seemed different and I took that as a compliment. Like I have said, I feel different. When I left, she was only a little pregnant but WOW! She definitely has a little nugget in there. I could not believe it! She makes a beautiful pregnant woman! We had a great talk about everything and I felt like I could talk openly about things that I cannot necessarily write about here so that was nice. I love that feeling of familiarity and I just loved seeing here again. I definitely missed her.

After work, I grabbed Elliott and hauled over to my sister’s house to see my sister, my brother in law, and my nieces. Talk about a happy reunion and being over stimulated! They were so energetic and wanted to show and tell me everything. Bailey made me a beautiful drawing (when did she learn to draw and write????) and we played all night. Jessica and Justin welcomed me with a yummy meal, too! Thank you guys, I missed y’all!

 

I had another tough night sleeping but the next day at work was easier. Baby steps. Tuesday was the day of my first class so I had that lingering over me all day. I started reciting dialogue in my head the second I woke up. I focused on work while I was at work but when I left, I was back to dialogue. Saying it, reading it, everything. I was so nervous.

Jessica and the girls visited me at work and we went to Grimalidi’s for lunch with my co-worker Emily. Bailey fell in love with Emily!

I got the studio an hour before class to socialize with people and say hello. It was nice to be back but a little intimidating. I was so excited when Tanja arrived! Tanja is one of my mentors and she used to teach at the studio so I was not the only one excited to see her again, other students were too. It meant so much to me that she came! Everyone told me how tan I looked and was happy to see me (and vice versa, of course). It was so cool to see my name on the sign-in sheet as the instructor so I sent a picture to the training group chat. If anyone was going to understand my nerves, it would be them.

I had 14 people in my class (pretty average for my studio) including my brother, sister, friend from volleyball, 3 of my teachers, and some of my studio friends. My brother and Todd (volleyball) had never taken a class before and my sister had only taken it one but they all did so great. They stayed in the room and everything! I am sure they all want to kill me now but I am proud of them for doing it and thankful for their support.

I was nervous starting the breathing exercise and honestly have no idea what I said or how many they actually did… but I felt like it was not great. I made it up as I went. Oh well, it happened. By Half Moon, I felt comfortable and in my zone and before I knew it, class was over. Was my dialogue perfect? No. I fumbled a little but nothing noticeable. I was told I held Triangle too long but I definitely could sense that… a few extra seconds in Triangle never killed anyone (sarcasm, it was probably torture; sorry guys). Tanja, one of my instructors, gave me a few subtle queues when she could tell I was losing it and that was so helpful. I unintentionally gave a few corrections (I told people to put their feet together and I corrected Todd’s hands in Cobra) which I know was a big no-no (we are told NO corrections the first 6 months), but it just happened! Sometimes it was okay, sometimes it caused me to fumble. I will need to make a conscious effort to not do that for my next several classes. Head to Knee with Stretching was definitely my weakest of all of them but I also looked at my brother who looked like he was dying and I completely forgot what was going on in the room. Do not look at the new people!!!! I also forgot the clock was there but I looked at it in Savasana and I was right on track and we finished at 90 minutes and 30 seconds! Right on time! The whole thing flew by and was such an adrenaline rush. Thank you to my sister for sneaking in her phone at the end and grabbing a photo of me doing Spine Twisting (the only time I sat, of course), and of the end of class!

Afterward, everyone congratulated me and it was so exciting. I high-fived everyone in lobby waiting for the next class even though I did not know half of them. I was pumped. The adrenaline rush was insane. My heart was overflowing with love for my siblings for going out of their comfort zone to support me, with love for Todd who gave it his all and even gave the rest of our volleyball friends a ton of crap for not going with him, with love for my teachers for supporting me in my first class and unknowingly letting me stare at them for guidance the whole 90 minutes. It was all so amazing. 9 weeks of everything all led up to that moment and it was such a relief to have finally done it. I had so many messages on my phone with people telling me good luck and congratulations and I felt very loved.

When I got home, I video chatted with Lidia (YAY) and told her all about it. I miss her so much and it was so good to see her and talk to someone from our bubble. I video chatted with Katy on Wednesday morning for a little bit to tell her all about it, too. We had a nice chat! Not only is Katy able to understand every emotion I had during training, she understands the feeling of returning home and the feeling of teaching your first class. I find it difficult to explain things to people who have not been through it so it makes it very easy for me to talk to someone who just “gets” it. Also, Katy and I have the same “weight loss” story so she understands all of those feelings and emotions, too (PS I weighed myself Monday and I did not gain weight at training; I have, however, lost 4lbs already since being home). I have said it a million times but I am so thankful for her friendship and guidance!

The rest of the week will be spent visiting more family and more friends! It is a short week at work because of Thanksgiving so I will have plenty of time to see everyone. I have not gone to TAKE a yoga class yet so I plan to do that soon, too. I miss it already but am nervous! Lidia took her first class back and said it was so different to not have us around her and have the group energy. She also said that she noticed the teacher did significantly less dialogue than she had thought. Uh oh… are we all going to notice bad dialogue now??? Eek. Either way, I am looking forward to getting back into it and seeing how I do with my body a little more relaxed and healed!

Wish me luck!

❤

86 classes and 8 weeks complete! Week 8 flew by so quickly. We had 30 new faces join us for re-certification week, several visiting teachers/families/friends, more posture clinics with Bikram, and another dance party. The week also brought new emotions as our time here starts to come to an end. It is so crazy to think that we have spent 8 weeks here but it is even more crazy to think that we only have 1 left!

 

Monday 11/6/17 – Day 51
Monday was the completion of my 365 Day Challenge! I completed 386 classes in 365 days. I struggle with feeling proud of myself sometimes but I legitimately was proud of myself all day! You can read all about it in last week’s post but the accomplishment had me feeling on a high. I never thought I would find something in life that I felt this passionate about and I am grateful all of the time.

After a relaxing weekend, I was ready for Monday’s class. All of the re-certification teachers joined us. There were definitely not 50 of them as we were told but there were quite a bit. It was a little bit of a cluster to get us all on the correct rows, though. Eddie had been putting the recert teachers on the first two lines and then the rest of us in our groups on the following four lines. After almost 75% of the room was setup, someone else on staff tried to get me and another girl to move, saying we were on the wrong lines, and I was not having it.

Laju taught and I did alright. I got a little deeper into my back bend for the first time in over 2 weeks and that was a good feeling. Lidia had told me that I had not been able to do it because I was scared; a common reason people cannot go all the way back in the posture. I did not think I was scared but I considered what she said and when attempting the posture in class, I tried to be fearless and go for it. My back genuinely hurt and there was clearly a physical limitation but I pushed and did make a little progress. I saw stars when I came up, but at least there was movement. I zoned out for most of the class and the floor series went by so quickly.

I felt so bad for Leah because her rib had been bothering her all weekend (she had gone to the doctor 3 times and talked to Manali twice). After the Friday night class last week, she was practicing an advanced posture as she was instructed to do. No one told her how to do the posture, just that she needed to practice it, and no one supervised her. During that, she heard a crack and figured she had maybe dislocated something. It was bothering her Saturday morning but she did class anyway and by Saturday night, it was too much to take so she went to the doctor. On Sunday, it was not feeling any better. She wanted to do the Monday morning class but collapsed and screamed in pain when she got out of bed. If you can barely get out of bed because you are in so much pain, there is a problem. She went to class anyway but got pulled out during the first posture when she stopped trying because of the pain. The staff threatened her and implied she was faking it. I told her to go get an X-Ray to prove that she was not and later in the afternoon, she did (spoiler alert: she broke her rib; a clean break right from the base of the rib).

Breakfast was normal and delicious as always. I sat in the sun and could feel the sweat drip down my back which was a disgusting feeling but whatever. I did not stay there long because I wanted to get out before the crowd of people came.

I decided that this week, I would spend the morning breaks studying by the pool and working on my tan. Alicia and I had noticed we were losing our color so it was a conscious effort to get some sun. So, I went to the pool after breakfast and did just that. It was a gorgeous day and I was on a high from it being my 365 Day Challenge. Alicia and Lidia helped me get an awesome jumping picture to celebrate and I texted with my BFF Kelsey for a little bit. I was in such a great mood and feeling so happy to have done a full year of yoga. Just the first of many to come!

Eddie always plays music before lectures and he caught me dancing by my chair and called me out. I cannot help that I love a good rap song, Eddie! They were so not prepared for the recert teachers though because there were no extra chairs ready and it was all a mess. Not surprising. I made a comment to Vinny and he sarcastically reminded me to just “trust the process.” Yessir!

Bikram arrived and kicked off our posture clinic with him. All the recert teachers were so happy to see him and were very clearly entertained by him; this was probably very nostalgic for them and they were not burned out from 8 weeks of the same jokes. I am sure I will be the same way to some degree when or if I ever come back to visit training. He welcomed them all to Acapulco, “the land of crime, murder, rape, drugs” (his words). That got a good awkward laugh out of us… because it was true. He ripped off his clothes to reveal his latest flashy yoga outfit and everyone cheered. He jokingly told us to “shut the fuck up” because we did not mean it. Busted. He said we were all sick of him. I would not say I am sick of him though; I recognize that this is a once in a lifetime thing and we should embrace it while we can, even if parts of it are frustrating. It was only Monday afternoon and the recert teachers were already annoying us; they would not stop talking during lecture. Several of us had to shush them and ask them to be quiet several times.

Bikram went through Standing Separate Leg Stretching, Triangle, and Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee. During one person’s corrections for Standing Separate Leg Stretching, he had all clapping and chanting “lock and drop” for her to lock her knees and drop her head down. That was different! He was definitely extra funny and making us laugh a lot. Kiley and I were going to go up for corrections on Triangle but there were enough people in line and ours are not too terrible so we decided against it and sat back down. Bikram demoed his left side Triangle for us (he demos Triangle a lot but only the right side) and it was tragic; he said he never practices that side. Why would you only practice one side?!

When we moved on to Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee, I did not get in line for corrections. I considered going up because Axry had told me at breakfast last Sunday that my forehead was not touching my knee BUT I knew I knew how to do the posture and had just been struggling at training. You get better at some postures here and you get worse at others; such is life. I know how to do this posture but had just gotten worse at since being here. Anyway, I did not go up but then Axry ran down and made me get in line! She was right though, I should have gone on up on my own. There are so many moving parts to this posture and it is normal a struggle to get them all but all you can do is try. So, I tried on stage. Bikram said it was not terrible but then started helping me and because I have ears and a brain, I listened to him and implemented his corrections and it got better. It hurt and was difficult, but I tried. At the end, he said I had “a whole lot of culo” and told me to marry a Hawaiian man because they love bug culos. Culo means ass. I had already been feeling sensitive about my weight so that comment was a little annoying (not to mention I was already feeling a little annoyed for being up there at all). Everyone said “aw” and Ilka yelled that I was beautiful as I walked off stage. That was nice. I realized later that his comment hurt my feelings a lot more than it should have. Leah and Alicia told me that they interpreted it as saying I have a nice ass which only showed how a single comment can be taken all sorts of ways. Bikram comments on people’s bodies ALL OF THE TIME. I know it was not personal but it bothers me when he says things like that to other people so of course it bothered me when it was about me. Guess they figured out my weak spot.

Watching the video back, it was not as bad as I remember it being when I heard it the first time. I sent it to Kelsey and she said she could not even understand him. Ha. Yes, it can be difficult but the more you are around him the easier it gets.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Achievement is easy. Maintenance is hard.” -Bikram
• “Of course it hurts. That’s what you pay for.” -Bikram

I picked up my laundry after lecture and then Leah told me she did go get an X-Ray and her rib was in fact, broken. Ouch! I do not know how she made it all weekend with a broken rib.

Before the evening class, Michaela asked me if I was okay because of Bikram’s comment which was nice of her. While I was warming up, Ilka slapped my ass and told me I had a nice ass and to never let anyone tell me otherwise. Thanks, ladies! Bikram has no filter and does not give a shit. He advertises himself on being honest and that is fine. Like I said, the comment was not personal. I do have a whole lot of culo but it is a nice culo so… whatever. I have also heard that our bodies are retaining water right now which is why so many of us feel bloated. They say that when we get home and return to our normal lives, we are going to at least shrink back down to normal, if not smaller. I sure hope.

Bikram taught the evening class as usual. I hated being so far away from the mirror (5th row) to accommodate the recert teachers but what can you do? Nothing. Just take class the best you can. It was so incredibly hot and humid and people, mostly the recert teachers, were dropping like flies. It reminded me of the first class all over again. Bikram picked on the recerts a lot more than us which as nice. Welcome back to the Bikram Yoga torture chamber, recerts. I had an okay class, not great but not bad. Nothing special. It was a long class but that was kind of expected because Bikram likes an audience and he had 30 new people to entertain.

Leah was like a celebrity at dinner. Everyone wanted to know how she was, what happened, what was going to happen, etc. One thing I love about this place is that everyone cares about everyone. Even if it is not someone you talk to all the time or are good friends with, if someone is sick, injured, looking sad, or literally anything, people genuinely care.

Before the evening lecture, Ali told me that Bikram was wrong to make his comment about me. I seriously appreciated everyone caring about my feelings toward it. Alicia and I planned my photo ideas for the last 10 days of training (can you believe we are almost finished??). Bikram’s lecture was mostly a repeat of things he had already told us in previous lectures. He asked us of he looked good, as if we could reply with anything besides “Yes.” We spent way too long trying to teach him the word “peephole” (he kept saying “peekhole”). One incredibly unique thing about Bikram is that he has a story/metaphor for EVERYTHING. He knows it too. Some of them make perfect sense and some are kind of a stretch but I can admit that even if the story is initially confusing, it always comes together. It is amazing every time. He let us out at 12:15am.

After lecture, Axry stopped me and told me congratulations on my challenge, that I was a good yogi, and that I would be a great teacher. Then she asked me if I understood her English and if she said it right because she practiced it specifically for me. It was SO sweet and really, truly made my entire day. I had been feeling on a high because of my challenge and I foolishly let Bikram knock me down and hearing Axry’s words really helped pick me back up. Thank you, Axry. You are the sweetest!

Noteworthy quotes:

• “You don’t like anything on this Earth because you don’t like yourself.” -Bikram

There was a lot of drama between Leah and some of the staff regarding her rib. It was a big reminder of what happened with Andrew during week 1. There was almost no compassion or ownership of their role in her injury. For some reason, they try to create unnecessary fear and intimidation. Her rib is broken, what can she do? Threatening her and insulting her as a person does not accomplish anything. Luckily, she was able to talk to directly to Bikram after the evening lecture and explain what happened and her injury. He can be a character but he is a nice guy at the core and he was very sweet and compassionate with her. He told her she had done enough and to take it easy the rest of training. It made me forgive him a little bit for his comment towards me earlier!

 

Tuesday 11/7/17 – Day 52 
For some reason, I woke up an hour before my alarm. Bummer. Ashley, a visiting teacher/yoga champion/the person they brought in to help the Demo Team with their routine, taught the morning class. The class started out a little rough for me but got better as it went on. I sometimes felt like she was trying to trick us (maybe unintentionally?) because her inflection would change and signal that the posture was over but then she would keep going. It was a little confusing but overall it was a fine class. She seemed like an incredibly nice person and I liked her energy and passion for it. The room was also incredibly hot, again.

I ate breakfast quickly before the crowd formed and then headed to the pool to study. I recorded dialogue on my phone from memory to test myself until my phone got too hot. After that, I read dialogue for a little bit and enjoyed the sun. At least I attempted to study. Alicia joined me and we swam a little bit. She very randomly asked about Laos and I think for the first time ever, I told someone the whole, honest story (even the embarrassing/shameful parts for me) without feeling upset about it. I would call that a win. It was the first time I had thought about him/talked about him in a long time. It was also kind of bizarre that she asked me on this day of all days because I realized later it was his birthday.

The afternoon lecture with Bikram was part posture clinic (Tree pose and Toe Stand), part about why savasana is so important, and part his repetitive ramblings which I think I have grown to accept. Congratulations, y’all have worn me down. He had his best outfit (so far) on and I do not mean that sarcastically. It was not nearly as flashy as the previous ones and looked nice. As Leah and I had recently speculated about, he also admitted to spending $60K on hair plugs. Good eye, Leah.

Surprisingly, there were a lot of questions about Toe Stand and even MORE surprisingly, he answered all of them. It was a really good clinic. I love when we do something enjoyable and obviously relevant. Also, if you want to know what true love looks like, just look at the way our lady love bird of the trainees looks at her gentleman love bird when he is on stage getting corrections. I cannot handle the cuteness.

After clinic, Bikram switched to talk about the importance of savasana. I finally learned the real reason they say “yoga is a gas station” and as silly as it sounds, that was exciting for me. It was one of those phrases I heard all of the time but no one had ever clearly explained to me so it was nice to learn the reasoning directly from the source. It was a long lecture on savasana but a good one. I would say that I learned a lot. I had an “ah ha” moment too. He talked about how dedicated yogis need less food and less sleep. Our bodies get energy from food and sleep but when we do yoga, our body creates energy on its own and therefor we do not need the food and sleep to supplement it. His way of explaining it was better BUT it made so many things come together for me. People ask me all the time how I just go, and go, and go, and go. I also honestly do not eat that much (usually), either. I never tried to attribute my energy/lack of sleep/lack of appetite at home to anything specific but after hearing everything Bikram had to say combined with the fact that I just completed over 380 classes in 1 year, it made sense. So, to anyone wondering… there is your answer: do Bikram yoga!

He told us some random stories to kill time but still let us out early at 3:45pm. I love when he does that.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “You have a brain and eyes, look in the mirror and fix it.” -Bikram
• “You never know anything about yourself until you take a Bikram yoga class.” -Bikram (and oh gosh, so true)
• “I don’t like people dying. People should live 500 years or however long they want.” -Bikram
• “Jesus left and got the fuck out of here before he lost his virginity.” -Bikram (don’t even ask… this isn’t the most insane thing we’ve heard here! you just have to laugh)
• “People die early because they eat too much and sleep too much.” -Bikram

I relaxed during the break before the evening class at with Bikram. Before class, Leslie said I had a perfect body and said that one time, she saw Lidia and me talking and thought to herself that we had the exact same body. Bikram always says that Lidia is perfectly proportioned so I will take that as a compliment. I also talked to Jana for a little bit. I swear, every time we talk I feel like we have more and more in common. She was looking a little defeated and just the way she explained everything she was feeling… same, girl. We got this! On my way back to my mat, Maryla asked me why I was so sweaty because class had not even started yet. I mean, I had been in the hot room for over 30 minutes already but I looked around and I definitely looked like the sweatiest one there. Awesome. It was a hot week in that room! Maybe they were trying to intimidate the recert teachers. There were 4 recert teachers wearing green so clearly the rules did not apply to them but one of the things I have learned to do here is stop being the Justice Police. Hooray for progress.

It was a long class (over 2 hours) but a really good one. My body felt like it was on the verge of a breakthrough: both in the morning and evening classes it had cracked/popped SO much during every single posture. My back, shoulders, and neck were competing for who could crack the loudest and the most. It felt AMAZING though. They were definitely good cracks and I truly felt like I could feel the blood reaching those areas and the nerves working. I had some very weird, indescribable sensations going down my back. I tried to think of a good analogy but I am not Bikram and do not have a comparison story for everything under the sun. All I know is that I could feel something shooting down my back, especially on the right side, all of class and it was not painful so it had to have been good. My Full Locust was probably my best ever and I got called out to pull my elbows down more for Eagle but otherwise, it was a standard class. Sidenote: His reasoning for why the elbow is called an elbow is the greatest thing I have ever heard… because the bow of the arm makes an L. I love it.

Update: I thought of an analogy! Imagine that my back was like a bunch of dried up mud. Over time, the mud started to crack (open up). Now, it feels like I have a small stream of water working its way through the mud, loosening up more of it as it goes through. Maybe one day there will be no more dried mud! Rough analogy but whatever.

The staff had told Leah she could not go in the room with her broken rib and do a 90-min savasana but Leah asked Bikram directly on his way into the room and he said she could. Not 5 minutes into class, the staff pulled her out of the room. I could hear words being exchanged in the hot room but could not make out what was being said. Leah told me what happened after class and it was all so insane. She was very upset about how she was being talked to and treated. After class, Leah’s teacher (who was here for recert) came to our room to talk things out with her. She offered a different perspective on things and I agreed with a lot of what she had to say. I truly did. She gave a lot of the same advice my teachers/mentors would have given me so I really respected and welcomed everything she offered up. On the other hand, I think it is okay to sit and feel an emotion for a minute before letting it go. The way you feel is fine… for now… you will not always feel that way forever. I think Leah had every right to feel as upset as she was and if I were in her shoes, I would feel the same way. She explained humans as having 3 people in them: a kid, a teenager, and an adult. Only you can appease the kid and the teenager inside of you and their ridiculous emotional demands, you cannot expect others to. She explained it better than I could ever do but I liked it. She was also convinced that the staff intentionally finds our weaknesses and picks at them to help make us better people. They cannot pick on Leah physically anymore (since she cannot do yoga with a broken rib), so they have to pick at her mentally. I would like to think they do not sit around in a room and think of 70 individual ways to beat us down… so I am not entirely sure how I felt about that. I will say, however, that I know I am a person who needs validation and they have, at times, not given it to me when it was clearly deserved (e.g. in posture clinics). So, maybe it is true. Who knows what is true anymore and honestly, who cares?! Trust the process, right?

I was not very hungry so I skipped dinner in favor of a protein bar and a couple of Oreos (and the chat with Leah and her teacher). I got people to sign up for my final countdown photo-a-day before the evening lecture. It made me feel a little warm and fuzzy to know people wanted to participate. That sounds cheesy but I can get a little self conscious about what people think of me and I always just assume I am tolerated (at best) so when people willingly participated in something I was organizing, it felt nice. How is that for some open and honest vulnerability? Please do not use it against me, guys.

The evening lecture was with Bikram. He told us he kicked one of the recert teachers out and sent him back home for being lazy. The guy WAS lazy though. He did not do anything in any class he had taken. Doing 2 classes a day is difficult but you cannot just do nothing. Bikram made Christian (a visiting teacher that he had talked about a lot during training) show us his abs which looked like it made him him uncomfortable but I also think he kind of liked it. We all hoot and holler when someone takes their clothes off here. We are a mess of a group! I do not remember what was going on but I remember we laughed a lot during lecture. Bikram told us more random stories with names and cities I could never pronounce, let alone spell, so I just listened instead of taking notes and worked on my doodle in the back of my notebook instead. Earlier, I had told Leah that I really wished I had an orange pen for it and then in lecture, Vinny (who had no idea of my conversation with Leah and who was sitting behind me), randomly handed me an orange pen. WHAT? It was so awesome and made my doodle complete. It just goes to show, if you put something out in the universe, it will happen. Alright, a bit of a stretch but still… I was pretty excited about the orange pen. That was what my evening had come to.

Bikram let us out early at 11:45pm.

 

Wednesday 11/8/17 – Day 53
I woke up feeling incredibly refreshed and I was not sure why. No complaint! I also had a very vivid dream that I surprised my good friend Steven in NYC. I wish.

Eddie taught the morning class. He is such a character when he teaches but I noticed for the first time this entire training that he is one of the very few who actually uses the proper left side dialogue for the few postures that have it. Most importantly, for the first time in at least TWO weeks, I had a remarkably strong class. I did not want to jinx it but I felt like my body was finally on its way to recovery and returning to normal. My Cobra and Locust were probably my all-time best (even though you cannot see yourself in those postures… I could just sense it) and I was feeling so, so good. Everything was still cracking/popping but Bikram said cracking/popping was a good thing as long as there was no pain and there was definitely no pain. My shoulders were more sore but it was all a good thing. I could feel it all the most during Balancing Stick when I reached forward. It was seriously like someone shocked a nerve at the top of my neck and I could feel it travel down my back. I liked it though and was ready for 2nd set. I felt 110% in my zone and it was SO nice to feel that way after a mediocre couple of weeks.

For the first time in 8 weeks, they left the fans on during the floor series. The hot room has a few fans on the walls that help circulate the air (they do a little ‘cooling off’ but not a lot). During the floor series though, the staff always turns them off. I cannot believe they left them on! They turned them off at first but Eddie must have given a wink or a nudge and they turned them right back on. Everyone cheered.

After a crazy and hilarious breakfast with Kirsty, Tina, and Henrik talking about farting (yes, farting), I headed to the pool again. I recorded more dialogue and enjoyed the slightly overcast weather and small breeze before the afternoon lecture.

Atlantes, our lecture hall where we spend a lot of our time, smelt horrible again. That room is such a mess but it is our mess. The carpet is probably the original carpet from the 70’s and we find bugs crawling around all of the time but we love it anyway. It is a little rough when it stinks like sewage though.

Dash, a visiting teacher, approached me before lecture to offer some help with my Camel pose. He was a few rows behind me in the morning class and in class I felt like he had wanted to correct me so I was not surprised to see him. He told me I needed to lift my chest up more and try to engage my abs and legs more. That way, it would take the pressure off of my lower back. I tried it and it was a completely different posture for me! Yikes. I appreciated his help and I knew that would be a tough one to work on. I was happy my body was feeling more open and strong so I could try it.

Vinny fixed the loose flooring on the stage (TT MVP) and we got started with the evening lecture. It was apparent Bikram was not coming because Manali asked all of the recert teachers (around 30) to tell us a little bit about themselves. So many of them had great stories, some even gave me goosebumps. The big theme of it all was that we are so lucky to be here at this resort (some of them had their TT in a parking lot tent and with no nice buffet, pool, etc.), how much we are going to miss this when we go home, and how much of an impact this will have on our lives. I completely agree with all of their sentiments, completely, and I am so grateful to have been able to be here and have this experience. I understood what they were saying (and know for a fact that everything they said will come true) but at the same time, at that exact moment, I was ready to leave. So many of us are. We are appreciative and know that we will look back and wish we had our yoga bubble and some of us may even return to it as a visitor, but I am sure all of those teachers remember feeling ready to leave, too. It is a trade off. Them talking about it all did make me a little sad… but also a little excited.

Here is some advice/wisdom I wrote down from the recert teachers:

• Stay true to 90-min, 26 and 2.
• Stay responsible and truthful to yourself and ignore the bullshit.
• You can only be as good a teacher as you are a student.
• In your life, keep your “eyes always open, breathing always normal.”
• If you have to do something, don’t wait.
• Your body is a physical representation of your mind. (I loved this)
• Mentorship is important and read the books.
• If the yoga ever gets boring, it is because you have stopped listening.
• You cannot meet bad energy with bad energy.

After the recert teachers finished sharing for about an hour, Manali took the center of the room and started talking. I really felt like she was stalling for something and that Bikram was not coming. He eventually showed and we started posture clinic, starting with Wind Removing pose. A few people demoed (I love when he says he will correct someone using only one finger and then immediately uses all ten fingers of both hands) and then I had a question. I hate asking questions because he tends to dismiss most of them but I have a teacher at home who always makes a big deal about getting the ankle, knee, and shoulder completely aligned and no where in the dialogue does it say to check for that. So, I wanted to see if that was actually the goal. Bikram told me to show him what I meant so I went on stage and demoed and he said my teacher was giving me a stupid correction, that the foot/ankle should go wherever it goes naturally. Boom. Straight from the source.

I could see Leah from the other side of the room and she looked rough. The doctor had given her Tramadol for her pain which would normally knock a person out but she still had to attend lectures so she looked insanely high the entire time. I felt so bad for her to have to sit there. After class, I went to the little store here and bought a few bags of chips and Oreos for her. She had been sharing her snacks with me every day and I felt like it was the right thing to do to replenish them for her plus it gave her one less thing to have to worry about. We snacked on those until the evening class.

The evening class with Bikram was still extra hot. I was feeling on top of the world still from the morning class and was feeling determined to get this guru of ours to notice me, either in a good way or bad way. I did not care anymore. He says he knows us and watches us every day and part of me believes that but he seems to not know the majority of our names and that bothered me. Learn my name, Bikram! Anyway, I wore my bright orange sports bra and put my mat directly in front of the podium. I had been near/next to the podium a million times but never directly in front, mostly because the mirrors on the podium are distorted like fun-house mirrors and move when Bikram walks. Screw the mirrors, I was going for it.

I had another insanely strong class and he actually acknowledged my Standing Bow. He said “wow” and that I was the Statue of Liberty and doing very good. I know it sounds petty and childish but all I could think was “damn straight.” My class was so good that I told Leah afterward that I felt like a yoga goddess again. It had been so frustrating and draining to not be able to do the postures like I know how to for the last few weeks so to finally have 2 AWESOME classes in a row was the most rewarding feeling. Even if the rest of the week was not as strong again, at least I had 2 in a row.

We had probably a 15-20 minute break in the middle of class so Ashley could demo several advanced postures to us. She was amazing and impressive. My jaw dropped each time she did something new. I could only ever dream of being able to do 10% of what she could. It was a nice break for us, too.

Bikram left class during the first savanasa for some reason and Eddie took over for a little bit. Bikram came back in between the 1st and 2nd set of Cobra and made us do a 3rd set also. C’mon, man. I also tried Dash’s advice on Camel and my entire upper back popped like bubble wrap. Breakthrough.

I had a quick dinner and got sucked into a YouTube spiral of Carpool Karaoke in my room until the evening lecture.

Before the evening lecture, Manali talked about graduation and our flights home. It was so crazy to even start thinking about those things but at the same time, they are quickly approaching and we have to. The end is near! Bikram started his lecture and talked about all the same stuff he normally did. I wrote out dialogue, starting from the last posture and I worked my way backwards. Bikram shared some weird, awkward stories about things I will spare y’all from but Alicia and Vinny were cracking me up with comments like, “this is what this has come to” and “oh great, now I can teach yoga.” More often than not, the most entertaining part of the lectures are the comments we all make to each other under our breaths. They always make me laugh. I also really enjoy playing Bikram’s guessing game: He likes to ask a question or make a statement and then pause for us to finish it but we almost never know the answer/rest of the statement. It is hilarious because we never know what he is thinking and we are almost always wrong. Then, he he gives us crap for being wrong and comes up with the most random answer of all time. I love it and I am not even being sarcastic.

He let us out just after midnight.

 

Thursday 11/9/17 – Day 54
My body was still popping as I woke up. My back cracked as I rolled over to turn my alarm off. Oy. Christian, a visiting teacher, taught the morning class. I had very mixed feelings about his class. As a person, he was top notch and I enjoyed him. I found him to be very incredibly knowledgeable and I would have loved to learn more from him in a lecture. His class was very energetic and entertaining and full of pop culture references/jokes. I also had another amazing class and felt amazing, despite not being able to see myself once in the front mirror and the random bug I saw crawling on my towel that I had to smash. HOWEVER, he was very strict with us about water and was kind of crazy about it. That was frustrating because I had seen him take class as a student with us and he drank water/left the room/skipped stuff a lot. We are constantly told to practice yoga like teachers now; we have to set an example. He also did not do pure dialogue which can make it difficult to get into meditation. I liked what he said about why we do “right side” first for everything and when he said, “Your body has a rhythm. Your brain has a melody. When they come together perfectly, you hear the symphony of the soul.” My favorite thing was, “If you want to recover, relax completely. That means completely. In totality. Not partially. Completely.” It might sound crazy to non-yogis but everyone is guilty of not relaxing entirely in savasana and I liked that reminder of his.

I skipped breakfast in favor of snacking on cookies in my room. It was my grandma’s birthday so I gave her a call and talked to her and Baba for a little bit. I worked on my blog and then ended up talking to Katy on the phone for the rest of my break. I am so thankful for her friendship and wisdom. She was such a lifesaver during so many rough parts of the last year but her support and guidance during teacher training has meant everything to me. I cannot wait for her and Paul to get back home. And, PS, they got engaged this week too! Whoo hoo! Congratulations!

Before the afternoon lecture, I talked to Christian more about what he was saying about why we do the “right side” first. I understood his reasoning: it has Hatha yoga. ‘Ha’ is our sun side (right side) and ‘tha’ is our moon side (left side). We honor the sun side first. I get it. On board. However, why do we bring our left hand up first for Toe Stand? He did not have a direct answer and instead talked about how some teachers tell us to alternate our grips/directions in an effort to balance our body and how unnecessary comments like that are. Advanced yogis can choose to do that on their own but teachers should not say it. Anyway, he did not really answer my question but I liked talking to him. As I said earlier, I like the guy and he is incredibly knowledgeable about the yoga. I would have liked a lecture from him, I think. I talked about it with Jana and Alicia and Jana reminded me that in Toe Stand, even though we bring our left hand up first, we still do our right leg first so many it is okay. Alicia also pointed out that someone had asked Bikram that question during lecture and his response was “because my Guru said so.” Cannot argue with that.

Dash came up to me and told me to write down some postures. He was near me in the morning class so I could only assume he watched to see if I implemented his changes for Camel and maybe caught a few other mistakes I was making/improvements I could try. I respect him quite a bit so I was thankful for his personalized attention and care towards my practice.

We went through Bow Pose during the afternoon lecture/posture clinic with Bikram. Afterward, he talked about the important of the spine and why Bow Pose is where it is in the sequence of postures. He walked us through all the precautions we have to take and watch for in our students when it comes to not only Bow pose but all of the spine strengthening series. I have said it before but when lectures are obviously relevant, I really enjoy them. These are the types of things I came here to learn about.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “That’s called Bikram.” -Bikram, when he says anything wise/helpful
• “People are fucking dumb fuck.” -Bikram, when people apply the phrase ‘something is better than nothing’ as a justification for 60-minute classes (we all laughed at this, me listing this as a quote is not to make the guy look bad; I loved it)
• “Life is crystal clear. Everything is simple. You make it complicated. Everything is beautiful. You make it dirty.” -Bikram (TRUTH, probably one of the most important things I have come to accept here)

Bikram let us out a 3pm, a whole hour early! What a gift.

Thursday marked 10 days left of training so my first volunteers for the 10-day photo got together and headed to the beach to take our picture. We did Half Tortoise (sea turtles on the beach) and the water snuck up on us once but we got a good one. Thank you to my volunteer models: Tiina, Kim, Christine, Kati, Ilka, Julie, Kathie, Valentina, Jana, and Alicia (photographer)!

Leah and I hung out in our room and snacked and talked before the evening class. This place can be crazy sometimes and I am thankful for a roommate like her!

It was picture day again in our evening class with Bikram. I was in the back row so I knew I would not be in many shots so I put myself on the outside of the row with the thought that maybe I would get to be in one or two of the pictures. It was so hot and so humid still (had been all week) but I was positioned next to the fan so that helped. Kiley and I tried to practice our 2-day photo (for next week) and that was a disaster. My sister sent me a cool idea we could do with Pada Hastasana and it was TOUGH. A lot more difficult than I thought. We will have to practice it but I know we can get it and it will be worth it.

Dash put his mat behind mine and talked to me about the postures he had me write down earlier in the day. He helped me with Pada Hastasana, Eagle (why do I suck so much at Eagle?), Standing Separate Leg Stretching, and Standing Bow. He gave me some great advice and I tried my hardest to implement his feedback during class. Class was great. So great. 4 great ones in a row! Whoop!

Dinner was special because I sat with Ali and he somehow managed to get me a special bowl of soup. I was telling him about a certain Poblano soup they had a few weeks ago that I really enjoyed and he was talking to the waiters about it and before I knew it, they brought me a bowl! Y’all, I love that soup. It was so good and made my night!

I blogged in my room for a bit, scored a date to my company Christmas party, and then made my way to our evening posture clinic. The recert teachers had a special lecture with Bikram so us trainees got to visit our posture clinic rooms one more time. Groups 1 and 2 were together in one room and groups 3 and 4 were together in another. Dash caught me before clinic started and talked to me about my postures again. He said I did really well and I was grateful for his personalized feedback and attention.

When we finished dialogue in our posture clinics a few weeks ago, we still had a few extra posture clinic sessions. In those, we randomly got called on to do additional dialogue. I got called on 3 times in 2 days in my group and some people did not get called once. That was fine. When I walked into the special posture clinic this night and I realized we were going to do dialogue, I knew I would get called on again. Deborah (a visiting teacher) and Karla led it and Deborah asked us who had their first class scheduled. I raised my hand before realizing that would make me a target. Tiina got called on first to do Half Moon and Awkward. Deborah picked me next to do Eagle and Standing Head to Knee (1st set of each, right and left side). I knew those very well so I was not nervous about it. I also got to show off my left-side dialogue for Standing Head to Knee. Ha. When I finished, I looked at her and she told me to keep going and do Standing Bow. Oy! I did that one too, right and left side. Her feedback to me was to slow down a little bit. I knew I was rushing, I did not want to be up there! Anyway, after I went, others were called on and we made it partially through the floor series before they let us go at 11pm. We did all of our previous posture clinics with just our group so it was cool to hear people from group 4 do dialogue. Everyone taught so differently and was amazing in their own way.

Tina and Kirsty (roommates in different groups) met up in the hall afterward and found out they both had to deliver the same postures. What are the odds? These two are legitimately soul sisters meant to have found each other!

Even though we got out at 11pm, I stayed up and blogged until 1am. There was no way I was going to be able to sleep at 11pm.

 

Friday 11/10/17 – Day 55
After 4 A+ classes, I woke up feeling sore and exhausted. I was not in pain but I knew the rest of the week was going to be a struggle. Anurag taught the morning class and it was a standard class. His voice was so relaxing and soothing that it was easy for me to zone out and get into meditation. I remember we got to Cobra pose (a little over the halfway mark) and I thought, “how did we get here?” I literally had spaced out for a handful of postures. I did well and felt strong but knew I was kind of being lazy, especially during the balancing series. Usually if I fall out I will get back in and keep trying but I was not even bothering. If I fell out, that was it for me. It was Kiley’s birthday so we sang to her before class and again during Triangle pose, right side. It was also Tony’s birthday (one of our Mundomex guys) so we sang to him for Triangle pose, left side.

I had a quick breakfast then needed to finish up some additional parts of my best friend Kelsey’s baby shower invitation that her sister needed before the weekend. I also read and organized work emails, chatted with my co-worker Emily, and blogged. It was a gorgeous day so I felt a little guilty for staying inside during the break but I knew the weekend was near and I would spend most of it out and about. Hooray for behavior justifications.

We continued our posture clinic with Bikram during the afternoon, focusing on Fixed Firm, Half Tortoise, Camel, and Rabbit poses. Bikram showed us the ‘best’ ab workouts and all his abdomen tricks, too. Bikram heard it was Kiley’s birthday so we sang to her for a 3rd time. What a memorable birthday experience.

I went up for corrections on Rabbit pose because not only do I hate that pose, I think I am terrible at it. You cannot see yourself in the mirror during that one and I never do posture pictures of it because I am convinced I am horrible. He told me I needed to walk my knees up more (tough to do for me without a warm up) but was otherwise good, just needed to work on getting my hips up a little bit more. Alicia said I was almost all the way up which was VERY surprising to hear considering I only ever feel like I am an inch away from my heels. Now I know!

Noteworthy quotes:

• “You can laugh.” -Bikram, as he was demoing his Fixed Firm pose to us (and we did laugh)

After posture clinic, I rounded up the troops for our 9-day photo. We did Awkward Pose, any of the 3 parts. Thank you to my volunteer models and especially to the ones who volunteered last minute when the people who signed up forgot: Andres, Lidia, Karina, Kathi, Nadine, Elsa, Pavel, Kim, and Johnnie (photographer)! (Pay no attention to the fact that this is a panoramic picture that got stitched together right on my face/arms.)

The evening class with Bikram was also a standard class. A lot of the girls I hang out with the most lumped together in the middle so I was hopeful we would be able to feed off each other’s energy, especially since I could not see myself in the mirror again. More often than not, you can at least get a little sliver of yourself but with the recerts in town, those odds had gone way down. I had a mostly decent class. I was not in full beast-mode but I did well and tried hard to practice Dash’s feedback. Starting at second set of Triangle, something lit a fire under Bikram’s butt because he started moving FAST. We were flying through postures. I goofed during Locust second set and instead of lifting just my right leg (the posture goes right leg lift up, then left leg lift up, then both legs lift up), I lifted both legs and did not realize it until he told us to lower down and do left leg. He either saw it and let me slide or he did not see it and I got lucky and avoided being berated. Ashley gave us a demo of all 4 versions of Camel pose too and that was impressive. The girl must not have a single bone in her body to be able to bend the way she does. It is amazing.

I had a quick dinner again and then worked on the baby shower invitation and my blog some more before the evening activity. We somehow managed to get a second dance party instead of an evening lecture so I did not have a lot of time to do much of anything before having to get ready for the party and head over.

The evening dance party was beyond. For the first party, they had food, put some tables out, and that was that. For this party… Bikram went all out. He had said earlier in the week or the week before that he wanted a dance floor, lights, and a DJ but even I was not entirely sure if he was joking or not. Nope, no jokes. We walked in to a completely transformed lecture room complete with all of those things: a dance floor, lights, a DJ, props (big glasses, light-up headbands, etc.), balloons, and a screen to play the music videos on. They had drinks and snacks for us, too. As nice as it was, I did not feel like being there at all. Luckily, Lidia pulled me onto the lit-up dance floor and I ended up having a great time. The music was more recent and not all Indian like last time so it was fun.

They brought in 2 cakes, one for Kiley and one for Tony, and we sang happy birthday to them again. Seriously, what a once in a lifetime birthday! I mean, all birthdays are but I think this one has to go down in history. No one took charge of cutting/distributing the cake after we sang so of course I did. For the 3rd time this week (once for the 10-day photo, once for the 9-day photo, and once for this), I was told I needed to be a party planner/event coordinator. Yes, I know! In my next life I will. Lidia saw me cutting the cake and shook her head and saying, “you just cannot help yourself can you?” Nope! At least everyone got cake so you are welcome.

I left the party shortly after the cake but heard it went until 1:30am. Insane. When Leah got back to the room, we talked about all the crazy that happened at the party and then freaked out over the fact that she might have taken too much of the pain pills the doctor gave her. I say that jokingly because we could not stop laughing about it. She was fine!

 

Saturday 11/11/17 – Day 56
I did not sleep well Friday night. It took me forever to actually fall asleep and then I woke up about 100 times (okay, not 100 times but enough times for it to be annoying). Every time I woke up, I was afraid I had missed my alarm and slept through the morning class. Clearly I was subconsciously worried about missing it.

Manali led the morning class. It was a standard class and I did fine. I was so tired though that my only goal was to just stay awake and do the postures. It was taking everything in me not to fall asleep during the floor series and just that is an exercise in itself. I actually felt really relaxed in final savasana, too. For the last few weeks, it had been tough to relax because my body would ache or I would not be able to get comfortable but I think being so exhausted helped. I loved whatever she played for the final savasana, too. It was not a song, it was like poetry being read, but it was awesome. I need to ask Jana, she knows all of the savasana songs.

We took our 8-day photo after class. We did back bends in a few different arrangements. Looking back, we should have done one where we were in a straight line so everyone could be visible but I think they came out great. It also somehow worked out that 8 days left was the end of week 8! Thank you to my volunteer models: Mandi, Henrik, Taryn, Karl, Kathi, Denise, Danni, and Kiley (photographer)! Also, look how amazing Taryn and Karl are with their heart back bend! Mine used to be good but never that good. I am just grateful to get back as far as I did for these photos after struggling so much with this posture for the last couple of weeks.

I went to my room to get organized for the day and then headed to my final Walmart trip here. I did not need anything but I did not want Leah to have to go while she was in a fog from pain medicine but also because the ride there can be bumpy and I did not want it to hurt her rib even more. I grabbed her some groceries, enjoyed some triple chocolate ice cream, then looked for some cheap gold earrings I could wear for graduation. My dress is red and I only brought silver which will not look bad, but I decided I wanted gold. I found a pair I really liked at a random counter in the mall but she only took cash and I had none so I took it as a sign for me not to spend money and headed back to the hotel.

Maryla and I were supposed to go to McDonald’s so I had skipped breakfast. We ended up not going and when I got back, Chula Vista was closed and I was starving. I grabbed a sandwich from the cafe and then rested in my room for a little bit.

I went to the top pool to study with people in group 3 but it ended up just being me and Kathi. Despite being in my group, the two of us had never really talked before so it was nice to get to know her more and I really enjoyed our conversation. I had heard her do dialogue during all of our posture clinics and I always thought she had a great voice and great energy, she just needed to work on not making her statements sound like questions and getting the dialogue more exact. I had been wanting to help her but I had to help myself first and now that posture clinics were finished and it was just us two, I offered her my advice. At the end of about an hour and a half, she was nailing the dialogue perfectly and confidently. She was totally killing it! It was a beautiful afternoon, sunny with a nice breeze so that it never got hot, and it was nice to soak up the sun for 2 hours by the pool with her. Kathi is from Kansas City but mentioned she might be moving to San Antonio when this is all over so maybe I will get to take one of her classes one day!

I headed to the beach next and took a short nap before Maryla joined me. She wanted to deliver the dialogue for the floor series and practicing stringing the postures all together so I listened and pretended to do the poses whilst laying in the beach lounge chair. She did great but was being so hard on herself so I had to pep-talk her and remind her that no one will have 100% perfect dialogue their first class. No one. Not even me, the supposed Dialogue Queen. Bikram once told us a story about how if a person is 50lbs over weight, it is easy to lose the first 45lbs and really difficult to lose the 5lbs. As someone who has lost 50lbs, so true. Anyway, I compared her dialogue to that story. She has 90% memorized, the last 10% is going to be difficult. That is alright and she will do great with the 90%! I also reminded her of little things she has to say between postures like “turn your head to the right” and things like that.

I took a quick shower and then Lidia and I headed to the salon to get manicures and pedicures. It was so relaxing! Between the massage chair and the lady massaging my feet and hands, it was a struggle to stay awake. Lidia and I had a good talk too, as always. She is complex but so am I and I love her for it. All of the crazy Bikram stuff from the weeks prior did not calm down this week and she handled it the best she could. We talked a lot about what will happen when we all go home and the things and people we are going to miss. It was a little depressing but at the end of the day, we know we cannot stay here in our comfortable little yoga bubble forever. The real world is out there. She asked me that knowing what I know now about this experience, and assuming it would be 100% the same as it was, would I have made the same decision to come? I told her that I absolutely would have. This experience has been so much better and rewarding and worthwhile than I could ever have imagined and while I would not do it a SECOND time, if I had to go back in time and make the decision again, it would be the same one.

We tried to go to Tavola (the Italian restaurant at the resort) and get a chocolate ball for the last time of training but they were closed. It was a bummer but we decided to try the taco place that the resort had been setting up on the weekends for the last few weeks. It was across from Chula Vista in the courtyard (and below my window from my hotel room so I had heard the music a million times). The menu was in Spanish and we had no idea what we were doing but we saw Veronica and Denise there and Lidia had the brilliant idea to go see what they ordered and for us to just get the same thing. It worked perfectly because whatever we ordered was absolutely fantastic. We think one of the dishes was chicken but the other was definitely shrimp and covered in peppers and cheese. Yum. We also ordered churros and they were just as delicious. It was a beautiful night with a nice breeze and I enjoyed the music so much more from my dinner table than from my room!

I was back in my room by 9pm. I probably should have gone out to enjoy my last Saturday here but I was exhausted and ready for bed. I tried to blog and listen to music but my brain was not functioning. When Leah got back, we talked for a little bit before we both crashed early. It is crazy how the mind works: if it had been 9pm on any other day of the week, I would not have been that tired because I would not have been ALLOWED to be that tired. But Saturday night with nothing to do? Zzzzzzzzz. After Bikram gave us a lecture on how yogis do not need sleep or food, Kelly asked him why she was always so tired and hungry! His response was that we are CHOOSING to be tired and hungry because we THINK we are supposed to be. I thought his screws were loose in his brain but maybe he was on to something…

 

Sunday 11/12/17 – Day 57
I was randomly awake between the hours of 4am and 5am but fell back asleep and slept until about 9am. That counted as sleeping in! I also could not get my work email to sync and got paranoid that my account was shut down and that was their way of telling me I was fired… but it turned out my password had just expired. Oy.

My 7-day photo volunteers and I had planned to meet at 10am for our photo. It was easy to coordinate people on days where we do things together but on Sunday, we all have our own schedule so I was double grateful that people took time, especially in the morning, to participate. I had planned for Bow but we group voted to do Standing Bow instead and I love how it turned out. Thank you to my volunteer models: Johnnie, Kelly, Jana, Maryla, Diana, Vincent, and Lidia (photographer)!

I grabbed some fruit at the crowded Chula Vista and then headed to my room to try and make progress on the blog. At noon, I went back down to Chula Vista because Ali and Denise had so generously been collecting and organizing tips for the waiters from all of us and they wanted to present the envelopes and card to them. We did a little presentation and thanked them all. They have been so great to us and have treated us unbelievably well. They deserved so much more than we could have given them! Especially Gilberto, the most amazing omelet guy of all time.

Lidia and I had our last Sunday lunch at the Beach Club. We finally tried the shrimp tacos (YUM) and enjoyed our last burger and fries. Again, we started feeling sad that it was all coming to an end but it will all be good. There are things I miss about home that I am excited to go back to but there are things that scare me, too. Not to mention, I know I will miss this place and our bubble so much and will always look back with fond memories, even with all the craziness. We both agreed that we did everything we could to make the experience memorable and had no regrets.

With my incredibly full stomach, I headed to the top pool to study with Maryla. She had been wanting to recite the dialogue (first set only) of every posture, all the way through and I volunteered to be her student. She got a couple more volunteers, Diana, Nadine, and Rocio, and she officially taught her first mock class. It was about an hour and a half which was a little long but we stopped a few times so it was probably right on time. We decided to do Triangle pose in the pool on the steps which was hilarious and then we stayed there until around Bow pose when there started to be a foul smell coming from somewhere. We all agreed that she did great and will have an awesome first class!

I was going to study but then Maryla said she wanted to be someone’s student so I volunteered to be the teacher and teach my official first mock class from start to finish (first set only). Maryla, Diana, Kathi, and Pavel were my students and it went pretty well. I felt more comfortable with the dialogue than I thought and even though I struggled a little bit with the last 4 postures, I did well enough to get through a class. If I can brush up on those, and the breathing exercise, then I will be set! I finished the class in about 50-55 minutes which was not too bad for just first sets; maybe a little long? It was a weird feeling to actually be teaching, too. By Awkward pose (the 2nd posture), I was thinking, “Oh my gosh, they look miserable. This has to suck for them. What if they are bored?” and things of that nature. Somehow, by the middle of the class, all of those thoughts went away and it was almost as if I was in my own meditation and just doing it without thinking. The words were just flowing and they were doing everything I said! I even had them laughing with little comments between postures (that they all told me I HAVE to say during my first class so I will not spoil the jokes here). Laughing with them helped me relax, too. Dale, a visiting teacher who graduated last Spring, was listening to my class in the pool and he told me after that he loved it and loved all my hand motions. He said I did great and will be great! It was a LOT of talking and my mouth kept getting dry but it was exhilarating and made me more excited to get back and start teaching.

I laid in the sun for a bit after and apparently fell asleep for a little bit. Maryla ordered nachos and said she had yelled my name a few times for me to come have some but I swear I never heard her. Teaching was so exhausting that I fell asleep! Seesh. It was cool to look around and see so many of us trainees studying and doing mock classes. I had seen other groups during lunch practicing and more groups near us doing it while we were. Everyone was out in full force! It was the perfect day to do so though because it was another sunny but breezy day so it was never too hot or humid. The weather here is incredible and I will definitely miss it.

As the sun went down, I realized it was going to be my last sunset here. Our evening classes get out after the sun goes down and we will be in our graduation ceremony next Saturday so this was it for me. I headed to the beach to enjoy it after telling the little massage lady I did not want a massage; not now, not later, not tomorrow. My phone died but it helped make me more present in the moment. As Karla told us over and over again during the last 8 weeks, just be where you are. So I did. I napped and woke up in time to see the sun set with Karl and Michele. Lidia came over after her massage and we snapped a few pictures in its last moments before I headed back to my room.

Tree pose on a tree… clever. I almost fell when Lidia started saying “you can balance, you can balance, you can balance…” the way Manali says it. Hilarious.

I blogged literally the rest of the night. Facebook, Instagram, and the internet were distracting but Lidia and several others had asked me a thousand times today when the blog was coming up! It takes time to write, guys. I have to check my journal, my lecture notes, my phone, etc.: it is like writing a research paper. I have come to figure that it takes about 1 hour to write out each day when I am completely focused. Sometimes I regret starting this because it takes so long but I know I will look back and be grateful I did it!

I was not hungry so I skipped dinner but ended up snacking on Oreos and saltine crackers. I was hoping to be able to start packing up my stuff to head home and go to bed early but writing this of course took longer than I wanted! Leah and I chatted in the room for a little bit before calling it a night around 11pm.

 

Weekly Summary
I have a short summary for this week because nothing new and groundbreaking happened! This biggest change was that I started to feel the emotion of leaving. I want to go home AND I want to stay here. Everything is all over the place! I will save all of those emotions and try my best to write them all out next week, for my final BYTT blog post.

When I get home, please note that my amazing tan came entirely from week 8 (and probably week 9). I spent some time in the sun every week but this week wins with the most hours clocked. It was so gorgeous all week and I had to take advantage of what little time we have left here.

Also, Taylor Swift released her latest album on Friday and she only released it to iTunes, Target, and Walmart. I do not have iTunes, access to a Target, and did not see it at the Walmart here so I still have not been able to hear it. Prioritized list of things to do when I get home: snuggle the hell out of my dog, visit my family, buy Taylor Swift’s album.

Until next time,

Jillian

We have finished 75 classes in 7 weeks! That is such a crazy thing to think about. I cannot believe we have been here 7 weeks and have done so much. Sometimes it feels like we just got here, sometimes it feels like we have been here for so much longer. The days can drag on but the week always go by fast. Week 7 was a whole new experience for me. Mentally, I did so much better than I had the previous week but physically, I was a mess. My body experienced a whole new realm of sore/pain/discomfort but not necessarily in a bad way. Sometimes your body has to break in order to rebuild and I just hope that is what happened to me this week and that I will start the rebuilding process during week 8!

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A special message about last week’s blog:
Apparently, my Week 6 blog post was a hot, controversial topic at the beginning of this week. Several people expressed directly to me that I was brave to write it, that they agreed with me, that they were worried I would get in trouble for it, etc. Thank you! Several people (I do not know who and it does not matter) expressed (not to me) that I should not have written it, that it was out of line, that it was inappropriate, etc. I cannot please everyone but I make a very conscious effort when writing my blogs to not insult individuals, including Birkam, or include/comment on gossip. I can definitely see how I was walking the line with my entry, and I respect everyone’s opinions about what I said, but I only stated facts about what happened and then my opinion/feelings about those facts. I re-wrote several parts of last week’s post over and over again before publishing it to be sure I was not saying anything inappropriate but writing is always going to be subjected to criticism and evaluation. That is okay with me. I stand by what I wrote, especially because it sounded like a lot of people agreed with me and had been feeling the same way without knowing how to express it. They way I saw it, the worst “they” (the staff, etc.) could do was ask me to take it down. Thank you, Ali, for being my defense attorney. Send me an invoice! 

Also, last week I mentioned that Bikram explained why he does not like tattoos but I never communicated his reasoning. You would think it would be the common “you do not put a bumper sticker on a Porsche” perspective but he took a different approach. He asked us, “If your friend asks you to watch their house, would you go take a shit on their couch?” Obviously, we answered no and he asked why. We said, “Because it is not ours.” His response? “Exactly. Your body is not yours.” He said there was a longer explanation but that was all he had time for. I kind of get but there are other times where he says it is our mind and our body so it was a little confusing. Hopefully his longer explanation will clear it all up. Now we know.

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Monday 10/30/17 – Day 44
I did not sleep well. At all. I woke up several times and was awake between 3:30 and 5am, just tossing and turning. I tried to recite dialogue to put me back to sleep but it was not working. I blame the time change. Eventually I fell back asleep though and even slept through my first alarm. Thank you, back up alarms (and Leah’s!).

I missed the sunrise but saw beautiful photos of it (so many people posted pictures). I stole this one from Abigail!

It was colder out in the morning than it had been and I was still a little sore but feeling much better compared to last week. There was a little mat-placement confusion before the morning class and I ended up moving people’s mats around to fix it. Teamwork makes the dream work. Manali led the class and it was a little long but I did well. The room was not hot/borderline cold; if I am not dripping sweat by Eagle pose, it is not hot enough! Manali kept telling us to smile and was being particular about our palms not touching before the side-stepping postures because the dialogue does not say “palms together.” Look, she was not wrong so it was a valid remark but how have we made it 7 weeks without anyone ever making a comment about it? Also, the dialogue also does not say to put our arms back over our head as we step back to the left for those same postures but we are told to do that. The dialogue also does not say to step on our heels for Standing Separate Leg Stretching so… I am fine with her pointing out that our palms should not touch but we should not be picking and choosing which parts of the dialogue to enforce and not enforce. Such is life. Manali always tries to get us to laugh in class too and she was having us say “hee haw” as we did our sit up and made her mistake of saying “pleasure” instead of “pressure” into a joke.

After class, I was in the shower and kept hearing knocking on the door. I knew it was not Leah because she was at Demo Team practice and I knew it was not housekeeping because they would just let themselves in so I was very confused. After I got out, I answered the door and it was the hotel maintenance. He started saying something in Spanish to me and I said, “No hablo Espanol” which is one of the few things I know in Spanish. He kept going though and finally I said “I have no idea what you are saying.” I was not about to let him in though because I was in a towel and needed to get ready for my day. He made a motion that someone would call me and a few minutes later, the room phone rang. The person on the other end explained to me that maintenance needed to get in to fix something in the bathroom and I said that was fine, but I needed 15 minutes to get dressed and ready and they could come in afterward. She said okay and problem solved. By that point, I was annoyed because the guy had knocked 4 different times!

I had breakfast with Ali and Diana. Ali always picks on me and even though he had not read my blog post, had thanked me for his shout out. The 3 of us had a good chat about all sorts of things going on at training and tried to comfort Diana because she was going through a tough time. Diana has the most energy out of all of us and has made an effort to literally be friends with everyone here, and I mean everyone. She knows everyone at the hotel and all of the people that help run training and actively says hello to everyone, by name, every day. It is impressive! I felt bad for the little bit of drama she was going through. She, of all people, does not deserve that. Ali also one-upped us all by turning his omelet into an egg sandwich (he requested that I include that on this entry!). Denise joined us after she got out of Demo Team practice and we talked about my blog a little. I completely understood where she was coming from and truly appreciated her concern for me (and that she said it to me!). She was the first person who pointed out to me that I was near and/or at the metaphorical line so after our chat, even I had to go back and re-read what I wrote to be sure I did not go too far.

It was a long breakfast because I did not have to go study dialogue for once and that was nice! I rested in my room doing a whole lot of nothing until it was time for posture clinic.

Jolinda and Axry ran our posture clinic and we officially all finished delivering dialogue. Jolinda always gives the best advice and customized feedback per person so I appreciated that. We celebrated being finished with a 1 minute dance party because we were so happy to be finished. I am so proud of everyone and all of their hard word! During our break, we discussed what we should do for our Halloween costumes for Tuesday night’s class. Manali had told us in the morning that we could dress up – something we had all discussed but wished we had known we were allowed to do before the weekend so we could have gone to Walmart to get supplies for a costume! Everything here is last minute.

Because we had finished dialogue but they have to keep us until 4pm, they started calling on us to deliver old postures. I got picked first and had to do Triangle. I did right and left side dialogue and probably got 65-70% of it which was not bad for having zero time to look or even think about it. Even if they did not give me a chance to read over the dialogue, if I had more than 30 seconds to think about it, I would have gotten it all. I know Triangle! Grr. But, they said I did well. Alicia had to do both sets of Standing Head to Knee, Veronica did one set of Awkward pose in Italian (awesome), Fernando did one set of Standing Bow Pulling pose in Spanish, and Tina did one set of Eagle pose.

After clinic, Leah and I… ate too many chips! Shocking! We headed to the evening class with Bikram. The room was a little warmer than it was in the morning but I still did not think it was very hot. I put my mat right next to the podium and I could feel the air that comes from behind the podium (to keep Bikram cool) so that could have been why, though. I officially got yelled at for the first time, too. Before, I had been called out for little things but this time, he was straight pissed off at me. That is what I get for being by the podium! I had fallen out of Balancing Stick and he looked over right as I was getting back into it and yelled at me for starting late, not being with the group, holding everyone up, etc. Nevermind that he did not see me start ON TIME and then FALL OUT but whatever. I just looked up and starred at him. Not much you can really do. He corrected my Triangle (get my arms back more) and also nicely tried to get me to do namaskar during Tree pose. Could have been worse. He seemed to be in a bad mood though (he told us later during evening lecture that a friend from his childhood had passed away that day) and at one point kicked Alonso out. Alonso can be disruptive sometimes but he was practicing next to me and was actually NOT being disruptive so it was odd that he was kicked out. The back row was full of visiting teachers and I noticed that most of them, including Manali and our normal staff, were putting their palms together during the side-stepping postures… the same thing we were told NOT to do earlier that morning. Suspicious!

Noteworthy quotes:

• Savasana is the natural irrigation of the circulatory system with the help of the respiratory system. Bikram yoga is the only yoga that utilizes savasanas during class.

Because of the time change, it was so dark after class. No more ocean swims and sunsets for us! At least we got to enjoy them for 43 days! We will just have to try to go to the ocean more after the morning classes. Major loss though.

Jerome, my teacher from home, sent me a photo of my name on the studio schedule! Very cool and surreal.

I had a long dinner (there was pizza, too!) because not having to study dialogue means we could take our time a little bit more. I rested in the room, watched Netflix, and started this blog until the evening lecture.

The evening lecture was more funny, entertaining, and relevant than the previous week’s. He was easy to follow and making more sense despite some of it being a little repetitive from a lecture from Week 1 or 2. Bikram tends to take a looooong, roundabout way to explain things but it eventually all comes together. He did tell us that right now he is “explaining the parts” of a car and that during the 9th week he will “assemble” the car for us. Whew. It sounded like we were going to have some long days and nights for the rest of our time here, though.

He bounced around the stage, literally, and then bounced right off of it before saying, “Holy shit my knees hurt, oh fuck.” Bouncing off a stage like that will do that to you! It sure was impressive though. The man bounced sideways, backwards, every which direction. I do not think any of us would be able to do that! We were out around 12:15am.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “I know it is hard and challenging but if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be worth it.” -Michele, visiting teacher/studio owner
• “Having doesn’t mean anything if you don’t know how to use it.” -Bikram, he says this to us 10x daily… I just do not remember if I have included it or not
• “Take them on a rollercoaster. Not around Disneyland, around the fucking globe!” -Bikram, when telling us how to teach a class
• “You are you. You be you.” -Bikram, when telling us how to teach a class

 

Tuesday 10/31/17 – Day 45
I was back to being level 10 sore, mostly on my upper back and on the left side. I cannot wait until my body goes back to feeling ‘normal’ one day! Michele, a visiting teacher/studio owner, led the morning class. My body hurt and I struggled with the balancing series but I managed. Her positive attitude and passion for this yoga was incredibly apparent and her energy during the floor series was astounding. She really gave us her all. With that said, I think I would have preferred her class significantly more if it was outside of this Teacher Training bubble. She had a lot of advice/tips and tricks which I usually enjoy but at this point in week 7, I just wanted a standard class. I felt like postures were being held extremely long but class only ran over by a few minutes so maybe that was just my mind being distracted and my body hurting. I heard mixed reviews on the class: some loved it, some hated it, some were in the middle. Typical. That just goes to show you, you cannot please everyone. I truly like her as a human being so I really wanted to enjoy class more.

Polina’s husband joined us for class, too. Our ‘visitor’ line in the room has been growing every class! It was his first time doing Bikram yoga and he struggled with English (they are from Russia) so I know he was having a tough time following along. He was giving it his best effort and I think we all felt for him. Michele tried to help him along but took the opportunity as a teaching moment: if someone is struggling, only correct them a few times before just letting them ‘have their experience’ in class.

Manali told us they would give us extra Walmart shuttles after class and before posture clinic so we could prepare for Halloween. Because class ran long, we had only about a half hour to shower and get ready for the first shuttle! I grabbed a protein bar for breakfast and tried to get money out of the ATM but of course both were not dispensing cash. Luckily, I still had a few pesos. Some people went only to get groceries but others were all on a Halloween mission. The shuttle was packed and we made jokes about it taking us to the airport instead of Walmart. Wishful thinking. When we got to Walmart, we immediately had to start thinking of ways to get creative because the Christmas display was out! The limited amount of Halloween stuff they had left was hiding in another area of the store so I wanted to avoid it as to not have duplicate costumes with people. I was thinking about being a scarecrow (I have short overalls with me) but could not find any hay/straw. I was thinking about being a Greek goddess and wearing a toga and found some really cool gold rope/ribbon in the Christmas section. We cannot wear green so the idea of a flower crown had to be scratched. As Alicia and I walked around the store, we saw a small stack of masks in the kids’ toy section and I fell in love with the Batman one! How much easier would it be to just throw on a mask instead of messing with a toga?! Done and done. Plus, I was confident that people would think to go look in the toy section and that I would be the only Batman. Lidia asked me to bring her back something simple but there was literally nothing left by the time our Bikram hurricane went through. Vinny, however, grabbed some devil ears because he wanted the face paint that came with them and he so generously donated them to me (to give to Lidia). Bonus, they lit up! Thanks, Vinny. I ate a quick breakfast (why???) when we got back.

Taryn french braided my hair in pig tails before our final posture clinic! My group started off with just Karla but eventually grew to include Dash and Brad (visiting teachers). Karla called me up to deliver Praynama Breathing, something we do not have to officially receive sign off on. That was interesting because I had not see the dialogue for it yet. I just went with what I knew from all of my classes and I did not too terrible. Karla was out to make a point: we need to study that one on our own! She also had people do the second sets of Awkward and Standing Head to Knee poses because those have extra parts as well. We then had a little Q&A session which was interesting. There were a lot of questions, mostly odd ones. The general vibe I got was that people were just very, very worried and nervous about their first class. I was getting frustrated though because Karla would either answer their question or tell us that Bikram would answer it for us during his posture clinics but people were just not listening and asking random things. I know it was all nervous energy so I was trying to be patient with it. It will all be okay! For everyone.

Dash joined us and we went back to delivering dialogue again. Basically, they would just pick a person and a posture and that person would have to deliver the dialogue for it. The point of the exercise was to see what we remembered and remind us that we need to keep studying. Alonso had fallen asleep during Q&A so he got called on to go first and deliver Cobra. By this point, Brad had joined us. I guess Brad could tell that I was annoyed at Alonso’s delivery and inability to take it seriously and he asked Alonso to do it again so that I would not be upset. I made a sassy remark back that I only halfway regret and that I will not repeat here. He had Alonso do a few other postures, too, and each time he would ask me my thoughts on it. Sigh.

I knew Brad had his eye on me and had a feeling he would call me up to do dialogue (for my 3rd time… some people did not even get called once). Sure enough, he did. He called me the boss of the room and asked me which posture I wanted to do. I told him to just pick anything; I do not know them all perfectly but I know them well enough to survive the exercise (and even if I did not it did not really matter). He chose Awkward Pose (hell yes) and I knew I was going to be fine. I definitely felt like I had to ‘back up’ my attitude and nail it and I mostly did. Brad was impressed and Dash gave me feedback about my inflections and tone. Karla laughed because she knows that has been my feedback the entire time! I did it again and did better so he stopped me before I even got through it all. He said once I got more comfortable, I would be better. I did the one thing I hate and ‘explained’ myself: I said that I practice with inflection and energy but when I get up in the room to do it, it just does not come out that way. He attributed that to nerves and I just let him think it because I know I was not nervous and I know I was not uncomfortable. I think it mostly happens because I know it is not a real situation. When Holly let me teach one time before coming to training, her feedback to me was that I was boring during Half Moon but had warmed up by Eagle and was much better for the rest of it (only up to Triangle). So, I know that when I am on the podium, I will be better. Not perfect… but better. Also, I was thinking about my Halloween costume so I think I was a little distracted.

Anyway, we spent the rest of posture clinic listening to other people do dialogue for random postures. Dash and Brad had good feedback for everyone. I liked them a lot. We were out early so everyone could get ready for Halloween. I decided to be bold and borrow Alicia’s black lipstick which was absolutely terrifying but I think I pulled it off. I am usually not a fan of lipstick because I think it looks weird on me but for a costume, I managed. Alicia had warned me that once I put it on, it was not going to come off so I needed to commit! I put my Batman mask on while I applied it to help make me brave, ha! Leah and I got ready and then Alicia came to help do my eyeliner. I am 28 and cannot do top eyeliner. Adult.

We joined some people in the lobby and took a few pictures before moving to the hot room. We were clearly disturbing some type of Day of the Dead ceremony they were having so I felt bad and tried to usher people along. Everyone looked so great in their costumes – some people committed and got very creative! It was great. We all took photos outside before going into the hot room and taking more photos before class started. I did another think that I hate and asked Tom to scoot his mat over so I could see myself. He replied, “but you are in the 4th row” and I kicked myself. He was right. I believe that when you are in the 4th row, you should just accept that you might not be able to see yourself in the mirror so I felt bad about trying to move him. I was not even thinking! It all worked out though.

Bikram showed up wearing a mask and even taught class in it after a few group pictures with him and the staff. We did class in our costumes and it was funny to watch everyone slowly take a part of their costume off, one by one, as class went on. My costume was simple so it was easy to leave the mask on (and I could breathe in it so it was fine). I left it on the entire class but did take it off for final savasana. Class went by very, very fast! During the savasana before the 1st set of Rabbit, Bikram ‘fell asleep’ (I think he passed out). Those savasnas are supposed to be about 20 seconds long and at first I thought he was just giving us a long break but then I got a little suspicious because he was not calling us out of it but more noticeably, he was not talking. VERY unlike him to not be talking. I heard someone banging on the ground and I looked up and the staff had started calling his name. He woke up, took off his mask, and looked a little disoriented. At first I thought he had been playing a joke on us but he really made it sound like he had no recollection of falling sleep. We think the heat with his mask on was too much. Everyone was really worried, especially his daughter (Laju had gotten back the day before). It was insane. But, we kept going and finished class.

I video chatted with Bailey, Olivia, and Jessica after class so I could see their costumes and be a part of their Halloween. Thank you, Jessica. They were zombie brides (re-purposing their flower girl dresses from a wedding they were in recently) and were so adorable. Olivia just kept saying, “I am a zombie bride” and eating candy. She had no idea what that meant but it was cute that she kept saying it. They told me about their trick or treating and Bailey promised to save me some Skittles.

There was a delicious new entree for dinner: fried fish. It looked like schnitzel at first and I got VERY excited but it was just as good. The entrees and food change every night (with a few core things: rice, beans, etc.) but this was the first new thing we had seen in 7 weeks. I ate two and I was not even upset about it. I also walked around the lobby and took pictures of all of their Day of the Dead displays! They were so pretty, especially lit up at night. I had to take pictures and send them all to John at home because I know how much he loves it all. You are welcome, John!

I rested in the room after. I did not want to study so I watched Netflix and worked on my blog. A few of us wore little costumes to the evening lecture, too. Must keep the Halloween celebration going!

The evening lecture was with Bikram. He promised not to lecture but of course, he did. He said something in another language to someone on staff and Alicia looked at me and said, “What?” as if I would know! We literally laughed about that the rest of the night. After his short talk, we started a movie: Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham. It was 3 and a half hours long but starred the same hot actor as the other movies so I was not mad about. None of us were… we all cheered when we saw him on the screen. I actually enjoy the Bollywood movies quite a bit, they are just so long and we watch them at night so it can be tough to stay focused and not get fidgety.

Movie thoughts:

• Misspelled subtitles – crack me up.
• The female stars always have a very squeaky/high pitched voice when they sing. I do not care for that.
• I jumped down the 3 steps after coming back from the bathroom (instead of walking down them like a normal person) and I think I messed up my knee a little bit. It hurt the rest of the movie (and spoiler: the rest of the week). It was not a level 10 pain… probably around a level 3. Either way, ow.
• We are not allowed to lay down during the movie but we ARE allowed to sit on the floor. I did lay down for 2 seconds before I was told to sit up but other people around me were laying down and even sleeping. Gr! I cannot follow the rules if the rules are not consistently enforced! Maybe I am just envious of those people getting away with it… lucky!

We were out at 2am.

 

Wednesday 11/1/17 – Day 46
As expected, I woke up Wednesday utterly exhausted from our late night. My knee was still feeling odd – not pain, just discomfort.

Brad led our morning class and he was great. I was pretty nervous because someone had told me some negative things about his classes but I really enjoyed it. I was mostly in my own world though so I am not sure if that had any impact. Maybe I liked him and the class so much because I had already developed respect for him because of posture clinic the day before. Either way, it was good. He was very motivating and did not hold us in postures longer than intended. He called me out to lock my top leg in Standing Head to Knee before bringing my elbows down which I already know to do… but was struggling to do. Fair enough. Physically, I did mostly alright and my knee was not too much of a bother. My left side for Standing Bow was brutal, Bow was brutal, and the left side of Locust was brutal.

He spent a lot of time correcting staff and other visiting teachers which was a little odd but everyone needs corrections, trainees or not, because no one is perfect. At one point, he asked where the “Houston Strong” girl was (I was wearing that tank top in posture clinic on Tuesday when he was with our group) and I raised my hand. He said he was glad I was teaching there and that Houston needed me. It was nice to be remembered! Polina’s husband came back for another try and did better. Major props to him for trying again. At the end, he played a song for us and prefaced it with a short story about how someone asked him what yoga teachers do and he decided to write a song. So, what do yoga teachers do? “Smiles on faces.” Mostly true… except when we all want to die in class. BUT, we smile after so that still counts!

Noteworthy quotes:

• “The posture that hurts the most/is the most difficult is the one your body needs the most.”

I skipped breakfast at Chula Vista and instead had a protein bar in my room and took an hour and 15 minute nap. It was awesome! I was so knocked out that I never heard Leah coming and going.

In the afternoon, we started our posture clinic with Bikram. Finally! Just in time because before lecture, Alicia and I were have an  existential crisis and wondering what we were even doing here and how crazy it was that we, ALL OF US, would sign up to do something like this for 9 weeks. In his posture clinics, we are supposed actually learn about the ins and outs of each posture, in detail, AND he lets people come on the stage, one at a time, and do the posture to receive individual corrections. THIS IS WHY WE ARE HERE! Boom.

Bikram showed up wearing a normal track suit but stripped it off and showed us the flashiest matching shirt/shorts outfit I have ever seen. It was blue, sparkly, shiny, and 100% Bikram. The shorts were so short you could see his butt. No words. He lectured a little but then got started with Half Moon. He called people on stage and took volunteers to help correct them. Maryla has been saying for weeks that she needs help with her back bend so when it came time for that, I hollered at her from across the room to get up there! Bikram continued his fixation on Lidia and called her up two different times. Mari demoed Hands to Feet pose and Brad yelled from the back, “a real Japanese ham sandwich!” which was funny for 2 reasons: 1. Mari is Japanese and 2. the dialogue says “from the side, you should look like a Japanese ham sandwich, no gap anywhere.” Alright, maybe you had to be there but we all laughed. Bikram even picked her up while she was folded over and moved her around and she never broke form. It was impressive and I was happy we were finally at this point in the training. I wish we had been doing this all along.

Bikram let us ask questions at any time but it was bizarre and quite frustrating because he answered almost none of them. He would dismiss some by saying that the question was “not a first day question” or reply with “follow the dialogue” which was not even a relevant response (it usually is, but sometimes is not). A lot of our questions were apparently “dumb” and that made us dumb, too. Of course. I asked for advice on what to do if you are always dizzy when you go into your back bend, a problem I have been having a lot while I have been here, and he said, “You have 2 choices, live or die. You having nothing to lose.” Thanks for the tip, I guess? Kirsty asked about her hamstrings and his only response was that hamstrings were not a real thing and then did not answer her question. Okay? Later I learned that he preferred the term ‘thigh bicep’ but even if she used the correct term, he ignored the question. That was a common theme. Deflect, deflect, deflect. How are we supposed to answer questions from our students if he does not answer them for us? What if someone ever asks me how to be less dizzy in back bend? Hmm. They say trust the process and that everything will come together in the end and all make sense for us eventually (may not be until we actually start teaching for months/years) but for him to not answer 9 out of 10 questions was kind of insane. We still learned a lot, in my opinion, but wow.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Life is a balance of good and bad. One day it rains, the next day it is sunny. But we don’t cry about the rain. Somebody need rain. Somebody need sun.”
• “Life is compromise, balance, and moderation. We have to adjust ourselves and decide how, with who, and to what extent.”
• “Bikram yoga is the only subject where the object is not the subject: you are the object.”
• “They forget about their pain because the rest of their body hurts like hell.”
• “Pull the ear and the head comes with it.”
• “Ultimate destination of life: satisfaction of living.”

After lecture, Leah and I snacked. Ulesis taught the evening class which was a big surprise to all of us. We were not expecting to see him on the podium and when he walked up, several of the people around me, myself included, made comments about getting ready to hold Half Moon for an hour! It was a 2 hour class and I. Did. Horrible. My head started to hurt as soon as I got into the hot room and it only got worse as the class went on. I was seeing stars the entire time. I still did every posture to the best of my ability but my ability was incredibly limited. It was a disaster. My body would not do anything: I could not kick my foot out in Standing Head to Knee, I could not even see my foot over the top of my head for Standing Bow Pulling. I wanted to cry because everything was so difficult and I was so frustrated and mad and embarrassed. I wanted to just sit down or leave the room. So badly. I was unintentionally moving around so much (falling, mostly) and I felt bad for being disruptive to Kelly, Kim, Tanya, and Anna (the people directly around me). Ulesis left me alone though so he must have been able to tell I was trying my hardest. He, and Bikram, usually only pick on people who are being lazy and I was definitely not being lazy.

My headache never improved. I had a fast and light dinner because I had been feeling like I was gaining weight and even though I say it does not bother me, it does. A lot. I also squeezed in a 20 minute nap before the evening lecture.

On my way to lecture, I saw the Houston Astros (our baseball team) was ahead 5-1 in Game 7 of the World Series. It was the top of the 6th and while I could not watch it, I was constantly refreshing the score. Ali and I were chatting and I told him that I was nervous the game would not finish before lecture started. 2 minutes before lecture started, Ali and I both stood up on opposite sides of the room because we both saw the final score at the same time: Astros won the World Series! It was their first time in franchise history and so exciting, especially because of all the tragedy that Houston had with the floods just a few short months ago. Then, Micael (on staff) came on the microphone and told us that Houston won and I cheered. I am sure the energy in Houston was beyond! I so wish I could have been there and I am not even a big baseball fan! Ha.

The evening lecture was with Michele and Brad. I really enjoyed what they had to say and thought they had great advice. I was mostly happy to have an easy night that ended at a reasonable time.

Michele talked about tips for new teachers (us) and how to be successful when we get out of here.

1. Be very patient (stick to the dialogue regardless of how you feel)
2. Approach everything with kindness (listen, respect, focus more on context)
3. Maintain empathy and compassion (build trust and credibility with students)

She also talked a lot about owning a studio (she owns Bikram Yoga San Jose) and gave advice on how to run a studio, mostly on how to retain new students and get them to come back. Her 4 big points were:

1. Consistency (make a decision and stick to it, example: set your class times and do not change them)
2. Community (don’t worry about the competition, take care of you and your product; get in touch the type of people in your area and make it easy for them; connect with everyone who comes in the door)
3. Connection (connect to all aspects of the business (don’t do everything alone but know what is going on); always evaluate your data such as retention rate, etc.)
4. Communication (communicate with the staff and the students; take care of issues before they snowball into drama)

She opened it up for a Q&A session for a little bit before passing it off to Brad. Brad talked about similar stuff but with a different perspective. He used to own a studio in Canada for 11 years and now he travels and acts like the Jon Taffer of yoga studios. He reminded us to keep it simple and stick with 90-min classes using the dialogue, no exception. He talked about how a lot of studios are adding Inferno Hot Pilates classes and his thoughts on that. Our group has a lot of certified IHP instructors (and the studios I go to at home offer IHP classes and I find them to be fun) so his thoughts were very interesting and probably a little controversial. I neither agreed or disagreed with what he said but he did make some good points: 1. It is difficult to tell someone that Bikram is the best thing for you and your body but the turn around and try to convince them to do something different. (Note: I do not think Bikram should be made to SELL IHP classes, but they should be expected to at least not talk badly about it. Different people like different things, and that is okay!) 2. What will they be able to do in 10 years? Bikram or IHP? 3. “You cannot sell the Big Mac and the Whopper in the same place… especially when you do not even like the Whopper.” (Some people do like Whoppers though!)

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He also focused a lot on how to work with new students and connect with them to inspire them to come back. I liked this part a lot because as a student, I have seen so many people come into my home studio and take their first class and then I never see them again. I would know, too, because I go every day!

Their lecture really got my mind spinning and thinking a lot about all sorts of things and what kind of teacher I hope to be.

 

Thursday 11/2/17 – Day 47
I woke up thinking it was Saturday. What a disappointment. Michele taught our morning class and I surprisingly did alright. I enjoyed her class more than Tuesday but even she admitted she can be quite the talker. Class was pretty standard otherwise and exceptionally humid.

It was a beautiful day out but Chula Vista was busy so I ate quickly and headed back to my room. I told myself I would split my free time: blog half of it and go sit by the pool the other half of it. I ended up going through work emails and blogging so I never made it to the pool to enjoy the weather. Oops. Time just flew by and before I knew it, it was time for lecture. The way I saw it though was the more time I spent blogging and doing this during the week, the more free time I would have on the weekend. Give and take.

We continued our posture clinic with Bikram in the afternoon. Manali told us to be ready to get up on stage when Bikram asked for people and Bikram said he would get started quickly but he ended up lecturing a little bit first. As usual. We went through Awkward and Eagle poses. They said to go on stage for corrections if we were good or bad, it did not matter. The problem was that people have some ideas of what postures they want corrections on but for the most part, we do not know what we should go up for. Bikram cannot be bothered to know our names (with the exception of a few people) so he cannot really call on us but Manali and the staff watch us all the time so I felt like it would be better if they just told us to go. I decided to go up on stage and get corrections for Eagle. He twisted my arms and it popped/cracked my shoulders and back and sure enough, I got my damn hands together AND in front of my face. My back/shoulders hurt the rest of the day (and spoiler alert: the rest of the week), but in a good way. It was like they opened up more. I still struggled with getting it right in the hot room but I attribute that to my arms being more slippery. At least I know how to get myself to do it now; I just need to work on it.

For the 2nd part of Awkward pose, the dialogue says, “Imagine I am pulling your hair up to the ceiling.” Julie went to get corrections for the pose and he actually pulled her hair as she sat down. It was insane! But… it freaking worked. She sat down with a perfectly straight spine and did the posture perfectly. Matt also asked a few questions about his knees popping out of socket in the 3rd part of Awkward and he was just so sweet about it. Bikram said popping is good and we should only be worried if we DO NOT pop. That was good news because my body has been popping for weeks now! He also admitted that he did not know the answer to some of our questions: “I do not know. My spirit told me to do it that way. That is why.” Cannot argue with that and I appreciated the honesty.

Other than that, the afternoon lecture was full of dirty, filthy jokes that he somehow felt the need to explain to us afterward. We got it! As bizarre as he can be, he sure is entertaining. I cannot help but laugh and still enjoy his presence. I wish I could explain it in a way that made sense! As much as he loves his flashy outfits and being the center of attention, you can tell how much he loves doing these types of lectures and hands-on corrections. We love it, too. It is why we are here.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “I don’t care if you live or die as long as the posture is correct. Patient is dead and doctor is proud because he gets paid by Blue Cross.”

Bikram let us out 30 minutes early so we had a full hour before sign-in for the evening class! Leah and I were so excited to have twice as much time to snack on chips and do nothing.

Bikram was back for our evening class. Again, the room was so humid but I did a lot better. Not great still, but better. My whole body was still really hurting but I was trying my best and that is all anyone could ever ask. Class was a standard class and went by fast. Nothing memorable. I have not decided if it is a blessing or not to NOT get called out in class. He seems to always mention the same people over and over again, for good and bad things, and occasionally pick on someone else. It is a bizarre feeling to rarely (or never!) get mentioned. You cannot help but think you are either good enough to not need corrections or bad enough that he does not want to waste his time on you. On days where you know you need help, he does not help. On days where you feel like a yoga goddess and that the hot room is your bitch, he does not recognize you. Again, blessing or not? TBD. Others have expressed having similar feelings so I know I am not alone on that. I definitely do not want to be berated like he does with someone people but little corrections here and there or even a compliment are always nice. I should be careful what I wish for!

Dinner had another new option: bacon wrapped chicken. I wonder what we did to deserve so many new foods this week! I was trying to eat better so I had a salad and avoided the rice and desserts. It did not matter though because the second I got to my room, I started snacking on my bag of marshmallows (which, by the way, I have decided is the food you crave when you are slowly dying because they were all I wanted for nearly 3 weeks) and eventually finished it.

I video chatted with Mom for a little bit and then with Dad and Suzette (and Elliott, obviously). Dad said that whenever we video chat, Elliott licks his hands non-stop but tha Elliott never does it when we are not video chatting. Maybe when he hears my voice he gets excited? I would like to think so. It was good to talk to everyone. Mentally I had been feeling a LOT better than week 6 but physically I had been a lot worse. I was feeling drained and needed to feel normal and at home for a minute. I told my dad about how I could not do a lot of the postures they way I normally could this week and he said “now you are reminded of how new people feel during their first class.” Good point, dad. No wonder people are scared to do this!

I headed out to the evening lecture after our chats. Bikram clearly did not want to lecture because he never showed up and instead, the staff all shared their “Bikram stories” like we had done a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed getting to learn more about them and I wish they had done it sooner in the training! It was easy to relate to all of them, proving how much alike we all are.

Eddie shared first and told us story. It is not my place to go into what he had to say but man, what a life. It was moving, touching, emotional, funny, everything. He was a great story teller! We all stood up and applauded and hollered at him when he was finished. Karla went next and her story was a little shorter but she spent a lot of time telling us to always keep our heart and minds open and to get in touch with ourselves. She reminded us to be present in whatever moment we are in and to always do what you have to do. She echoed something my friend Katy tells me a LOT, “do not resist; if you feel an emotion, then feel it, observe what is happening, do not judge it, and then let it go.” Axry shared after and boy was she cute. She was so real and had us laughing the whole time and helping her with English. I think a lot of people could relate to her story of how yoga helped them grow up and be more responsible. Her little bit of advice was to maintain a balance between our practice, teaching, and the rest of our lives. I know that when I started to REALLY get invested my yoga challenge, I was negating other aspects of my life. Once I start teaching, I will need to make a conscious effort to keep a balance with the many things I have going on. Micael went last and I think I related to him and his story the most. He talked about how mean he always felt he was and how he knew he needed to be more compassionate in situations but did not know how to change or did not care to. He saw his family start getting into Bikram yoga and while he saw their changes, he actively resisted getting involved because of his arrogance and “meanness” (he called himself mean so many times which was crazy because he is probably the nicest/funniest person ever). He said he always believed the negative and was in denial about all sorts of things. SAME. Eventually, he recognized that if he wanted to be able to help people and teach, he needed to change first and he started to soften his edges… through Bikram yoga. He had to let go of whatever he thought he knew before and just have faith. It was like he was speaking directly to me. The craziest thing (but something I truly believe in because of what happened with my friend during the Spring training; I did not recognize him anymore) was that he told us that we will always be a completely different person after training. We will forever think of things as BT and AT (before training and after training). He said that if he had met himself before training, he probably would not have liked the guy. Again, same. I know in my heart that I have changed a lot in the last year with this yoga. A lot. I know I have changed a lot more in the past 7 weeks, too. I cannot describe it but I hope that my friends and family all have noticed it. I am slowly starting to become a lot more proud of myself and not just with my yoga accomplishments, but with everything. A little self worth, check that out!

After everyone shared, Manali talked about karma and how our actions always have a result. Things always come back to us. We do not have the right to hurt other people’s souls or our own soul. We are all too small to understand the things in our lives. We have to mercy through our own happiness.

She had us stand (and by the way, my knees were killing me when I stood – I had to move them around and warm up basically to just stand) and participate in a meditation chant:

Om Om Om
Sarvesham Svastir Bhavatu
Sarvesham Shantir Bhavatu
Sarvesham Poornam Bhavatu
Sarvesham Mangalam Bhavatu
Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

Mantra’s Meaning:
May there be happiness in all
May there be peace in all
May there be completeness in all
May there be success in all

After we did that, she had us sit back down while she did a meditation chant from the Bhagavad Gita. We all closed our eyes as Manali chanted for probably 10-15 minutes (maybe even longer, honestly). It was so amazing. My mind was all over the place but in a good way. I once did EMDR therapy (Google it) and I was told it would feel like you were on a train with random images just passing by quickly. It was and doing this meditation so reminded me of that. Things were just flying through my mind but before I could even react to whatever it was, the next image was already there. Then suddenly I was re-focused on the chant. It was amazing.

We were asked to not talk/get on our phones and just go straight to bed when it was over. Everyone was quiet on the way back but I doubt people stayed that way once back in their rooms. Leah and I definitely talked – we could not help it!

 

Friday 11/3/17 – Day 48
It took everything in me to get out of bed. If I thought I knew was sore and discomfort was before… I was wrong. Good Lord my body was a mess. My knees were not cooperating. I should start sitting like a normal person in the lecture chairs and stop sitting with my legs up like a contortionist. Usually, I use my giant HydroFlask as a footstool which probably better for my knees.

Micael taught the morning class. I was so happy it was him on our Friday. I know I say this every time but not only does he consistently make us laugh with new jokes and whatnot, his dialogue is so perfect that I can actually recite the dialogue along with him as I practiced. I do not think there has been another teacher I could do that with! It was a tough class on my body but I think it was one of my best ones of the week so I felt a little better about myself. It was also Michele’s birthday and instead of singing to her before class like we had done for others, we sang to her while we held Triangle pose (both sides)! I am not going to lie; it was pretty cool. It gave me goosebumps AND it cut the time we had to hold the pose nearly in half. At some point in class during the floor series, some of the lights went out and someone yelled to the person fixing the switch, “it is the switch that says ‘fan'” and we all laughed. We wish! They turn the fans off for the floor series because our bodies start to cool off naturally and we do not want to cool off TOO much. The logic is there but sometimes you just want a nice breeze.

Since visiting the ocean after the evening class was now off the table, a few of us went to the salt water pool after class. It was so cold it was almost like sitting in an ice bath and that is not a complaint: I loved it. It was what my body needed! The weather was also beautiful so it was nice to soak some of that up before going to breakfast and then to my room to blog and rest for a little bit. The hotel was so crowded again so I wanted to get away from it.

The afternoon lecture was posture clinic with Bikram again. He lectured a little bit and then we started in on on Standing Head to Knee, Standing Bow Pulling, and Balancing Stick. He said so many memorable things about those postures, especially Standing Head to Knee. My favorite was when he said that if you can balance on one leg and put your forehead to your knee, you have a peaceful soul, you create a moment, you have enlightenment in your life. I went up to get corrections for Standing Bow because while I have not gotten very close to locking my top knee very often here, I have at home and I wanted to see if Bikram could help me get it locked since he tends to make things happen. Sure enough, he pulled on my knee and I got VERY close. Not bad for a cold room. Having him hold my left arm and keep me balanced really helped me use my own strength to focus on kicking my leg up so I think that helped a lot. He said I had the flexibility to do it, I just needed to keep at it. Yes, boss. He laughed and said he was mean to me because he was literally yanking my leg up but it did not hurt, it actually felt good. I will get it one day! I did my right leg but afterward I wished I had done my left one since that side of my body had been bothering me all week: maybe him yanking on me would have fixed it.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “A problem is not a problem unless you try to solve it and if you solve it, it’s not a problem.”

The evening class was with Bikram. With him teaching the afternoon lectures now, we sure were getting a lot of him. Not a bad thing, though! It was a good, standard class. He seemed to be in a mood or not feeling well but still had good energy. He always does. My knees and back were hurting but I did alright considering.

Dinner was great because the hotel had ANOTHER new option: BBQ! Everything was so good, especially the chorizo. I ate too much. They also had a new apple dessert and that was delicious also. How am I supposed to kick-start my diet if they keep feeding us like this? Bikram came by and chatted with our table for a little bit. He joked about giving Tina his shirt and watch and how Fernando does not understand anything he yells at him during class. When he left, Fernando told us that he understands more English than he can speak! He is a smart guy so that did not surprise me. He has spent 7 weeks surrounded by English-speakers full time, he was bound to learn a little bit.

Sara is an opera singer and sang us a song before the evening lecture. She was amazing!

We kind of figured earlier in the day that Bikram was not in the mood to give a lecture and we were right. Instead, we watched random TV clippings of his old interviews on late night shows (like “Marv”) and 60-Minutes. He was the EXACT same back then as he is now. Just, wow. We were all laughing at how scary it was. He has not changed at all. There were a lot of celebrities I did not not recognize but the ones I did really caught me off guard because of how young/good they looked. Most of the interviews were from the 70s and 80s, the most recent being from 2005. It was cool to see all of them but I wish there had been more recent ones. Someone should make a movie on his life or something. Every celebrity in the clips mentioned how they ate less and slept less once they started Bikram yoga, something he tells us all the time (“The best food is no food.”). For the first time, I realized it was true. Since I started doing yoga regularly almost a year ago, my normal 5-6 hours of sleep a night became less awful and I ate less. I barely eat when I am at home… unless a friend invites me over and then I stuff my face like a bear about to go into hibernation. I eat a lot here but this is different: if we do not eat, we die.

We were out at midnight but Leah and I stayed up talking. We had a real, serious discussion about Triangle pose until 1am. We were demoing for each other and everything. Hello, yoga bubble. Then we started laughing that we were even having this discussion at all when we could be sleeping. It is going to suck being at home and not having people to have these conversations with!

 

Saturday 11/4/17 – Day 49
For some reason, I woke up before my alarm. I started moving around and then Leah got up and I looked at her and said,  “Don’t worry, you have more time.” She said, “oh thank God” and hit the pillow again. Then we both laughed for way too long about it. We value every single minute of sleep we are allowed! Ha.

Karla taught the morning class which was perfect because it was her birthday (and class #75 for us). We sang at the beginning of class but when we hit Triangle, we sang again… for both sides. She was trying to keep us focused but we kept singing anyway. It was a good class even though I still felt sore. Again, one of my better ones of the week. She caught me in a lazy moment when I was not putting my forehead all the way on my knee in Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee. Busted. I like Karla’s classes because she keeps the energy high and basically forces us to work hard. We do not have a choice with her! But, she does not kill our bodies or spirits. She reminds us to look in our own eyes in the mirror and to smile if we are struggling.

Chula Vista was packed and they would not let us in so we headed to Tavola for breakfast. I was annoyed because we are promised 2 meal a day as part of our training fee and we should be able to easily access those meals. Tavola was free for us for this one occasion but that was not the point. The hotel should have blocked off tables for the Bikram group or should have set up a buffet for us in one of the conference rooms. We have lived here for 2 months, the least they could do was make it easy for us to eat. Tavola was just as busy but Diana handled it and got us in and gave us her table.

I went back to my room and got my laundry ready to take down at noon. I took Leah’s down too because she was in the make-up class and everyone thought I had 2 bags of my own laundry. Negative, guys.

It was a beautiful day so I headed to the beach with Lidia. Every pool was beyond crowded and most of the beach. We found a quieter spot and I started to study dialogue before I got bored and stopped. I tried. Alicia joined us and we had fun just hanging out, relaxing, getting sun, and talking. We took a dip in the ocean at one point and the water was so much clearer than I had ever seen it before. It felt so nice in the hot weather.

After a few hours, I went to my room and took an epsom salt bath, washed my yoga clothes (I did not send those off with my laundry), and worked on my best friend’s baby shower invitation until it was time to get ready for dinner.

Leah and I met up with Alicia, Kiley, Taryn, Irmina, and Lidia in the lobby for dinner. Everyone looked so nice dressed up. Our reservation at Zibu, a nice restaurant nearby, was for 6pm but Manali was making us leave at 5pm so we got to the restaurant a little too early. It was okay though because it was still nice out and the restaurant had an amazing view for us to enjoy while we waited. We took some pictures and talked until they opened at 6pm.

The restaurant was so beautiful. I loved it. The service was outstanding and the food was even better. It was nice to be out, off property, doing something normal. It felt like we were not at training anymore which was a nice break. We had so many laughs (I promise our drinks were non-alcoholic!) and it was a lovely time. Poor Leah hurt her rib earlier in the week and it hurt for her to laugh! Kiley’s birthday is next Friday so we made it into a mini-birthday celebration for her, too. We ordered way too many desserts (Crunchy Jungle, Sherbet, Chocolate Souffle, Pineapple ice cream cake). We had no idea what the Crunchy Jungle was but the waiter said it was a popular one so we got it anyway. It was ice cream with little crunchy strips on top and it was delicious. He came over and asked if we knew what the crunchy strips were and we had no idea. He said he would tell us after we paid which made me nervous it was going to be something gross! Irmina guessed it correctly though: they were fried carrots. I somehow did not get a picture of the chocolate souffle but it was amazing, too.

When it came time for the bill, Kiley, Taryn, and I took charge. We took the time to split everything: drinks, appetizers, desserts, etc. Taryn told Kiley and I what the total needed to be plus tip and after we split everything then added it back up, we were about 30 pesos off. Pretty close, if you ask me. We all rounded up for our share anyway, anything extra just meant more tip for the staff and they sure did deserve it. It was a fabulous time!

When we got back, there were some tables set up with different goods (jewelry, shoes, clothes, etc.) so we took a look at those. I did not want to spend money so I bailed and went to check out the karaoke event Tom had helped coordinate for us. There were only a few people in there and no one was singing so I left that too and decided to just go to my room. I worked on my blog a little but mostly chatted with Leah. She eventually went to the doctor late at night for her rib; I hope it is not fractured! We were up until around 12:30am.

 

Sunday 11/5/17 – Day 50
Sleeping without an alarm will forever be one of the top 10 best feelings in the world. I slept until around 9:30am which was more than enough. After being lazy and watching a little Netflix, I made the finishing touches on Kelsey’s baby shower invitation and worked on my blog until about 11:30am. I had breakfast with Lidia in Chula Vista (we were allowed back in there today) and Axry and Dash came to sit and talk to us for a little bit which was nice. I like getting to know the staff more!

 

I missed the laundry guy at noon (I knew I would forget) but I set an alarm to go pick it up tomorrow when he comes. Ah!

Leah and I hung out in the room and studied. We decided to each take a turn at saying the postures all the way through, starting at Standing Head to Knee, to see what we needed to work on. I went first and did alright. I knew more than I thought I would but it could use some polishing. Luckily I have 2 more weeks to make it happen. Leah took a turn afterward and then decided her brain was not working. Same. It can be so tough to focus sometimes! Her teachers from home arrived for re-certification week so they stopped by before heading out to eat.

I went to the pool around 3pm and hung out with Maryla. No dialogue, just lounging and talking. I do not know why but I ordered chips and guacamole and it was delicious. We hung out there until the pool area had no more sun. It was a peaceful afternoon and I desperately needed the sun so it was nice.

Maryla wanted to go shopping and I did not so I started heading back to my room and saw that some of the chairs on the beach still had sun and I stopped to lounge there. Micaela was there and asked me if my blog was up. She always tells me how much she loves reading it and that makes me feel good to know someone literally waits for it all week and gets excited to read it! It was so much quieter there than anywhere else it seemed! Plus, I could watch our 3rd to last sunset (we do not get to see them anymore during the week so it was only tonight, next Saturday, and next Sunday; the last weekend here is graduation and we will miss it then, too). I was so relaxed that I fell asleep for a little bit. Oops. Angie, Michaela, and I went to the water to take some pictures and my phone died, of course. We ran into Denise down there and we all soaked up the view until it was gone. Angie took some photos for me though for my picture-of-the-day.

A lot of the group went downtown and then on a ‘cruise’ today but I opted to not go. I have skipped those types of outings so far (they did the zip line one of the first few weeks and a city-tour another). I like the idea of going and doing something different but I mostly do not want to spend the money or be gone for so long. I would prefer to rest and keep a low profile on the weekends since we do so much during the week. Plus, this was our 2nd to last real weekend here so I was okay with lounging around at the resort. I was surprised to see so many people stick around and stay here, though. It was a nice, quiet day!

Once the sun was gone, I went to my room, cleaned up, and finished this post. I hung out and did a whole lot of nothing until dinner time. Leah and I had dinner with her teachers from home. They were really cool and I liked talking to them. It was nice to have new people around. We have a lot (around 50) extra teachers coming this week for re-certification so it should be an interesting week. I like the idea of new faces but not the idea of a crowded hot room and Chula Vista!

 

Weekly Summary
As I said at the beginning, mentally I did so much better this week but physically, I did so much worse. My back hurt and was going through the most bizarre feelings I have ever felt. I would like to think that it is because I am getting stronger but who knows. I know my back/shoulders cracked when Bikram corrected my Eagle but it had already been bothering me before that. His correction definitely did not make it feel better but I think it was necessary for me to start doing Eagle correctly. My knees were hurting and my right glute was so bad at the end of the week and I think that was because of Bikram’s correction on Standing Bow. Other people who had him correct their Standing Bow mentioned having the same soreness. I do not remember which teacher told us this but someone had mentioned earlier in the training that part of the reason we do so much yoga is so that we can experience all sorts of pains/aches and then when we teach, we can relate to our students more. I am definitely understanding that concept more and more.

I still do not feel incredibly homesick but being gone for a ‘holiday’ was a little more tough. I hated missing Halloween with my friends and family. Every year, my friend Amber throws a fun Halloween party and I love going to that. My best friends Kelsey, John, and I carve pumpkins, too. I love watching my nieces dress up and go trick-or-treating! It was tough missing all of that but I am glad we did something here to celebrate a little. And I am so thankful my sister video chatted me to see the girls pass out candy and whatnot. It was nice to feel like I was a part of it and made it a little easier.

Everyone told me before coming here that you are going to reach a point where you never want to leave. I cannot say that I have reached that point yet. I fully recognize that it is coming to an end and I know I will be sad to leave and that I will miss a lot of people and things about our little yoga bubble… but I also am looking forward to going home. Going home scares me too, though. It will be a difficult transition going back to the ‘real world’ with my responsibilities, job, schedule, etc. but I know it will be okay. It always is. I just do not want to lose the feelings and self worth I have developed here.

Bikram talked about the importance of Savasana and why we do it. He talked about how Bikram yoga is the only yoga that utilizes Savasana as much as we do. No other yoga uses it like us! Anyway, all that to say that I love the way he defines/explains Savasana. It is so catch: A natural irrigation of the circulatory system with the help of the respiratory system.

Lastly, tomorrow (Monday, November 6) will mark the completion of my 1-Year Yoga Challenge! Happy yoga-versary to me! I walked into my studio a year ago after taking a 4 month break (and only doing yoga 5-6 times a month for the 6 months prior to that break) with zero intention of doing a challenge. Zero. Before I knew it, I had completed a 30-Day Challenge: 30 classes in 30 days. That snowballed into 300 days in a row and then suddenly I was at training in Mexico getting certified. Now, I am almost a certified Bikram Yoga instructor and have completed over 365 classes  in 365 days. It is so amazing how life can take you to places where you least expect it. If you had asked me a year ago where I would be today, I would have never, EVER imagined this. I sometimes do not even recognize myself! Who am I?

365 Day Yoga Challenge Breakdown (as of end-of-day Monday, 11/6/17):

• 298 90-min Bikram Yoga
• 41 60-min Bikram Yoga (Have I mentioned how much I hate that I did these? I mean, they are better than nothing and sometimes all my schedule had time for but after being here, I feel so strongly against them! AH! Bikram always says, “If you could get all the same benefits in 60 minutes, why would I have made it 90? Do you think I am stupid?” Touche.)
• 22 Inferno Hot Pilates
• 21 Yin Yoga
• 4 Other (classical pilates, baptise flow, etc.)

Total: 386

386 yoga classes in 365 days. What?! I wish I could say it was 365 days of only Bikram yoga but it is not. I plan to keep going with the challenge until it only consists of 90-min Bikram classes though so stay tuned! Maybe I will hit that target by the end of the year.

Until next time,

Jillian

We have finished 64 classes and 6 weeks making us officially two-thirds of the way complete! I hit the metaphorical wall this week and tried to just take it one day at a time. It was a rough week but it ended on a high note with me finishing memorizing all of the dialogue and a few great classes!

 

Monday 10/23/17 – Day 37 
We kicked off the week with a morning class with Robyn. Robyn had been in our posture clinics and I had talked to her a few times beforehand. I was a little nervous for her class because she has a such a strong, bold personality and sometimes that can be amplified on the podium but the class was nothing like I would have expected. It was a great class with amazing energy. She really gave us everything she had and in return, we gave her everything we had. Luckily, it was a lot for a Monday morning! I got a compliment on my Full Locust, too. My jaw was still hurting like last week (maybe not from grinding my teeth, maybe from the floor series or clenching my teeth in class?) and my ears were clogged up again but I still did well. Manali also picked the Demo Team by walking around during our postures and tapping people. She stood next to Alicia’s mat and then tapped her. Then she took a step over and stood next to my mat, scanned me up and down, saw my tattoo (which I already showed her last week), smirked, and then walked away. Manali! Do not torture me like that.

Robyn read us the poem “Champion Minded” at the end of class and then played “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John as her savasana song.
Champion Minded: You are not born mindset tough. You choose to be. Getting mindset tough means enduring experiences in your life. From those experiences, champion minded athletes and people develop grit. What is grit you ask? It’s the ability to overcome challenges and to endure hardship. It’s about handling and overcoming failure and it’s about getting up one more time after being knocked down.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Still eyes, still mind. Wandering eyes, wandering minds.”
• “Sassy Rabbits” (the sanskrit for Rabbit pose is Sasangasana… sassy…)

I had a quick breakfast after class and then studied with Leah for a bit. Then I went to the 4th floor and studied by myself for a little bit more before Maryla and Michelle joined me. Then Henrik. Then Karl. We took turns delivering our dialogue and helping each other. The 4th floor had a nice breeze (and better view) so it was nice.

Posture clinic started late, per usual. We had Karla and Axry and everything was pretty standard until they tried to trick me during my Full Locust. Axry had me leave the room before my turn and I was immediately suspicious. Leah had told me a few weeks ago that her group’s facilitators had Tom leave the room and then told the people demoing to mess with him by not doing the postures properly. So, when Axry pulled me out… my mind went there. She small-talked with me and then took me back into the room. I was a little more nervous than usual but that made sense since I felt like I was walking into a trap. I got started and sure enough, the people demoing for me were not doing the posture/were doing it incorrectly. Katy, my friend/teacher from home, had once told me that the way to correct people during class was to just add their name before saying a line in the dialogue so, that is what I did. And. I. Nailed. It. My dialogue was not perfect but Karla said I did awesome and asked if I was already a teacher. She said she was trying to make me vulnerable in class because she could tell posture clinics were boring for me. Truth. They normally tell us to not correct students for our first few months of teaching but Karla said I was ready to start doing that. I do not think I will, but it was nice to have her confidence in me!

Lidia and I needed to escape during the break…

Noteworthy quotes;

• “You are already 30, 3rd floor!” -Karla (I liked it being called the 3rd floor! Obviously this was not said to me because I am not 30!)

Once again, I had too many chips and snacks before the evening class… exactly why I do not buy snacks over the weekend.

The evening class with Bikram was good until the very end. Ali got sassy with Bikram during class (rightfully so but very bold) and Lidia started getting called out (for good things, but her first time being called out the entire time). Tanya’s husband Brian, a.k.a. Mr. Red (for his red shorts), arrived last weekend to visit for 2 weeks so he started taking classes with us and it really helped take the attention off of the rest of us. Thank you, Mr. Red! I did well all class but at the end, somewhere around Head to Knee with Stretching, I started to feel very dizzy. I decided I should probably stay in final Savasana for awhile but I needed to get out of the room so I left with everyone else. Once in the hall, I figured it would be best if I just laid down. When I did, Kathy came and asked me if I was okay, then Veronica (thanks, girls!). I said I was because I truly felt I was going to be okay, or so I told myself, but before I knew it, Manali and Axry had come over and started pouring water on me and putting ice on me. The water was going into my eyes and irritating my contacts and I was laughing because I was so embarrassed and felt so stupid and weak. Manali kept telling me to stop laughing but I was so uncomfortable, I could not help it. Finally, I succumbed to the weakness and just relaxed and breathed. By this point, I was freezing cold from all of the ice but I could breathe again which seemed more important. I told them I was fine but when I stood up, Axry must have recognized that I was actually NOT fine and she hung back to help me walk up the stairs and be sure I made it outside safely. Thanks, Axry. When I made it out of the room and saw the sunset, I hobbled over to the beach to take a photo of it. I passed Tanja and Mr. Red, Tom, and others who all stopped and asked me if I was okay and advised me not to go swim. I just wanted a photo! It was nice of everyone to be worried, though.

I was not hungry, at all, but I promised Manali and Axry I would eat and I did not want them to NOT see me in Chula Vista so I went to eat. I only had a little bit of rice and beans before going back to my room to drink electrolytes, rest, and read work emails.

Julie and Tina asked me if I was okay before our evening lecture which was nice of them! Eddie always plays music before lecture and he put on ABBA so of course Kirsty and I had to sing it to each other from our chairs on opposite sides of the room. I will forever think of her when I hear ABBA now. Bikram promised not to talk before showing us a few episodes of the legendary TV show, Mahabharat, but of course he did not keep it. The man loves to talk. He had us laughing about some cheap, 400 pesos jacket he bought at a local store and then explained the story line of the episodes we were going to watch.

We had watched a few episodes of the TV show during Week 2 and as awfully ridiculous as it was, I loved it. I did not mind having to watch it again! The show tried to pass off what looked like a 1 year old baby as a newborn which was comical. There were swastikas on the houses of the characters, causing me to look up what the real meaning of the symbol was: The swastika is an ancient religious icon used in the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and Southeast Asia, where it has been and remains a sacred symbol of spiritual principles in Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. The word swastika is derived from the sanskrit root swasti which is composed of su, meaning “good, well”, and asti meaning “it is, there is”. Now we know. There was also laughably horrible “evil” laughs by a giant/demon. We jumped around between episodes and parts of episodes which made it a little difficult to follow but I stayed awake the whole time and we were out just before 12:30am.

 

Tuesday 10/24/17 – Day 38 
I woke up a little early to record my dialogue for Mari. Some people are auditory learners so she thought hearing the dialogue might help her a little more (English is her second language).

Our morning class was with Ana, a visiting teacher. She had perfect dialogue and great energy but I was still feeling dizzy and awful from the day before that I had trouble getting into my zone. My body was a mess: somewhere on the right side of my upper-mid back was hurting, especially during sit-ups, my ears were still clogged, and my jaw was still hurting. I did everything but it was a disaster. I liked Ana and her class, I just wished I could have given her more.

Again, I was not hungry after class but I ate a something anyway before going to the 4th floor to study again with Maryla. My head was not into it though and my brain was not working so I went back to my room to lay down. Leah was there so we studied together for a little bit but mostly just talked about how miserable we both were, both physically and mentally. We were both incredibly “over it” and being Negative Nancies. At least we were making each other laugh in the process!

Despite our hatred for everything, we made our way to our posture clinics. Eddie took attendance by having us say what city we would like to teach in one day. Tanya (she is in my group) and Mr. Red are building and opening a yoga retreat/studio in Scotland, where they are from, next year so of course I said I would like to go there. I do not really have plans to travel and teach but it would be nice to visit her! Posture clinic was the same as usual; some things never change. Hearing the same old feedback over and over again was starting to frustrate me and my sassy side was brewing. My mood was starting to make me feel argumentative and rebellious. Zero care in the world. I delivered my dialogue and Eddie asked me to be more energetic/loud but I did not have it in me. Nonetheless, I did it a second time. He looked like he wanted to say more to me and I am so glad he did not because I might have snapped. I do not like making excuses when standing up there, we are all going through something so I am not special for feeling crummy, but I really felt like I was going to lose it. Eddie gave us a short break during which I snacked on marshmallows and chatted to him about studios in Houston, my dialogue (I asked him if he was going to say more… he was), and inconsistent feedback (how some tell us not to yell and some tell us to yell). After our break, I had to deliver the next posture, Fixed Firm, from the balcony. That way, I would be forced to yell it. I fumbled a little bit, probably because I was on the balcony, but it was fine. Fixed Firm was a tough one to demo because of the cold, hard floor. It was making my feet hurt!

Leah and I went back to complaining again before the evening class. Why are we here? What are we doing? What is life? Etc. We were just so over it all. All of it. Tired of memorizing dialogue, tired of going to posture clinic, class, and lectures. It was Tuesday and we already wanted a break. I was not feeling well still. My head was in a fog and my brain felt like scrambled eggs. We were joking about running away and how we refuse to be told what to do anymore. Unfortunately, we are in the wrong place for having independence! We definitely had the giggles; it was like we were delirious from all the misery. We also tried practicing our back bends because I have not been able to do a decent one in over a week. FRUSTRATING.

We reluctantly went to the evening class, led by Bikram. It was a good class and I did well despite my garbage attitude and shameful back bend. My standing series was decent, especially the balancing series. My Triangle pose was awesome, too. Micael did a demo for us last Saturday and I really think it helped me with mine. My Locust pose has improved 10x as well. I was feeling strong but burped a personal record number of times. Cute. Bikram came off of the podium to start making corrections, too, and I was just mentally daring him to come near me. I might have had to pull an Ali and start talking back to him! I am telling you, my argumentative side was feeling feisty.

On the way out of the hot room, I ran into Bikram and he pat me on the back and said he was nice to us in class. My response? “Yeah, nicer than yesterday.”

It took everything in me but I forced myself to focus and study in my room for an hour and a half after dinner. At the end of the day, it did not matter how terrible I felt, I still had responsibilities and had to memorize the dialogue. Sigh. Maryla and I walked around afterward. Jessica told me she mailed me a letter 20 days ago but was not sure if I had gotten it yet so I checked with the front desk (spoiler alert: it ended up getting sent back to her). It would have been SO nice to get their letter with my mood the way it was but just knowing that they tried and thought of me was comforting enough.

Before the evening lecture, Manali told us people were busted for kissing in the pool and for taking food out of Chula Vista in tupperware/eating there before the morning class. I would tell you I was surprised but I legitimately was not.

The evening lecture was a true test of my patience. My journal (that I make notes in and use to eventually write this blog) literally says “WTF” in it. Bikram rambled on about who-knows-what. He started off talking about the 4 stages of life, which actually interested me, but then took a tangent. At one point, he started with the “men vs. women” lecture again and that was torture enough the first time we heard it a few weeks ago. I did not need to hear it again. I fundamentally disagree with his views on all of that but it is okay because as he told us, we “are not educated, civilized, or cultured enough to agree” with him (direct quote). If disagreeing with him means I am not those things, then sobeit. I eventually stopped listening to him and started writing my dialogue out, starting off at Half Moon, to test myself, after writing Half Tortoise and Camel out 3x each. Again, I was mentally daring him to say something to me for not listening or for doing something else. I was not looking for a fight but I was prepared for one. All of the negative feelings, which I know are 9x more stronger than positive feelings, were swirling together, brewing, ready to explode out of me. The man was literally jumping from one topic to another like hopscotch and I just picked up bits and pieces of it along the way. At one point he was talking about cars. During another he was talking about all the celebrities he KNEW (he even admitted that he does not know today’s celebrities anymore… therefor basically calling himself irrelevant) and how awesome he is/all the great things he has done. Look, we get it. We paid a shit-ton of money to come to this. We, of all people, do not need to be sold on Bikram yoga and how great it is. Again and again and AGAIN. Good grief! He also went on a spiritual rant about how there is no God. If you have no physical problems, you do not need a doctor. Therefor if you have no spiritual problems, you should not need a God. Alright then. We never learned about the damn 4 stages of life because of all the tangents! He ended the night with a short Q&A session and were out by 12:30am. I recorded more of my dialogue for Mari before going to sleep feeling sore and sad. Womp womp.

Bonus picture of my dad, Suzette, and ELLIOTT with his fresh haircut watching the Astros! Miss that fluff ball.

 

Wednesday 10/25/17 – Day 39 
My whole back hurt when I woke up. Discomfort level = 10. I wish I could explain the feeling. Pain? No. Sore? No. Just complete awfulness.

Before the morning class, Kirsty, Tom, and I were talking about my final breathing exercise. I told them I got called out twice last week so they were giving me a hard time about it, whispering things like “did you hear about that girl Jillian’s awful breathing exercise?” It was all in good fun and we were laughing so much. It was exactly how I needed to start my day. I made a deal with Tom that if he did a perfect Balancing Stick, I would do my final breathing properly. Eddie cannot pronounce anyone’s names properly but class was good. Triangle hurt quite a bit but despite minor aches and cracks, I survived. He complimented my Toe Stand, too. I had told Eddie in posture clinic the day before that he had used “round your spine like an angry cat” during Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee last time he taught and I was listening for him to do it again but he did not. Good job, Eddie. During final breathing, Tom, Kirsty, Andres, and I all started laughing uncontrollably just remembering the jokes from before class started! It was cold, but beautiful, when we got out of class which was a bit of a shock. I felt good after being in the hot room.

I skipped breakfast after class and video chatted with Katy and Paul for an hour and a half instead while I snacked on a protein bar, veggie chips, and marshmallows. They have both obviously been through this process before and understand what I am going through here and what it is like. This experience can be really difficult to explain to people who have not gone through it. I know I write this blog and you all get a little glimpse into it but even this does not give it justice. When people ask me how it is going, it is so much easier to give a short, mostly true answer than make a pathetic attempt at explaining something so indescribable. We had such a nice chat about all sorts of things and as always, they were so supportive and encouraging. They make me laugh and I really needed it. Our conversation could not have come at a more perfect time. There is random ‘scandal’ and ‘drama’ here that we (the trainees) should not go around gossiping about so it was nice to be able to get that off my chest to people who are removed from this but also who can understand it! They also got me excited to teach my first class! I loved hearing about their travels and am so looking forward to their return home, just a few weeks after I get back. I probably should have been studying instead of talking to them but oh well, my mental health needed to talk to them! My phone was plugged in the entire time we were chatting but somehow still managed to die at the end of our conversation, just after it saved 20% of the screenshot I took of us all. They sent me a selfie instead, ha.

Our posture clinic after was with Micael. He gave short feedback so we moved VERY quickly and made it through 3 postures. I paused during my Half Tortoise which felt like an hour long pause but was probably only a few seconds. I corrected myself on one part too which we are not supposed to do. I had no energy and did not feel very prepared but such is life. It was definitely my worst delivery so far but still not terrible. When we moved on to Camel, we all yelled “WOO” like we do in class which made us laugh. Then our WOO turned into a MOOO which is our group “sound” to match our group name: Vacas Traviesa (translation: Naughty Cows). Micael called the staff naughty cows last week so it just kind of stuck, then we decided it would be our name but in Spanish since so many people in our group are Spanish speakers. High five. A group name like the Bengal Tigers or English Bulldogs seemed too obvious (those are terms used in the dialogue). Micael said my dialogue for Camel was perfect and complimented me for emphasizing all of the bold words. FINALLY nailed the bold words! About time. I liked demoing Half Tortoise and Camel, too. It felt good on my back!

During our break, I practiced dialogue on the patio and enjoyed the beautiful weather while snacking on saltine crackers. I had heard it was around 45 degrees F at home in Houston which was mind-boggling!

When I saw Micael walk into the room, I knew we would move fast so I memorized Rabbit pose while people were delivering the other dialogue. That was the first and only posture I memorized in clinic but I am glad I did because we did end up getting to it and I delivered it to get it over with. I messed up a little but that was probably expected considering I learned it right there!

Micael also told us a funny story about someone going cross-eyed during Bow and how it completely caught him off guard. Teachers are always warning us about the crazy things we will see from our students. Cannot wait!

Noteworthy quotes:

• “I want to 360 degree backward bending.” -Pavel (We love you, Pavel! This had us laughing though when said with your Czech accent!)
• “Too good is no good.” -Micael quoting Bikram
• “Excuse me for living.” -Micael quoting Bikram (I love this one. Bikram always says this when he makes a mistake. It is a nice reminder that mistakes are just a part of life.)

We had a brief break before the evening class and I used that time to organize pictures from my phone onto my computer before everything got too jumbled. Between pictures I take, pictures people send me, screenshots I take from Instagram stories, etc. it can become a lot.

It was picture day again for our evening class with Bikram. I suddenly regretted eating an ungodly amount of saltine crackers during posture clinic but it was too late. Alicia, Lidia, and I put our mats near each other and when Bikram walked in, he seemed like he was in the kind of mood to hold us in class for 3 hours. Luckily, that did not happen! Class was tough but I did well. When pictures are being taken, you cannot help but subconsciously push yourself a little harder. My back bend was still not cooperating so I felt bad for being between Alicia and Lidia and ruining any picture Anurag could have taken of their awesome back bends. Bikram called people onto the podium for corrections/demos too:

• Sophia for Half Moon (her Half Moon was fine, he just wanted to show us how to correct someone)
• Alicia/Johanna/Taryn for Standing Bow Pulling (to get their top knee locked! so impressive)
• Jana for floor Bow

Bikram called people out for “fucking” too and threatened to send them home. Yikes! Katy and Paul had referred to Week 6 as “Week Sex” so the timing of their comment, Bikram’s comment, and Manali’s comments the night before… perfect and hilarious. There are a few rumored ‘couples’ here so they could have been referring to anyone but I think we all know who it was. He was still picking on Lidia quite a bit, even if it was for good things.

With all of the breaks for demos and corrections, I drank too much water and by Camel, felt like I was going to vomit. Too much water is not good! Remember how in the morning class, Tom and Kirsty gave me a hard time for final breathing? Well, karma worked at record speed and during the evening class, Bikram called Tom out for his final breathing. Kirsty and I were on opposite sides of the room but made eye contact and started laughing.

Bikram held us in Spine Twisting for FAR too long which was not great because I was feeling dizzy again by then. However, this time when I got out of the hot room, I stayed sitting up (instead of laying) so that I would not get covered in ice again. I also went up to Tom and told Kirsty, “man, did you hear about that guy Tom’s awful final breathing?” We had a nice laugh!

We do not have the official photos yet but here are ones from the Bikram Yoga Instagram story. Check out that amazing Savasana I have going on! I will post the official ones once we get them.

I do not remember the context of this but I had this conversation in my journal. Kirsty, you crack me up.

Kirsty: “Try being on your period and having the shits.”
Me: “That is going on the blog.”
Kirsty: “You can even put my name.”

I did not think I was hungry but when I made it down to dinner, I ate a lot. Surprise. This training really screws with one’s metabolism! I studied in my room afterward but was so tired and could not focus. I just wanted to talk to someone from home or take a nap but I needed to be productive so I left the comfort of my bed and went to the top pool with Lidia to study there. I had hot chocolate from Starbucks even though it was not cold outside (it just sounded good) and I texted Tanja, my friend/instructor from back home, for a little bit about the baffling phrasing for part of the dialogue I was studying. Say this 10x fast: “Create pressure with the left foot sole against the right leg biceps of the thigh muscle.” Seesh.

I mentally “checked out” again for the evening lecture and continued writing my dialogue out instead. I got stuck on a few but remembered most of it. Alicia had to prompt me for Tree pose because I drew a blank but once she gave me the first line, I was set. He did somewhat finish talking about the 4 stages of life though. I took a few notes because when he actually stays focused on a specific AND RELEVANT TOPIC, he can be a decent speaker!

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Bikram yoga is like your ‘underground foundation’ for life – nothing can shake you.”
• “If you’re stuck with your past problems, you’ll never see your future.”

At 12:20am, we started watching that TV show, Mahabharat, again. I repeat, at 12:20am, we started a TV show. Twelve. Twenty. In. The. Morning. He gave us a short break while they got the show ready during which he went and sat in Lidia’s chair while she went to the restroom and told us why he hates tattoos. His fixation on Lidia since last week’s dance party has been intense and quite gross. Everyone noticed it (and makes jokes about not wanting to be near her in the hot room as to not call attention to themselves) and then him going to sit in her chair while she was gone, as if to wait for her… bizarre.

When I was in 7th grade, I had a theater arts teacher (Mr. Lont) act really weird toward me. He would call me out in class a lot and always make me be the ‘example’ of whatever he was teaching. It was a theater class so I was constantly being called on. I hated it. Then, he started to get weird. I had his class 6th period but there would be days where he would wait for me after 7th period and “walk me” to my bus. There was one day he followed me to my 7th period French class and sat in my chair and would not leave until I spoke French to him. I refused to go in the room. He was creeping me out. I told my parents about and we talked to the school and for the last week of the semester (a.k.a my final week of Mr. Lont’s class), I did not have to go to his class. My 7th period French teacher did not have a 6th period class so I was allowed to sit in her classroom instead: shout out to Mrs. Hansen, the best of the best. Years later, after I graduated college, I saw a story online about Mr. Lont being arrested for sex with a minor (a student of his). I tell you that story to say that Bikram sitting in Lidia’s chair reminded me of Mr. Lont sitting in mine back in 7th grade. It was just bizarre and uncomfortable. With all the allegations that surround Bikram, I would like to think he would be a little more cautious with his behavior to be very sure he is making no implications of any kind. Baffling. (Note: He has not made advances on Lidia… that is not what I am saying. It was just a weird, incredibly noticeable, uncomfortable amount of attention she was suddenly getting.)

Anyway, I slept on and off throughout the TV show which was a shame because as horrible as it is, I actually like watching it and wanted to know the story. It was freezing in the room and I was just so done. We are not supposed to sleep and I felt bad but whatever. I knew I would probably be sore the next day because of how I had to contortion my body on the chairs but again, whatever. We watched the TV show until 1:50am but because it is a rare occasion where I can just lay down and fall asleep instantly, I was up until after 2:30am.

 

Thursday 10/26/17 – Day 40
My back was not feeling any better today. My whole body was wicked sore. I was also extremely tired from the late night but I am sure we all were. Lu, a visiting teacher, taught our morning class: class #60! Lu was on staff for the Spring training and visited us earlier in our training but this was her first class teaching us. She had the most perfect dialogue and even taught a little in Spanish. I loved her energy and she moved around the podium like she was ‘conducting’ us. Her body language was so expressive which was nice to see since most teachers are not like that. I feel like I will be expressive too once I get a little more comfortable but maybe not to her level. I liked it though! I totally, 100% got into my meditation and class flew by. I did not think my body was going to cooperate but when you are in your zone like that, everything just works perfectly. I did so well, especially for a morning class. It was a perfect class and just what I needed as we approached the end of the week.

Tina, Kirsty, Jana, and I had a nice chat at breakfast about the training “process” and Bikram and all of our positive and negative feelings towards everything. We are all just trying to keep a low profile and survive! Week 6 really took it out of everyone. I studied in my room afterward and succumbed to a 30 minute nap. When I woke up, I helped Leah with her Standing Head to Knee and getting her forehead to her knee. Tanja once gave me some advice on where to look as you move your head in so that you do not lose your balance so maybe that will help Leah a bit! She made Demo Team and was nervous about that posture but luckily she has a few weeks left to work on it. She will be great!

Ana, a visiting teacher, facilitated our posture clinic. We were looking forward to having her because we had heard such great things about her from the other groups. She had great advice and we moved pretty quickly. At one point, Manali came in and totally stalled. They want us to finish posture clinic next week but at the rate everyone was going, we would be finished at the end of this week so I felt like teachers were intentionally stalling. Ana had several people re-do Rabbit pose and then with Manali’s interruption… stall tactics. I kept studying Head to Knee with Stretching because it was such a tough one to get. Plus, I was tired and my stomach hurt from the entire bag of sour gummy worms I had eaten earlier. When it was my turn, I nailed the insane sentence (“Create pressure with the left foot sole against the right leg biceps of the thigh muscle.”) which gave me some bonus points but I fumbled a little bit at the end. I completely blanked and had to improvise, officially making it my worst posture delivery, but Ana still gave me good feedback. I knew I would mess up so it was probably a self-fulfilling prophecy. Alicia went after me and nailed the tough sentence too (and ironically, missed the parts of the dialogue that I had said and said the parts of the dialogue that I had missed). Veronica also nailed the tough sentence. Bonus points for us! I will never forget that damn sentence.

I rested in the room after clinic. I was so not in the mood for the evening class with Bikram: the theme of the week. I ran into Ali before class and he asked how my week was going and when I said it was not well, he told me I was killing it with my dialogue and my blog and said I looked happy anyway. He also started calling me Superstar which I do not totally hate. It was a rough week but I am glad that I looked happy to other people. My brain was NOT in the room for class and I remember almost nothing about it. I was just waiting for Bikram to yell at me for looking so pathetic. I mean, I did everything but I did not do it with any passion or care. He had Lidia go into full Camel and then stood on her hips. After everything with him this week, I just had to roll my eyes at it. Poor Lidia. He tried to do it with Sara too but could not get it, for whatever reason. Mari also did the advanced Standing Separate Leg Stretching pose (guillotine) and it was super impressive. I thought she was going to fall over!

On my way to dinner, Vinny and I crossed paths and he asked how it was going, too, and I said I was hanging in there. He looked surprised and said I looked “fresh as a daisy” for someone just hanging in there. Fake it until you make it, right? Regardless, it put a smile on my face. Dinner was quick because I wanted to video chat with Jessica and the girls for a little bit. It was nice to see them. It definitely has started to hit me a little harder when I am missing out on stuff, especially as a Halloween approaches. Just hearing about what is going on with them makes me feel a little better.

Maryla and I studied for a little bit before the evening lecture and walked around. This was the only picture I took this day and it was because I needed a picture-of-the-day for Instagram (and because I needed to study dialogue for Spine Twisting but was stalling). My Instagram quotes were pretty sad and pathetic this week, too. Dramatic.

I felt like an ass when I walked into the lecture room and they had the anatomy test results posted on the wall. I was so sure we never got our results! It just further proved how little I actually knew about the Spring training… so people should stop relying on me for answers now. I was wrong and I know nothing! Anyway, I got a 93 out of 110, the highest score in my group. High five. I still believe the scores mean absolutely nothing and everyone is going to graduate regardless, but whatever.

Bikram’s evening lecture was about “maintenance” and the overall message was solid but his roundabout, ass backwards way of explaining it was a little much for me. He spent the whole time bragging about himself, everyone he knows, everyone he has helped, how awesome he is, and so on and so on. It has gotten to be a little repetitive (as has this blog and my rants about everything). If I have to hear about Shirley MacClaine one more time… sigh. He insults the “western world” every chance he gets but at the same time, worships it because it is what “made” him. He is not entirely wrong about his accusations about it all but seesh. Enough is enough. The egocentric lectures just take away time from what we are there to learn about: the yoga. It can be very frustrating. I try to take everything with a grain of salt and smile/laugh at it all and I like think I had been pretty successful at it for the first 5 weeks but with the week I had, I was done. So. Done. He just wants us to tell him how awesome he is, how right he is, and agree with him. I can admit that more often than not, I like what he has to say and even find it interesting but something about this week just really got under my skin. I love this yoga that he created and I truly believe in it, I would not be here if I did not… none of us would… but I would LOVE to spend more time learning more about the YOGA part of it all than hearing a sales pitch on himself. They keep saying our posture clinics with Bikram will start soon and I am looking forward to that portion of this. Thankfully, he let us out at 12:10am. Deep breath. One more day.

 

Friday 10/27/17 – Day 41
Anurag taught the morning class, class #62 and the official 2/3 mark. It was a standard class and had significantly fewer “just a couple more seconds” at the end of each posture! He and Manali always pick on each other during class: he asked if it was hot in the room and she yelled, “You’re hot!” and then he made her demo Tree pose on the podium. All in good fun. He seems like a nice guy and after everything that happened this week, I could not help but wonder about his feelings on all of “this”: the yoga, his dad, the training, everything. He never really seems happy to be here and responds with the most depressing “yeah” whenever his dad (Bikram) asks him a question. I wonder if he ever gets embarrassed by all of it, especially Bikram’s dirty jokes. Does he want to be here or does he HAVE to be here? I have so many questions. I should have been focusing on my performance in class but sometimes your mind wanders.

I had the fastest breakfast of all time because I needed to start AND finish memorizing Spine Twisting before posture clinic. I had not even started it yet and I knew it was going to be a tough one. I rewarded myself with chocolate as I memorized each paragraph and had the entire thing down in 1 hour. Amazing what a person can accomplish with a little focus and the proper motivation. I am highly motivated by food and I am okay with that.

Leah came back to the room just as I was wrapping up and I said the dialogue for her. She pointed out that memorizing Spine Twisting meant I was officially FINISHED with memorizing dialogue!! My energy level immediately shot up. That had not even crossed my mind for a single second. Technically, you are never ‘finished’ studying dialogue (you can learn ‘left side’ for some of the postures or ‘additional dialogue/corrections’) but for the sake of training, I was finished and it was exciting!

I headed to posture clinic and brought my study chocolate for everyone. Partly because my group is awesome and deserving of it, and partly because I did not want to end up eating it all by myself and hating myself later. We had Karla and Alzbeta, a visiting teacher, in our room. Karla, once again, took no shit. She gave a lot of feedback but mostly about people still not putting in effort or having progressed enough this late in the game. Some people need that push. When we all finished Head to Knee with Stretching, Karla gave a little speech that almost made it sound like we were already finished entirely. She reminded of us of how far we have all come throughout this. We only had time for two people to deliver Spine Twisting so Alicia and I both went to get it out of the way and officially, officially be finished and free up our weekend from studying! Their feedback to me was to work on slowing down and taking pauses but I had just learned it earlier that morning and I was excited so I just had to spit the words out. Alzbeta asked if I had my first class scheduled and I told her when it was. Everyone was surprised to hear it was so soon after graduation but I figured I might as well rip the bandaid off and go for it as soon as possible. The way I see it, everyone at my studio is supportive of me and wants to see me do well so there is no reason to be scared of them!

Noteworthy quotes:

• “When the guy stands on the podium, all the girls are happy.” -Alzbeta (and so true)

Leah and I ate chips again before the evening class. Daily quote from one or both of us: “Omg I have eaten too many chips.”

Our evening class was taught by Dash, a visiting teacher, instead of Bikram. Bikram had been having eye pains all week and finally went to the doctor who removed a bunch of calcium deposits and told him to not go into the hot room for 24 hours. It was a good class and quite honestly, I was kind of happy to not have Bikram. People were joking before class about not putting their mats near Lidia’s because of all the attention on her but it ended up being alright since he was not there! It was another standard class and I did well, probably because of all the adrenaline from being finished with dialogue. I liked his energy and he had great dialogue. He joked around with us a little bit too which helps keep the mood light.

Several of us went to the ocean after class. We only have a few weeks left so we need to take advantage of it! The sun has started to set earlier and the weather has been getting cooler so time is limited. Plus, when you have a good class and it is the end of the week, you have to go to the ocean.

I had a quick, quick dinner and then went to my room to watch Netflix alone in the dark. I needed space from people because I was feeling really stressed about a few things. I knew Jana would understand so I sent her a message and I was right, she totally understood. Thank you, Jana, for always listening!

Leah got back from dinner and somehow we got to talking about how neither of us had shaved our legs in days and how we were both looking forward to finally shaving on Saturday. Leah said it best: “I am turning into a bear.” Same, girl.

I spent all day wishing, hoping, and willing that there would be no evening lecture. I was not right… but I was not wrong. Bikram only chatted for a few minutes before putting on what turned out to be a pretty decent movie: Johdaa Akbar. It starred the same guy from the first Bollywood movie we watched and was long as hell (3.5 hours) but I really enjoyed it.

Movie thoughts:

• I loved when the guys wearing planter’s pots on their heads had a musical number. It was catchy and entertaining. Maybe a few minutes too long, though.
• The Emperor and Empress (the main couple and probably the two most attractive people of all time), who had so much sexual tension you could cut it with a knife, had a sword fight and then “eye fucked the shit out of each other.” (Quote from ‘Wedding Crashers.’) It was intense and we were all super engaged in it.
• I did not understand why it was such a big deal that the Empress eat the food she made for the Emperor. I mean, I get that it was protocol for the chef to taste the food so that the Emperor would not be poisoned but they seemed to make it a big deal. Maybe women were not supposed to eat in front of me? I do not know.
• The Emperor’s west nurse is the definition of a true B.
• The Emperor was practicing sword fighting half naked and the crowd (us) went wild. Bikram said, “I knew you guys would do that.” Ha. It is Week Sex, remember?
• When the Emperor and Empress finally implied they were going to be intimate and started cuddling on the floor, Bikam said, “Doing it on the floor? Bad for the knees! Fixed firm pose!” We all laughed but man, no words. We all cheered at the movie though!
• Bikram should turn the microphone off while the movie is going because hearing his stuffy nose the whole time was driving me crazy.
• The staff was not even in the room for the majority of the time! But they have seen this move a million times, I am sure.
• Maryla and I snacked on chips. Her giant duffel bag is always full of surprises.

We were out at 1:50am! Yikes. Apparently there is a “part 2” of the movie, too. I hope we watch that here!

Saturday 10/28/17 – Day 42 
My neck and shoulders were not feeling any better but it was the last class of the week so I was excited. Apparently on Saturdays we can put our mat anywhere and not stick to our group row: 6 weeks in and that was the first time I had heard that! Micael led class and he was fabulous, as always. His classes never disappoint. It started off a little rough for me but by Standing Head to Knee, I was in the zone. He made us laugh the whole time with quick one-liners and under -his-breath sarcasm. Anurag told us a few weeks ago to come up with group names and sounds and since our name is Naughty Cows, our group sound is “Moooo.” At one point, everyone started doing their sound and it made him laugh! Glad we could return the favor.

After class, Taryn (who practiced near me most of the week but not this particular class) gave me some advice for my Eagle and Standing Bow Pulling postures. That damn Eagle pose is going to be the death of me! I still need to get her tips and tricks for being able to do Full Wheel… for when/if I can ever do my back bend again.

I enjoyed a long breakfast talking with Maryla, Nadine, Vinny, and Christine about dialogue, our first classes, and everything yoga-related. Bikram came down the steps at one point in another one of his fabulous mesh shirts and he talked to us for a few minutes. What a character.

After the way I felt all week, I decided to take the day for some alone time. I washed all my hot room clothes and a few other tanks/tops. I went through all my clothes and packed up things I had not worn yet: if I had not worn it in 6 weeks, I figured I would not wear it in the remaining 3. I just wanted to get stuff out of the way… or maybe I was subconsciously wishing I was heading home! Not quite, but maybe. Kelly Clarkson’s new album was recently released so I listened to that and really loved it. A lot.

Jessica sent me a video of Bailey’s Halloween dance performance and I almost cried because it was so freaking cute. I tried to video chat Bailey to tell her how cute it was but she was so embarrassed and would not sit still. It was adorable. I hate missing out but am thankful Jessica always sends me stuff like that to include me. I really miss my sister and them.

I stalled for a few hours with all of that but finally sat down and started this blog. Y’all know by now that this takes forever so the idea of writing it was a bit overwhelming. I buckled down and did it, watching Netflix throughout. Of course. I felt bad about staying in my room all day but it was raining off and on and I know I desperately needed the peace and quite to recharge. Leah kept reminding me that it was okay to not be social all the time and to just hide. Done and done.

Lidia, Maryla, and I had our weekly Saturday night dinner at Tavola. It was great, as always. We talked about yoga a lot before realizing we needed to stop talking about yoga! It is all consuming right now! We also noticed that we are all starting to talk and sound like Bikram and in “Bikram English.” We talk using the dialogue phrases. It is crazy.

We love the 20-minute chocolate ball.

After dinner, I went back to my room to keep blogging and watching Netflix until I fell asleep.

 

Sunday 10/29/17 – Day 43 
Apparently, Mexico’s daylight savings is a few days before the United States’ so last night, the clock got moved back 1 hour and we all got an extra hour of sleep. Until November 5th when the US has theirs, I will be 1 hour ahead of y’all at home. I stayed in bed until about 10am, watching Netflix after I woke up, and then got up to take my first epsom salt bath of the training. My back was in desperate need. I am not quite sure it helped and I am not typically a “bath person” but I was feeling so lazy that it was actually nice.

I watched Netflix and blogged a little more until Leah came back to the room and we went to meet Lidia for lunch at The Beach Club. Yum. It was rainy and I was cold but still beautiful out. I wished I had a jacket!

After lunch, I went right back to my room, put sweatpants on, and curled up in bed with Netflix. I still need to keep reviewing dialogue and being sure I am 100% ready for my first class but for this weekend, I think I deserve a dialogue break!

Maryla wanted to go for a walk so we went on a long walk down the beach. We ran into Matt so we scooped him up to join us and I stopped to get ice cream, too. It was a much-needed walk after a weekend of doing nothing so it was nice. We walked for probably a mile or a mile and a half before calling it quits.

I took another epsom salt bath and started another movie on Netflix. Hopefully I have done enough of nothing this weekend to be ready for another full week ahead!

I also chatted with Baba and Grandma for about half an hour! They make me laugh.

 

Weekly Summary
What a week. Remember last week when I said I was totally fine? That was true but it all hit me like a ton of bricks this week and I was done, kind of like babies #1-7 from the TV show, Mahabharat, that were murdered by the King after being thrown against a wall. Bad joke? Too soon? My head was in a fog and nothing made sense/worked all week. My patience was low. My energy was low. I could not figure out what was wrong: I was eating (although I mostly stopped eating a protein bar before the morning class; when I ate it, I would feel full during class but when I did not, I would be starving during. Could not win.), I was sleeping. I do not know what it was. Everything felt so un-explainable and out of my control, which I hate. I started picking at my eyebrows again so you know it was bad! I was feeling worried/anxious about re-certification week (Week 8), too, because there will be a lot of extra people here and a lot of commotion! Ah.

Katy commented on one of my Facebook posts that I was a machine: the same nickname Maryla uses for me every day. You know who the real machine is? Tanya’s husband, Brian, a.k.a Mr. Red! He not only took ALL 11 classes with us this week (after only doing Bikram yoga 2-3 times a month before), but he also took all of Bikram’s comments to him like a true champ!

We have 3 weeks remaining here. 6 weeks down, 3 left. I can do it. We can do it. We will do it. We have to do.

Fingers crossed for a better 7th week!

Until next time,

Jillian

 

Bonus Mini Tour 

My view waking up at 7:30am:

Walking down the hall, down the stairs, and to the hot room:

Our hot room and its crazy stairs, water stations, clean towel table/dirty towel bin:

Post-class balcony and my journal (I jot down thoughts after each class/clinic/lecture):

Our elevator lobby, mezzanine stairs, path to Chula Vista:

Chula Vista and its the breakfast spread including the smoothie and omlet stations:

The back pathway out of Chula Vista:

There is not much to show with our clinic rooms – they are just empty hotel rooms. I will take pictures of the lecture room next week!

We have completed 53 classes and 5 weeks! Week 5 was probably one of the fastest weeks I have had here. We made it through so much dialogue in our posture clinics, Bikram finally came back, we hit the halfway point of training, and ended the week with a much-needed pizza and dance party!

 

Monday 10/16/17 – Day 30
Monday kicked off with a morning class from Tom after Manali asked why I looked say during her pre-class speech. I was not sad! Tom was teaching, how could I be sad? Eddie had everyone squeeze into the middle of the room initially and people were not comprehending how to do that. Yoga brain, I am assuming. Tom led a great class and I did pretty well considering it was a Monday morning. He made us laugh, encouraged us, energized us, and gave us enough breaks. Between one of the sets, he said, “Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. You are allowed to breathe on your own from here on out.” That made me laugh because it was a clever way to remind us to keep breathing! Tom also reminded us, “no matter what, never skip Camel.” Wise words, Tom. His savasana song was “Hot in Here” by Nelly: classic.

I had a quick breakfast then reviewed my anatomy notes and studied dialogue on the mezzanine with Maryla. The lobby was still too full from all of the other hotel events – I miss the lobby! She kindly reminded me that people tend to give their attention to others who need it and neglect the ones who are okay. I do not remember how that got brought up but I am sure I was probably frustrated about something and she was putting it into perspective for me, as always.

Our afternoon posture clinic was incredibly productive. We took some fun group pictures (minus Alonso who was running late), took our last anatomy test, and made it through nearly 3 postures: finished Standing Head to Knee, started and finished Standing Bow Pulling, and started Balancing Stick.

Eddie was quite the talker which sometimes slowed our pace but he and Robyn gave us valuable feedback. Robyn had a very positive attitude and was really encouraging for people who needed it. You cannot always beat people down and give them negative feedback, even if they are not doing well. Some people respond better to encouraging words and she did a good job building those people up. They also reminded the class about proper “teaching costume:” hair tied back, yoga clothes (pants/shorts, tank top, etc.). I was glad they finally said something because we were told that on the first day of clinics but people must have forgotten. People in the group have been doing so much better at memorizing the dialogue than the previous weeks so it was really exciting to see their improvement.

Robyn also recognized me from the Spring graduation (she sat in front of me and we talked about yoga mats for a few minutes) which was surprising. I talked to her during our break and Eddie admitted he recognized me, too. Spotted! Eddie and I talked about the Houston studios (he knows the owner of the Sugarland one) and about my first class.

Y’all know I can talk fast, right? Well, Eddie wanted everyone to talk faster when delivering Balancing Stick (the posture is only supposed to be 10 second but there is at least 60 seconds worth of dialogue – everyone knows that in a real-life situation, you’d cut almost all the dialogue out but for the sake of posture clinic, we had to say it all to prove we knew it). Some people prefer to go first while they still have the words fresh on their mind so after a few people went, I hopped up there. I wanted to go while we had Eddie and Robyn because I knew if we had a different teacher later in the evening clinic, there was a chance for inconsistent feedback and they would not want me to talk as fast as Eddie was suggesting we talk. I had to go while we had them! I went and said the entire dialogue in probably 2 or 3 breaths, without missing a single beat. Eddie said I did great and that I did not miss a word but that he was worried I was going to pass out. My feedback from them was to learn how to breathe from my diaphragm. I made a joke that it was the only time they were going to let me talk fast so I had to advantage of it! We were let out of clinic just before 4pm.

When I got back to the room, I noticed our toiletries near the sink had been reorganized and there was a towel under our stuff now. At first I thought Leah had gotten bored and done it but when she got back, she said it was not her. Housekeeping had done it! I was okay with that, it looked nicer this way! P.S. We wear our robes to and from class so that we do not have to dirty our actual clothes.

I had some snacks before the evening class with Anurag. Before class, Robyn reminded me that I am not responsible for other people and their dialogue. I finally accepted that information over the previous weekend when Tom and Jonalyn whipped me into shape but it never hurts to remind me, especially since I have a tendency to make other people’s problems my own. Anurag’s class was good; I did well and I felt good even though the class was not very hot. Class went by incredibly fast, too, which is always nice. I enjoy Anurag’s classes because he has such a soothing voice and is so encouraging but every teacher has their little quirks and his were making me laugh. He says “just a few more seconds” at the end of almost every posture!

Dinner was nice but I decided no desserts this week so that was a bummer. Earlier in the afternoon, I did finish off the caramel chocolate Andrew had left me. But after that, no desserts! I was so exhausted though that I just wanted to rest so I went back to my room and watched Netflix until posture clinic.

We had another posture clinic in the evening. Ulesis and Jolinda were our facilitators. We had not met Ulesis yet and when he walked in the room and introduced himself, my stomach dropped. He was the ONLY person I was ‘warned’ about before coming here! I had not actually heard any details, though, so I did not know what to expect. He was a little crazy and all over the place but I really enjoyed him. He said he would not spend a lot of time on feedback so our group could catch up on postures (we were a little behind) but then he proceeded to give a lot of feedback to everyone and talk a lot. I liked what he had to say and learned a lot about teaching and the postures but I wished he had not gotten our hopes up that we would be moving quickly! It is great that we have different teachers each clinic so that we can get to know different people and different people can get to know us but I think it makes it very challenging to give consistent and valuable feedback across the board. Every new person we meet has to start from scratch with us. They do not know what we have already been told or how we have been doing so clinics can really drag out. For example, almost everyone asks “who have you been studying with?” We should not need to answer that every time. Some teachers say to do all of the dialogue, some are okay with just part of it. Etc. None of us know what to do half the time when the message is always changing. I am happy to play the game but it is tough to play it when I do not know the rules. Does that make sense? Ah! I was glad I finished Balancing Stick earlier with Eddie.

Anyway, Ulesis told us we have to build trust with our students by being honest and sticking to our word so he kind of broke my trust by not doing as he had promised (to not give a lot of feedback and then by giving a lot of feedback). It made me worried for when we would have to take his yoga class!

I did genuinely like the guy, though. He really, truly listened to our dialogue delivery (some teachers talk during) and had his hand over his heart for the people that struggled, as if he was trying to send them love. He was sweet.

I did my dialogue for Standing Separate Leg Stretching and got great feedback. I always worry that I will forget the dialogue when I am up there but everything (so far) has been okay and flowed naturally. When you know it well enough, you can say it without thinking and this was one I knew well enough. Ulesis was the first teacher to give me positive feedback without a catch. Others have said, “that was great… but…” and he did not do that which I appreciated. It was nice to just be told I was doing well with no strings attached. He said I was great and asked me when I was moving to New York to teach at his studio in Manhattan. I said I would come visit and he insisted that I do. Who knows if that will play out or if he will remember me but it was nice to know he thought I could be good enough.

I noticed that people in my group who used to struggle were starting to do really well and gain the confidence to stand up and say their dialogue. Their memorization has gotten so much better and it is awesome to see everyone grow so much in such a short time. We all have something to be proud of! On the flip side, people who were doing amazing at first were starting to struggle a little more. We all have dialogue “banks:” a queue of postures we already have memorized and I think our banks were starting to empty because we were moving so quickly through everything. My bank of postures was almost drained so I am about to be right there with them, staying up late to study new postures and whatnot. We will all get through it, no matter what, so we just need to hang in there.

We were out a little after midnight but Leah, my roommate, and I always stay up a little extra longer to talk about what happened in our groups and how we did! We are different but we have a lot of the same opinions on things and it is nice knowing I can come back to our room and we can both just be open and honest about our thoughts of the day without judgement.

 

Tuesday 10/17/17 – Day 31
Leah and I slept a little longer than usual – the beginnings of a bad habit. I woke up feeling like we would be running late but we were fine and got to class at the same time we always do. Tyroon (spelling?) murdered us in the morning class for nearly 2 hours. He spent 40 minutes on the warm up which is typically 25 minutes so, yeah. The class moved in slow motion and I was so hungry since I did not eat my protein bar. Each posture has a sequence of events within it and he did so many out of them out of order. It was particularly noticeable in Standing Head to Knee when he had us lift our foot up before rounding down to grab it and in Standing Bow Pulling when he had us lift our arm up before grabbing our ankle. We were all confused. All I could think the entire class was:

1. You are supposed to kill our bodies, not our spirits.
2. Savasanas exist in between postures for a reason.

Class was a struggle but even so, I did alright. I managed. My left shoulder bothered me during Floor Bow and Camel but it was fine. He did not have a savasana song but instead talked to us. I had no idea what he was saying but it was incredibly relaxing and I almost fell asleep. A nice little bonus there at the end.

I got to talk to Tom and Jonalyn a little more at breakfast while waiting in the omelet line. They had skipped the morning class and had asked me how it was. I told them my 2 thoughts above and that they were lucky they had the option to skip! I also showed them the time lapse video of Bailey and I doing yoga. Cue the awes.

Jana’s table was leaving but she was nice enough to stay back with me while I ate and we had a nice chat about the morning class and our posture clinics/groups. We are in different groups but I know she is kicking ass!

On my way out from breakfast, Manali stopped and talked to me by the pastries. I may or may not have been grabbing a cinnamon roll to go when she approached me and called me out for my sweet tooth. We talked about that and other things when out of no where she said, “You do not have any tattoos, right?” UGH! I told her that I did and her face dropped and she responded with a very upset and disappointed, “oh no!” She asked me where (on my left ankle) and said she was surprised she never noticed it and implied she probably had not seen it because she liked me.

Sidenote: Every training has a Demo Team. The Demo Team is made up of around 15 people, all chosen by the staff towards the end of training, to demo the postures in unison during graduation. They have extra practices to prepare and are given matching costumes, etc. You cannot be on Demo Team if you have a tattoo. When I saw the Demo Team perform at the Spring graduation, I thought it would be cool if I could be on it if I ever went to training but that was quickly squashed when I learned that tattoo rule.

I told Manali, “I know, I know” and she asked what I knew. I said that I knew it meant I could not be on Demo Team and she nodded. I told her I had unfortunately and reluctantly accepted that fact back in June. She said I was on her “list of people” to be considered! Now, if you read last week’s blog, you know that I have trouble believing the staff when they say things so she may or may not have been pulling my leg but damn. It was nice to have been thought of and potentially considered though. There are plenty of amazing people here, with and without tattoos, and I am certainly not a stand out but that was nice of her to imply that and it made me feel a little good.

I reviewed dialogue for Triangle and Standing Separate Leg Stretching with Maryla. She and Lidia had bought me chocolate covered pretzel sticks at Walmart last weekend so I snacked on those while the 3 of us laid on their floor for 5 minutes to center ourselves before posture clinic. They are the best!

Posture clinic went really well. Tom and Micael were our staff and we finished Standing Separate Leg Stretching (I volunteered to demo because that posture is awesome and it is better than sitting on the cold, hard floor for so long), made it through Triangle pose, and started Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee. Tom and Micael both believe in only giving a little feedback which helped move us along (finally). You either know the dialogue or not, everything else will come with time, practice, and experience. My dialogue for Triangle went well even though I mixed up a few words in one of lines. It was not too noticeable though. Tom made an example of me: that there is no magic formula to knowing dialogue, it just takes saying it over and over and over again until you know it to your core. Demoing Triangle 3 times was significantly MORE difficult than delivering the dialogue though. Torture.

I was also able to do my dialogue for Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee and when I finsihed that one, Tom said, “Damn. You did not miss a single word. Damn.” I rarely, do Tom. *jokes* Everyone should have gone while we had Tom and Micael! I was surprised more people were not jumping on the opportunity to deliver dialogue in front of guys who already admitted they do not give a lot of feedback. Also, during one of our breaks, Tom snacked on Cocoa Krispies and I respected that. I finished off my chocolate covered pretzel sticks but definitely considered offering a trade with him.

Our evening class was with Ulesis. It was a long class, clocking in at almost 2 hours. It was incredibly hot, hotter than usual, and I was drenched. He held us in Half Moon for what felt like an entire lifetime. The class started off really tough and I was dizzy for most of the standing series but it got better as it went on. My abdomen was hurting so badly and my left shoulder was hurting during Camel still but I made it through. Bikram told us later in the week that if your abdomen was hurting, take a deep breath and do a backbend: that would have have come in handy! He reminded us that sitting down and/or leaving the room is contagious: when one person does it, everyone starts to do it. It really disrupts the energy in the room (exception: if someone is actually dying).

Noteworthy quotes:

• The only way to let something go is to give it your 100% so you know you gave it all you could. It is complete. You left nothing pending.

I swam with Maryla after class. The weather was nice but overcast and it was nice to relax my muscles. We talked about our posture clinics earlier in the day and studied Tree Pose. I did not have a picture yet for my Instagram picture-of-the-day and the black swan looked comfortable on our way to the pool so he (or she?) was lucky enough to my subject. Congrats, you are a famous bird now.

The lobby was finally empty of the extra hotel guests so I studied there after enjoying an awesome zucchini dish at dinner.

Our evening lecture was with Ulesis. He gave a great lecture on breathing, teaching, energy, and our own practice. He had us do a few breathing exercises and they were very, very cool. I was smiling like an idiot during one of them because he was saying that you should feel tingling and feel the breath go around your body and that weird sensation was making me laugh, mostly out of discomfort and feeling stupid. Not that I did not enjoy the breathing exercises, I completely did! I just normally think that stuff is not real and then when I started to feel it, I could not help but laugh at myself. It pushed me out of my comfort zone. I loved everything he said to us and was not sure why I was warned about him. Maybe his tough classes? Tough classes do not make him a bad teacher!

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Offer the beauty within yourself, the victory within yourself, the glory within yourself. Destroy the enemy.” -Ulesis’ Savasana song that I do not know the name of (and that Manali sang to us at the beginning of lecture)
• “We came from God and our ultimate destination is to return to him. The end, and the means to that end, is yoga.” -Yogananda
• “Breathing is your life. Your life starts with a breath and ends with a breath. They don’t count your fingers first!”
• “Life is a series of breaths.”
• “If there is life, there is prana.”
• “Life is simple, just breathe.”
• “The harder you practice, the harder you breathe.”
• “When I speak, I move the earth.”
• “Your spine is the source of all energy in your body.”
• “Welcome to the Bikram Yoga torture chamber, haunted house in Disneyland… no windows, no doors.” -Bikram (Ulesis quoting Bikram)

The worst part of the night was that right before the end of the lecture, he wanted to share a chant with us. While they were getting ready for it, I checked my phone to see the time. Worst. Mistake. Ever. I saw a message from someone at my studio back home and I let it put a damper on my whole evening. The content of the message was only 25% of what upset me though, 75% of my frustration was the fact that the message was sent at all. It was hurtful, selfish, and confusing. I was so distracted by it and so upset that I did not hear what the chant was about and could not focus during it. Instead, I held back tears for the entire thing and got so mad thinking about if or how I should reply to it. You know what the worst part of the whole thing was? Bikram always says that if you let anyone steal your happiness, you are a loser. Even the person who sent me the message says in their own class when they teach to not to let anyone steal your peace. Yet, I still let someone steal my peace for the evening. I was mad at myself for having an opportunity to put into practice everything I have learned here and I failed. It was a test and I did not do well. My night was rough and I had so much trouble sleeping and calming myself down that I had to take my anxiety medication so I would not have a full blown anxiety attack. Even having to do that made me mad. Thankfully, a friend from back home was up late and was able to help talk me through it and help distract me and calm me down until I fell asleep. Spoiler alert: I was 100% fine the next day so maybe I have learned something here. Normally, something like that would have upset me for days and days but it only lasted one night. Baby steps.

Lecture was out a little after midnight but I was up until probably 1:30am.

 

Wednesday 10/18/17 – Day 32 – HALFWAY!
I did not sleep well (see above) and tossed and turned a lot. I woke up a few times, too, so I ended up getting out of bed a little later than I planned. I knew the morning class was going to be with Jonalyn though so that helped get me up and moving. She and Tom had mentioned they brought some shirts from their studio so when I came down the stairs to the studio, Tom handed me a shirt. A few people got different ones. That was so nice of them to bring them for us and for them to give me one! Tom designed them and the one I got is the camel cigarette logo but it says ‘A Camel a day keeps the doctor away’ and instead of cigarettes or whatnot on it, it has a picture of the Camel pose. I cannot wear it here because it is green (and we are not allowed to wear green) but I love it! Jonalyn’s class was awesome, tough, and entertaining, as usual. She says all of the same things other teacher say about leaving the room and not sitting down but she does it in a way that is kind and compassionate that makes us want to follow her. She is good. My standing series was a bit rough but I did better over time. Karl left at one point and she jokingly said, “Karl must have explosive diarrhea” (implying that there is no other reason to be leaving the hot room during class) and we all laughed. We love you, Karl! She also said that Camel pose is like giving birth because it “hurts like hell and I yell at you to push, push, push!” Tom and Manali were in the back of the room playing around and causing a ruckus too. It was a good time. It was also her final class with us as she and Tom were heading back to California afterward. We are lucky to have had them come visit us and get to know them more. I think we all want them to adopt us.

Maryla and I went swimming again after class and practiced dialogue for Tree pose and Toe Stand before breakfast. After breakfast (I am going to miss this breakfast when I go back home!), we studied more on the mezzanine. I kept saying “Tree Stand” so that should give you an indication of how my brain was operating at the time. My dialogue bank was getting lower and I was not feeling as confident with these postures, even though I knew them. It was tough to focus. Plus, the two are so alike that it was easy to mix them up.

I needed to just go lay down so I went back to my room and then Leah and I ran through the dialogue a few more times while snacking on chips. We have a chip problem!

Eddie and Nancy led my group’s posture clinic for the afternoon. They had us do attendance by saying our favorite birthday gift and all I could think about was when my best friend, Kelsey, send me Tiff’s Treats for my last birthday so I said that! Yum. We finished Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee, Tree, and Toe Stand. They had us delivery Tree and Toe together, back to back. Talk about confusing. Luckily, I did not say Tree Stand when I was up there and while I did fumble a little bit on Tree, I did not miss anything. I also wanted to say “Stand tall and stand proud!” at the end of it because it is my favorite part of Jerome’s class (from my studio at home) but I held back. Eddie called me the Dialogue Queen but told me to keep focusing on emphasizing bold words (which I did… and other people told me after class that I had…) and sarcastically said I might have missed an ‘and’ or a period. Knowing the dialogue is only half the battle. Delivering it confidently and whatnot is the other half but I know that ability will come with time. I was confident in the first postures because I knew them so well. One day I will know these (and the floor series) well enough, too, and it will all be okay. I was also so tired that I was nodding off and trying so hard to stay awake while other people delivered theirs. I cannot stand when other people talk while someone is delivering dialogue so it would probably be worse for me to fall asleep!

Posture clinics are a great place for us to practice giving dialogue and I wish people knew that. It is all PRACTICE. It is not about being perfect in there. Sometimes people make excuses or justifications if they do poorly or apologize if they mess up but all of that is not necessary. Thinking you have to be perfect just adds stress and is what causes you to mess up. The instructors will ask people who are struggling with the dialogue to simply describe the posture: get them into the pose, explain what is happening, and get them out of the pose. Even then, people put so much pressure on themselves that they cannot do it and they KNOW the pose! You cannot help but just want to hug them because if they cannot explain a posture in their own words, you know they must really be nervous. It is heartbreaking to watch and hear about over and over again (all groups have this struggle it seems).

Not surprisingly, Leah and I had more snacks in the room before our evening class. She was nice enough to share her potato chips with me as I was craving something salty and crunchy.

Our evening class was with BIKRAM! Finally! He had been gone for 2 weeks and I cannot speak for everyone but I genuinely missed having him around and his classes. Whenever there are orange towels on the podium, we know Bikram is teaching and it was so nice to walk down the stairs and see those orange towels again. It almost felt like the very first class all over again because of the nervousness and anticipation of it all. He had not seen us for 2 weeks and what if we were not “developed” enough in our practice? What if he did not think we made enough progress?

It ended up being a great, great class, despite me having to go back to the 3rd row because we had to restart our line rotations (it was my group’s turn to be in the front but no such luck) and the insane heat/humidity. I was drenched. I got corrected on Eagle pose (for my hands not being in front of my face, something Maryla had brought up with me the day before) and for not doing the last breathing exercise correctly. We finished it and he looked at me and said, “You must have been distracted because you didn’t do anything.” I just said that I was and he dismissed it and then class was over. Yep.

He was tough on us but he made class enjoyable and made us laugh. I truly learn more in 1 class with him then I do in all other classes combined but that makes sense because he is Bikram… the creator of Bikram yoga. We needed his reminders and encouragement.

His class marked the official halfway point of training, too! In class, they say that class is all downhill from Triangle pose. Not surprisingly, I had to celebrate with a picture of Triangle pose before swimming with Maryla after class. Anurag was there but left shortly after our arrival. I guess we ruined his post-class spot!

I video chatted with Dad and Suzette (AND ELLIOTT) after dinner for a little bit. It was great to see and talk to them. Of course I loved seeing Elliott’s cute little face, too. Apparently when he heard my voice, he came over to the iPad and then when he saw me on the screen, he kept trying to find me behind the screen and look around for me. Heartbreaking! They asked me if I was getting enough food and water: yes to both. We get plenty of water at the hot room and lecture room so I do not need to buy it at Walmart anymore. My water bottle is big enough! I eat more than enough, too. Y’all, when I post a picture of my food… that is usually just the first plate of it! Plus, I never post the dessert pictures (but no desserts this week!). Aaaaaand you never see the pictures of extra cinnamon roll I walk out with in the morning or extra piece of bread I grab on my way out from dinner. I eat! Still always hungry though!

I told them about the incidents of Tuesday night and the message I got. If I was going to continue to be associated with Laos from here on out at my home studio, then I did not want to continue to go there. My dad told me not to make any emotional decisions which I promise I will not, but it is something weighing heavily on my mind. Imagine you wore a dumb shirt in 3rd grade. Now imagine that the rest of your life, everyone always associated you with that dumb shirt you have not worn in 20+ years. You would get sick of it, correct? That is how I feel when people still think Laos and I have ties to each other (except “the shirt did not break your heart” as my Dad said). As weird as it is, I have almost NOT known him longer than I have known him… it is time for the rest of the world to move on, too. Period.

Anyway, Dad discovered video chat filters so I grabbed a screenshot of them. They make me laugh! I also admitted that I have had “a few sips of the kool-aid” (meaning, the brainwashing is working… maybe like 10%). At least I am aware of it!

Our evening lecture was with Bikram. He had no agenda or plan and just talked about random stuff and answered our questions. We actually were only able to ask 2 because he talked about each of them for so long. We all have a million questions (I know I do) but when it is midnight and he says, “okay, any more questions?” you just do not raise your hand. Do not be that person! It was good to have him back, even though he “beyond repair” as Manali always says. Plus, he sang to us and that is always nice. I was so, so tired that I fell asleep almost instantly when we got back to our room a little past midnight.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Bikram yoga is the turning point in your life.”
• “Your mind is your best friend.”
• “The best food is no food.” (This took him over an hour to explain. His logic made sense but there is no way we can stop eating under these conditions!)
• “I’ll say hi, sing, and go.” (When explaining how he thought his first class back with us would go since he was tired from traveling. Obviously, the guy cannot just run a simple class, nor do we want him too, so it did not go like that!)
• “If I can discipline Raquel Welch, I can make the Statue of Liberty do 26 postures.”

 

Thursday 10/19/17 – Day 33 – Diwali 
Thursday continued our routine of waking up later and later. We have developed quite the bad habit. We are still one of the first people there at 8am (class starts at 8:30am) but we just have less and less time to get ready for it.

Our nearly 2 hour morning class was with Ulesis again. When I unfolded my towel (that the hotel provides for us – I will take a picture of the table towel next week!), there were ants in it so I should have taken that as a sign of how the class was going to go. I tried my best and my hardest but I had a horrible class and it could easily be called one of my worst. I did everything (never skipped a posture or sat down) but I did not do it well. It was like I had never done yoga before. My body was not cooperating. I knew that if I did make myself do the postures though, the evening class would be just as difficult, if not more. It was a complete mental beat down. I hated feeling like I could not do it when I knew I could. I was literally screaming at myself internally to just get my act together but my stubborn body was giving me the middle finger. It did not help that I felt like my ears were clogged all class but that was the least of my problems.

Earlier in the week he talked about trust between students and teachers during class but he broke that when he said the Standing Separate Leg Stretching dialogue out of order. He said the last 3 lines of the dialogue and half the class came up, including some staff, because we knew it was the end but then he kept going with the dialogue from the paragraph above it. He then got on to us about coming out of the posture early. Shame on us for not listening but shame on him for tricking us! He would also get upset with us for falling out of posture when he held it too long. I felt like I could not win. He did not ever call me out but with my performance, he had every right to. I somehow dodged that bullet. I like Ulesis, I really do. Just maybe not at 8:30am on a Thursday morning. His savasana song was really cool though: Deva Premal and Miten: The Gayatri Mantra Made Visible.

I had a fast breakfast and because of Bikram’s advice the night before to not drink before eating a meal, I skipped the orange juice and left my water in my room. I also skipped my cinnamon roll. Sigh.

I went back to my room to rest and blog a bit before studying with Leah. The upcoming postures in posture clinic were ones I was definitely, definitely less confident on and the only way to get better is to actually saying them out loud so we said them out lout over and over and over again. The view from my posture clinic room was great!

My group had Jolinda for posture clinic. She was great at giving very tailored feedback for each individual and asked us how we felt after we went. She had helpful advice and really took the time to get to know us and how we were doing. Other groups had apparently told her they were intimidated by her so she gave us an opportunity to ask her any embarrassing question we could come up with but we told her we did not feel that way about her so we got started instead. We only went through Wind Removing Pose (an awesome and easy posture to demo, whew) and we did not have to do dialogue for Savasana or the Sit-Up. I added a few extra words to one of the lines because the people that went before me had said and even though I knew it was wrong, it had gotten stuck in my brain. Oh well. Jolinda told me to breathe more, pause more, and to focus on the bodies. I probably rushed through and looked around more because I was not feeling confident but that was valid feedback. I knew I could do it better and knew that it would get better once I was more comfortable with it. However, I do not believe in making excuses for myself or so I thanked her for the feedback and told her I would keep working on it… which I of course will. She also said she recognized me from the Spring training as well. She was with Robyn sitting in front of me at graduation and was one of the people I had spoken too. Spotted, again! She should be the last person to recognize me though as I do not believe I spoke to any other people at graduation and I do not know of any of the trainees coming. We shall see!

Leah and I had more snacks before the evening class. She had muscle cramps again (she had that the very first class in the hot room) so that was pretty scary. She ended up missing the evening class to go to the doctor instead and she unfortunately had the same experience Andrew had during week 1: left alone with a doctor who does not speak English and who tries to fix things that are not actually wrong. Disappointing.

The evening class, class #50, was with Bikram and it sure did kick my ass. Bikram seemed like he did not want to be there but he killed us anyway. Maryla, Lidia, Elsa, and I all showed up in matching shorts so we put our mats by each other near the podium to help boost our energy but I got called out a 5 times, a personal record:

1. Back bend: I have a bad habit of coming out of posture early to catch a breath and then going back into it. He busted me and said there were no second chances, just like an “Indian marriage.” This, coming from an Indian guy who has been divorced! Hmm. But, valid. I should try harder to hold the back bend the entire time. I have a decent one but it has been tough to do since being here but I should keep trying.
2. Eagle: Again, for my hands not being in front of my face enough and then for my palms not being completely aligned. This is a tough one for me. I try SO hard every time I do this but it is so difficult. I try!
3. Triangle: This one was not bad. I was in the proper position but I relaxed when he started talking to someone else and then he caught me with my arms not back enough. My fault for being lazy.
4. Spine Twisting: When I twist to the right (first set), it is not as straight as when I twist the other way. I know that though and I actually learned at the 1 class I took with Bikram in the Spring that I needed to lean back to straighten up. So, he reminded me to lean back and I did and he said, “great job, babe.” Thanks, boo.
5. Final Breathing: I got called out for this the day before so before we started he said, “who was right here (pointed to where I sat Wednesday) who did nothing?” I proudly raised my hand high and he thanked me for my honesty and told me how to do it properly. I know how to do it! I swear I do. Him calling me out had me second guessing myself though.

In all honesty, it could have been a lot worse. 5 times was not great but it was never a beat down and he never really focused on me so I got lucky. I had decent, strong class and even though my ears were still hurting, I felt good.

After class, we took a picture of our matching shorts and because Bikram was sitting in the grass after class (he normally does not), we interrupted him and asked him to join us. Ulesis was there and jumped in too. Bikram took one look at the photo and said he looked the best in it! True. He has 50+ years of yoga on us so that makes sense.

I had a quick dinner and then enjoyed an hour and a half in my room, writing my blog and resting. The faster you eat, the more break you get!

We celebrated Diwali before our evening lecture with Ulesis. Diwali spiritually signifies the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, knowledge over ignorance, and hope over despair. Everyone came a little more dressed up than usual and we lit candles around the pool to represent that light and make wishes for ourselves and our families. It was so humid outside and we were all soaked. You would think that as yogis who practice hot yoga regularly, we would be fine with this but we were not! It was beautiful to see and I am glad they gave us an opportunity to do that. Apparently Diwali is also celebrated with Indian sweets but because we are in Mexico and Walmart has a limited selection, we got chocolate instead. Y’all know I like chocolate so that was perfectly fine with me. Shout out to Henrik for giving me his!

After our celebration, Ulesis lectured again. Everything he had to say was exactly what I needed to hear in that moment. He had us laughing, he had us (well, me) crying. It was perfect. At the end of it, we did an exercise where we stood up and closed our eyes while music played and then Ulesis narrated us through this amazing story line of us transforming into our perfect selves. It was indescribable. It was moving. It was everything! I had tears coming down my face. I hated that I was ‘checked out’ during the chant on Tuesday night so I was happy to have experienced this and been fully present for it. I loved it.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “If you breath is right, your thoughts will be right, and therefor your actions will be right.”
• “You are what you eat. But you eat what you think. Therefor you are what you think. You are the result of your mind. So, control your mind. How? Through meditation.”
• “It takes 3 things for Bikram Yoga to work: 1. Show up to class. 2. Try to do it the right way. 3. Do it to your maximum ability.”
• “Thinking about the past and reliving things is like living in a dream. It is not real. It does not matter.”
• “Be here now. You cannot be here if you are thinking.”
• “Life is not the way we think it is going to be. Don’t waste so much time trying to make it a certain way.”
• “Usually, an expectation is a limitation.”
• “Life is the way it is and it is perfect.”
• “Whatever happens is supposed to happen. Why? Because that is what happened! If not, it would not have happened.”
• “Your class will be a reflection of your practice. Your whole life is a reflection of your practice.”
• “If a baby cries, you let them cry. If someone is dying in class, let them die!” (obviously not real death… in this situation, dying would mean “suffering”)
• “The sky can have a lot of clouds but behind the clouds, it is always blue.”
• “The universe will give you a shake until you listen.”
• “The hardest part of your day should be your Bikram Yoga class.”

We were out just after midnight but because Leah missed the evening lecture because she was not feeling better yet, I stayed up to tell her all about it.

 

Friday 10/20/17 – Day 34
I slept horribly and woke up later than preferred again. I had an awful headache which I only later attributed to the fact that I may have been grinding my teeth that night, something I have not done in forever, because my jaw was also hurting.

Our morning class was with Uelsis, his last one here before heading back to New York. I think he might be coming back again towards the end though. It was unclear. It was a very, very tough class for me. He spent so much time the night before preaching about not quitting in class, controlling your mind to keep you focused, telling yourself you can do it, practicing like a teacher, not giving up, going into meditation, etc. and I tried SO hard to implement all of those but it was a struggle. My head was killing me, I was dizzy and seeing stars, and my body hated me. It was tough to hear him, too. Not sure if that was because I was near the fans, the mic volume was low, or because my ears were still feeling clogged. I did not skip anything or sit out but I wanted to so badly. If I could survive that class, I should be able to survive anything. He got onto Alonso a lot, pretty aggressively. Alonos dances to the beat of his own drum and every teacher gives him a hard time but I guess Ulesis was just fed up with it. There is a time and a place to be a free spirit… the hot room with Ulesis was not one of them.

I had another quick breakfast so I could go study in my room alone. I needed to say Cobra and Locust out loud to get ready for posture clinic. I knew the dialogue but had not said it enough so I paced around my room saying them a million times. Then I laid down and said them. Then I went to the balcony and said them. Seriously, the only way to memorize these things are to SAY THEM. I practiced them with all sorts of inflections and speeds, too. WWTKPS: What would Tanja/Katy/Paul say? I always hear them when I practice but it always comes out sounding like me and that is probably a good thing. 🙂

I needed a change of scenery so I went to the posture clinic room early and studied on the patio there until it was time to get started. I was feeling better about them but still not 100%. Karla was our facilitator and she was great. She was incredibly honest with us and took no shit: she called people out for talking and ripped into some for not knowing the dialogue at this point in the training. It was intense. One of her stern lectures was all in Spanish and even though I had no idea what she was saying, I was taken aback. We have so many Spanish speakers in our group so I am always glad when we get someone who speaks the language so that they can have a fair shot at fair feedback, too.

I did my Cobra and got good remarks even though I had thought I missed an entire paragraph. She calls me Jill and said my setup was too fast (fair) but otherwise was good and to keep working on my pacing. I needed to give them time to do what I was asking them to do. Holly (from my studio at home) gave me the same feedback when she heard me do dialogue before training. I think I have it figured out for postures I know like the back of my hand but am still sorting it out for these newer ones so it was a good reminder. She said I sounded a little sing/song at the end of some phrases, which was new feedback for me, so I need to be watchful of that.

We finished Cobra and moved on and even though I did not want to do Locust, I went ahead and got it over with. I knew it enough to stand up and say it but I was nervous. It was shaky but I did not miss anything. Karla had me do the first part again, this time SLOWER. Are you seeing the pattern? When I am nervous or not confident, I speed through it! Ah. Just as the days before, I thanked her for the feedback and said I would keep working on it. Excuses do not hurt anyone except yourself. We are all in the same boat: tired, exhausted, having no time to study, etc. Do what you can, own it, and move on.

During our break between Cobra and Locust, I checked my work email and saw an email from my boss. Subject: Hurry up. Body: “Things went more smoothly when you were here. I hope you are having fun but please come back soon.” I totally needed that. I am still trying to keep up with work stuff and stay up to date but it was nice to hear that I was missed and valued! Good news, Eric; I will be back in less than a month (and I miss y’all too). Shout to Kathi and Rose for sharing their snacks with me. I could not get enough to eat for some reason.

I rested for a brief moment before the evening class. It was my group’s turn to be in the front row and after the 5 corrections Thursday, I was nervous. I did not want to get called out for the same stuff, especially Final Breathing. Bikram already got me twice for Eagle and twice for Final Breathing this week… a 3rd time would not be good. The last things I wanted was to get called a “fucking idiot” and names of that nature (yes, he does that) or be known as the girl who cannot do Final Breathing for the remainder of training. Manali caught me before class and I told her that I knew Final Breathing but that I was psyching myself out now because I was so aware of it. Her advice? “Just do it right.” That was the plan!

Class was great and I did spectacular in comparison to the morning class. It is crazy how in the morning I can feel like I have never done yoga before but in the evening I can feel like a yoga goddess. What is life?! As we finished each posture that I got called out for the day before, I mentally checked them off and celebrated for not getting another comment. I passed 5 out of 5: he did not say a word to me all class. Win. He did admit to being in a mood the day before but he was definitely on us during class. He did say it was our overall best class as a group though, so that was a good sign. It seemed like everyone was laying in the grass outside of the hot room after class so we all must have pushed ourselves to our maximum ability! It was another nearly 2 hour class. Brutal.

Tina had made comments about feeling left out of all the beach pictures and fun which was funny because I had felt the same way. I had been having FOMO for missing out on some of the things the first few weeks but I just never vocalized it so bless her for feeling the same way and being shameless enough to admit it! All that to say, we decided to head to the beach with Kirsty after class and take our own pictures. Simple solution.

Bikram had announced during class that we did not have an evening lecture but instead would have a pizza and dance party. YES. It was not until 9pm so I had a snack after class to tie me over and then did nothing until the party. Everyone came dressed up and looked so great. We only really see each other in the hot room where we look like absolute messes or in lectures/clinics where we are too tired to care what we look like. The party started off like an awkward high school party with everyone standing around and no one dancing. It was fabulous. I had 4 slices of pizza (no regrets) and enjoyed dessert. I fulfilled my no-dessert rule for the week so it only made sense to celebrate that accomplishment with dessert.

Once people started dancing, the party got real. The music was crazy and most of us danced all night, just letting loose and enjoying the break. I love to dance even though I am horrible at it but who cares? Sometimes you just have to let loose and not give a single shit and that is what we did! It reminded me of the fun dance parties we used to have at camp when I was a camp counselor. Bikram was quite the dancer, too… no words. It was so nice to see people being free and happy. Some people that I would have never expected to be big dancers were dance machines and it was awesome. The staff let loose too! Plus, there seems to be a budding romance happening between two people here and it was adorable and beautiful and I hope they invite us all to their eventual wedding because we have all decided they are already in love. ❤

They played one song 3 times in a row it seemed and Tina made a joke they were trying to hypnotize us. Kirsty said we were turning into Bikram zombies walking around just saying “lock the knee” over and over again and I could not stop laughing! When I tried to take a dance break, Manali basically told me and a few others to go back on the floor and keep dancing. Yes ma’am! It was truly such a fun night and it came at just the right time for us. What a good way to celebrate being over halfway through training! Some people left early but most stayed until the end at midnight.

 

Saturday 10/21/17 – Day 35
Have you ever felt hungover when you woke up after a night of NOT drinking? That was how I felt waking up Saturday morning. Actual torture. I think dancing for 3 hours at the party the night before made me more sore and exhausted than 5 weeks of two-a-day yoga! Seesh. I rolled out of bed and used every bit of energy I had to get myself down to that hot room. My group was in the back row so you would think that means no one can see us but no, the back row is almost more dangerous because you are directly in front of the staff!

Manali taught the morning class and I did well for a morning class. She had us, in unison as a class, recite the dialogue for the second set of Half Moon and first set of Awkward WHILE we were doing the posture. That was a freaking disaster. We were all off and some people were not even saying the right thing. Worth a shot though! She was quizzing us on the sanskrit names for the postures and I know some of them but not all of them. Or, I can match them up you gave me the list of them but I have a difficult time pronouncing some. I plan on learning them… I just have not done it yet because I would rather work on the dialogue first. Anyway, all that to say that she was asking us the sanskrit for Standing Bow Pulling and right as everyone was saying it, I yawned. She caught me and said “Good morning, Jillian. What is the sanskrit name?” Argh. I knew and could pronounce the first part but could not pronounce the second part so I tried and then she said it correctly for me. Not embarrassing at all. She also had people get up and deliver dialogue again: Ali did the first set of Cobra, Polina did the second set of Cobra, and Nicky did the first set of Locust. I practiced Full Locust to myself just in case she kept going! Thankfully, she did not. Always need to be ready! It was a long class but it did not feel long. Anyone who signs in late to a class or lecture has to do a makeup class after the morning class on Saturday (back-to-back classes) and I could not imagine getting stuck with that. I have done those at home and sometimes it is easy and sometimes it is not but after 11 classes all week and a tight schedule, I do not think I would be able to. If I had to, I would… but my goal is to make sure I never have to.

I skipped breakfast and had to double shower, too, because I realized I forgot to shave my right leg during my initial shower… yoga brain. I got started on my blog, dropped my laundry off at noon, grabbed a sandwich from the cafe, and then headed back to my room to video chat with Alex, my shift partner at the Ronald McDonald House/my soul sister. We talked for about an hour and caught up on everything. I miss our Thursday night chats as we eat cookies and frustratingly take extra soap out of the baskets in the rooms! She is going to hate me for taking this screenshot but I love it. Sorry, girl! 🙂

After our chat, I blogged. I blogged, blogged, and blogged some more. I blogged from 1:30 to 5:30. I also finally finished the Gossip Girls series on Netflix. I started the series before I left for Mexico but watching it has kept me entertained since I have been here while I blog or on the rare occasion I have a few extra moments of silence and rest time. I intentionally took the day to catch up on the blog but mostly just to be alone for a little bit. I am a bit of a homebody and with all the people here and constant activity, I needed some time to myself to enjoy some silence. It was nice. Plus, I wanted to make Sunday a full day of studying with no interruptions.

I went to the beach with Maryla for a little bit to take a break before dinner. I had already decided I did not want to leave the room all day but then I figured a beach break would probably be a good thing.

After the beach, we headed to Tavola again at 7:30pm for our annual Saturday night dinner. Our group expanded from 3 people last weekend to 5 people this weekend and then to 8 to 9 to 11 to 13 people in just a matter of minutes! Just when we thought we had enough tables pushed together, more people would appear. The more, the merrier! I was somehow sitting at the head of the table, which I hate, and the chaos of it all (ordering, paying, so many conversations and talking over each other at the long table) was a bit overwhelming at some moments but it was a nice evening with fabulous company and food, as always. Plus, we were allowed to wear green so most of us did. We rebel when we can.

We tried not to talk about yoga things but Kim made a great point: yoga IS our life right now. We are in the yoga bubble!

Dinner was over around 9:30pm and some of the group went to find others to start karaoke but I went to my room with the hopes of going to bed early so I would be well rested to study on Sunday!

 

Sunday 10/22/17 – Day 36
As much as I did not want to get out of bed, I did. I had to get moving, go to Walmart, and study, study, and study some more. Leah shared her chips with me all week so at a minimum, I needed to replace her chips (even though she said it was fine). I finally got up and studied in the lobby for half an hour before the 10am shuttle to Walmart. The lobby was so quiet and had the most perfect cross breeze!

Walmart was a success. Our bus was surprisingly packed for 10am on a Sunday. I did not expect to see everyone that early. I bought Leah new chips but also bought way too many snacks and junk food for myself. I should be set until the end of training! No more. Maryla bought the entire store and Alicia was the best of us and only got a few things. She is the youngest one here and clearly the most responsible!

Walmart also had a ton of Halloween/Day of the Dead decorations and it reminded me of Kelsey and John. John loves Halloween so, so much and I wanted to get them everything on the shelves. I will have to go back next week and get them a little something though!

We got back from Walmart around 11:30 and I studied in the lobby until the laundry guy came to drop off our clothes at noon. Mine was 112 pesos but he only charged me 100. Win!

Afterward, Lidia and I went to lunch at the Beach Club. We decided it would be better for our stomachs if we split a sandwich because each time we eat there, we leave feeling so full and disgusting. We also tried the crab cakes (more like crab tots) and they were delicious! We had a good talk about all sorts of things: Bikram, Ulesis’ lecutres, etc.

I was going to head to my room to study because I did not feel like being outside but I decided to hang out by the pool for an hour and a half instead. It is important to take advantage of our little paradise while we can. It was overcast so the sun was not too brutal which was nice. I studied a bit more and even fell asleep before caving and heading back up to my room to finish this post and study the rest of the afternoon!

After snacking on Oreos and sour gummy worms, neither of which I needed but had bought at Walmart, I was in desperate need of a mental break. Luckily my BFF Kelsey was available and we video chatted for a little while!

My mom and I video chatted after I studied a bit more before I finally called it a night.
Weekly Summary
As I said before, week 5 flew by.  Swoosh. I swear, if I did not have my birth control or my daily journal, I would not know what day it was half of the time. It all is going by so quickly and blurring together! The tops of my feet are raw, my knees are raw, my and my knuckles are raw but my body is hanging in there. Last week it was my right knee and my right lower back bothering me and this week it was my left hamstring and left shoulder. My body has never snapped, crackled, and popped so much in class before. But, I am alive and actually feel good for the most part. In the morning class, I feel like I have the most awesome 6-pack of all time (I actually do not, I just FEEL like I do) but by the evening class, I feel like a dang potato. Ulesis told us that we are what we eat so that explains that phenomenon.

Mentally, I feel good. Some people have expressed being ready to go/feeling trapped or over this whole process but I have not felt that way yet. Some people have made comments about never teaching but I have not felt that way either. I am starting to miss home a little bit but overall I have been alright. Not knowing the remaining dialogue has made me feel a little more pressured than I would like but at least now I know how everyone else has felt this whole time. I knew my time was coming but I keep reminding myself that it is all going to be fine and work out. Life works itself out perfectly!

As far as lectures and clinics go, everything is still chugging along. People still struggle with basic instructions like not wearing green or halter tops in the hot room, not wearing/bringing anything green to classes, not wearing teaching costume to clinics, not going to demo after delivering dialogue in clinics, etc. which continues to blow my mind but such is life. Common courtesy would be nice too. For example, not talking while people deliver dialogue or while Manali is talking before classes/lectures. We cannot complain we get treated like children and then act like disobedient children! We are 5 weeks in and it just makes me laugh at this point.

I also came up with a Bikram App idea this week. Not only could it include the 26 postures, how to do each, and the benefits of each, but it include a map of Bikram studios and with a special code or something, access to the dialogue. The dialogue could be interactive where you can read it, listen to it, click on words to learn meanings (great for non-English speakers), or even take notes on it. It would be cool if it had the dialogue in other languages as well. I messaged Anurag about it and he said to come talk to him but I have not had a chance yet!

You have also probably noticed that I have fewer and fewer pictures as the weeks go on. I am trying to continue to take a lot but sometimes it just slips my mind. Heck, doing my picture-of-the-day is tough enough as it is! I think next week I will try to take more pictures of what the resort is like and where we spend our time, etc. We will see!

Until next time,

Jillian

42 classes later and week 4 is complete! Week 4 was much better than the last but still faced its own challenges.

 

Monday 10/9/17 – Day 23
After a relaxing weekend, I woke up feeling refreshed and ready for a new week. Manali taught the morning class and my group was in the front row so things were off to a good start. Manali decided to call students up to do the dialogue – talk about the element of surprise! When I was preparing for TT at home, Jerome, an instructor from home, once told me he was going to let me do Half Moon on the podium. Just before class, he told me he was not going to let me anymore and I legitimately was upset and thought he hated me. I did not say anything though – it was his class so it was his decision. He did Half Moon but when he got to Awkward, he caught me off guard and called me up to do it! I was surprised and fumbled through it and after class he told me that he wanted to do that so that I would not spend the entire time thinking about the Awkward dialogue and preparing. Tricky. It worked though and from then on, I was always prepared to be called up for any of the postures I knew. I really felt for the people Manali called up but they did great. Taryn did the 1st set of Half Moon (all 3 parts) and while she started off a little nervous, she was totally killing it by the end. Tom did the 2nd set of Half Moon, Karl did the 1st set of Awkward (all 3 parts), Alicia did the 2nd set of Awkward, Jana did 1/2 of the 1st set of Eagle (right arm only, I think Manali stopped her too soon), and Ali did the other half of the 1st set of Eagle and the entire 2nd set. Everyone did great and as a bonus, they did not have to do those in Posture Clinics later!

Anyway, it was a decent class for me. My body felt so much better: I could barely do my backbend at the end of last week so I was happy to be able to do that again… and Standing Separate Leg Stretching… and the 3rd part of Head to Knee with Stretching. Finally. The class went by quickly which was very much appreciated for a Monday morning. Manali and some of the teachers (and my teachers back home) do this thing at the end of class where they tell us to relax different parts of your body one at a time;
“relax your feet, relax your ankles, relax your calfs” and so on. My parents actually taught me that when I was very young to say to myself to help me fall asleep at night so every time I hear it, I immediately start to relax completely, both mentally and physically. My mind is trained! Manali’s savasana song was “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” by Bob Marley and we must have really needed to hear that song because we all sang along (even though the staff shushed us). It was a cool moment!

Ali saved my breakfast when the new omelet guy misheard me and put mushrooms in my omelet (first world problems). Ali just ordered 2 omelets instead, a new one for me and one for him, because I felt bad telling the guy it was wrong. Thanks, Ali!

There were too many people in my normal lobby spot (people from yoga and hotel guests) so I found Maryla and sat with her to study anatomy before our test that afternoon. The ‘doctor’ teaching us walked by and tried to tell us it would be fine – something we already knew. I had heard the test did not even matter and you never got your results back. Plus, it was multiple choice and he basically gave us the answers last week so we were only reading the notes once over to refresh our minds from the weekend. It was going to be fine. We treated ourselves to chocolate truffles from the cafe!

The afternoon lecture was… a mess. The best part about it was that Manali called Bikram “beyond repair.” Other than that, the longer we were in that room the more my anxiety went up and the more my patience went down. The test was a joke. They spent too long spacing us out and making it sound more serious than it was. I understand why they do it, though. I know they want us to try and make an effort and all of that but the chaos of it all was stressful to witness. The 30-question test took me less than 5 minutes and despite not knowing some of the answers (things that were never covered or told to us, by the way), I probably did fine. Again, it does not matter. We had to wait until everyone was finished before moving on and because we have so many non-english speakers, it took awhile. I know I make jokes about the test but I can imagine from their perspective it was probably very stressful to take a test in a language you do not know. I felt for them. As people were turning in their tests, Manali was on stage reading the tests and singling the person out and saying things like “oh did you not study?” That bothered me. There was no need to embarrass people.

After everyone finished their tests, Manali talked for a bit and told us stories about searching our rooms and finding alcohol. Because of the amount of untrue stories I have heard from all sorts of people here, I was just a bit of skeptic on the alcohol one (e.g. She told us that someone broke their leg last training from running on the wet ground… and that was a lie). It is like the boy who cried wolf, when you tell us so many things we know are untrue, it is difficult to know what IS true. I have no idea if someone here had alcohol or not in their room and I am pretty sure it is illegal for her to search our stuff (and I do not think she is actually doing it anyway), but whatever. I am a skeptic on it all. The motto here is “trust the process” and I have and am, but sometimes it feels like a bogus, inefficient process. If you cannot tell, I was in quite the mood.

After Manali’s speech, the ‘doctor’ started a new anatomy lecture with us. It was a NIGHTMARE. He had to have been high or drunk or on SOMETHING because he repeated himself nearly word for word several times. It was as if someone had pressed rewind on our class and then pressed play again… 3 times. Everyone was so confused on what was happening. He was telling us about a term called “word salad” where people think they are saying the right thing but the wrong thing is coming out and let me tell you, that whole class felt like a word salad. It was nonsensical and he was making ridiculous jokes. If they really, truly wanted us to learn something from him, they would give us someone who could not only present the materials in a cohesive way but also answer our questions. It was frustrating.

I had too many snacks in my room after class before the evening class, as usual. I woke up fine in the morning but by this point, my patience was at an all time low and I could not calm myself down. I have as-needed anxiety medication and had the evening class not been about to start, I would have taken some.

Anurag taught the evening class and it was another good one. I did alright given my garbage mood and attitude and it actually ended up helping me feel better and calm down. Bikram yoga, for the win. He has such a smooth voice and pacing which helps me get in my zone and the class fly by. Danny, one of the Mundomex guys, took his first Bikram class ever (he did not take one last training!) with us. He did every posture and never gave up! We all cheered and were excited for him!

I took a dip in the ocean after class next and enjoyed dinner next to another beautiful sunset before heading off to study for Posture Clinic with Maryla in the hallway.

As we were waiting for them to unlock the doors for us, Kirsty and Fernando (who speaks little-to-no English) sang ABBA songs in Spanish and it was the greatest thing I have ever heard! We really need a karaoke night. Each group had their own room this time (instead of combined rooms last week) which helped us go through the postures a little more quickly. My group had a few people that needed to finish delivering the 2nd and 3rd parts of Awkward so we wrapped that up and the moved on to mostly finish Eagle, too. Karla and Nancy were the staff members in our room: they gave helpful feedback and they speak Spanish which is nice since we have a lot of Spanish-speakers in the group. It was really confusing listening to their feedback in Spanish and their conversations but I am sure that is how they feel when they listen to feedback in English for us! I am not making an effort to learn Spanish while I am here but I am trying to pick up on key words and follow along as best I can.

I kind of made myself look like an arrogant/ass/too-good-for-it-all when Nancy was giving me feedback and I felt bad about that (still do). They said I did great and as Nancy was reminding me to stay current on all the previous postures so that I would not forget, I made a comment along the lines of “I can do the whole standing series” and I did not mean for it to come off in the way it probably did. Facepalm. I was just trying to let her know that I was doing that but instead of just agreeing, I felt the need to over-communicate my progress with dialogue. Note to self: next time, just smile and nod. After a few arguments (in Spanish) between some group members and the staff, they let us out at midnight.

 

Tuesday 10/10/17 – Day 24
I woke up earlier than normal to help people in my group study but no one had taken me up on the offer so I went back to sleep. Karla and Nancy had asked English speakers to help Spanish speakers and because I did not want to stay up until the early hours of the morning, I told them I would get up early if they wanted to. Oh well, I tried. I cannot blame them for wanting to sleep! 🙂

I went back to sleep but just as my alarm was going off again at 7:45am, a 4.8 magnitude earthquake hit. It was a lot more intense than the one we experienced the first week and because I was still in bed, it was much more alarming. It sure did wake me up, though!

Karla taught the morning class and despite me being in the dreaded 4th row and the room being insanely hot, I had a good class. I did feel like I could not breathe about the halfway mark so I rolled my shorts down a little bit to get off of my stomach and that helped. The air was so thick! Anyway, Karla had great energy and really woke us up. She does a good job at encouraging us to keep going and not drink water. She does not let us quit and because of that, the class goes by very quickly. For example: if you fall out of a posture on the balancing series, most people will either try again or just wait until the next set. Karla pushes us to never just stand there and to always, at least, stand on one leg if we are not going to try the posture again. Some of us need that extra push! She also forces us to look in the mirror which is not always easy. Her savasana song was “Livin’ in the Moment” by Jason Mraz. So good.

Breakfast was breakfast and the weather was great. The lobby was packed (the hotel had 4 conferences going on this week) so I went to the area near Starbucks, where it was a little quieter, to study. I invited my group so we could help each other prepare for Posture Clinic in the evening and after a few messages of encouragement, people came. Several of them did ’round robin’ style (others worked with other people in the group) and I kind of just oversaw and threw in corrections or tips and tricks as necessary (or took away their dialogue to force them to not read it!). They all made good progress on Standing Head to Knee and hopefully I helped them a little bit. Bikram likes the phrase “you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make them drink” but he always ends it with “… bullshit, I will make them fucking drink!” I am not Bikram so I am not going to MAKE anyone study and memorize the dialogue but I can at least try and help get them to where they are going. Team effort.

We learned about the Endocrine System during anatomy and I swear, just being around this ‘doctor’ makes my blood pressure go up. I really should practice the “if you do not have anything nice to say, do not say anything at all” rule but I also want to convey how ridiculous these ‘courses’ are. Life is a balance! Instead, here is a video we had to watch. This should tell you everything you need to know about what we are experiencing during these classes.

After class, I had snacks and started this post so that I would not get stuck writing it until late Sunday night.

Our evening class was with Eddie. I did alright during the standing series despite a headache but the floor series was tough. For some reason, the air felt so thick and dense near the floor and it was so much more difficult to breathe. Eddie is always tough on us but in a good way. He always gives us a hard time for adding words to the dialogue but I noticed he said “round your spine like an angry cat” during Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee and that is not in the dialogue, Eddie! Mixed messages. Henrik and Taryn started to high five each other at the beginning of Standing Bow and that has started to catch on to everyone. We had the teachers in the back row laughing at us! Katy, my friend/teacher from home, would do that during the few classes we took together so it reminded me of home!

We got a lot of weird looks from the other hotel guests from the other conferences as we walked half naked from the hot room to our rooms! It is okay though, we look at them weird, too.

I was not very hungry for dinner so I had a light meal of chicken, carrots, and rice (and then a plate of desserts…) before heading back up to my room to blog and watch the insane rain storm. I had tried to study in the lobby and then on the 2nd floor but there were just so many people here that every place I went was distracting.

Our Posture Clinic was way too frustrating. I was still in a mood and I was allowing everything to bother me, even silly, petty things. I was taking things so personal when I know they were not. We had Manali and Nancy in our room to listen to us do Standing Head to Knee and provide feedback (side note: it was so difficult to demo this posture 3 times!). My dialogue was fine but she still wanted me to work on emphasizing the bold words more. I thought I had but I guess not enough. I will keep trying. Manali was making people re-do parts but luckily she did not make me re-do it so that was a bonus. She was asking everyone questions about their studio, where they were planning on teaching, and about their other job but she did not ask me anything. The only thing she said to me was, “Yes, Jillian. I know Jillian well.” Hmm. I hope she was not purposefully NOT asking me questions (this was the 2nd time) because she thinks she already knows the answer because of Laos. He and I might have come from the same studio but we do not have the same story so I would hate for her to make assumptions about me. It probably was not intentional but because of my mood, I definitely let it bother me. Maybe it is a blessing she is not asking me questions, maybe it is a curse? TBD. She was also inconsistent about feedback on people’s teaching costume (some people are allowed to wear their hair down, some are not) and the inconsistency was getting under my skin… probably because I was already sensitive at that point. She also made implications that we were not helping each other study and that was upsetting because I had spent all day trying to help my group; several of us had. She cannot be faulted for things she did not know about though. Deep breath! They say Postured Clinics can get dramatic and emotional and they were not lying… someone even walked out at the end out of frustration. Yikes. Thankfully, no matter what happens in the room, they let us out around midnight!

 

Wednesday 10/11/17 – Day 25
I woke up drooling so you know I slept well even though it took awhile to fall asleep. Axry taught the morning class and it was a real struggle. It felt like the class was going in slow motion and I was so miserable.

Maryla and I went to the pool after class and we both vented about our latest frustrations and miseries, in life and in training. It was good to get things out, for both of us. I was hoping to join a meeting at work but between a frustrating class and a therapeutic vent session, I did not have time to shower/eat AND go to the meeting. Hopefully I can catch the next one.

After breakfast, I studied with my group at the tables outside of Starbucks. I wanted to be helpful and keep us all moving in the right direction but I was also starting to realize that I was not making much forward progress on my own dialogue anymore and it was stressing me out. So, I made the decision to help people during the week (when and if they want it) which will help solidify my own dialogue and help others but on the weekends, I need to focus on myself.

We learned about the Circulatory system in the afternoon anatomy class. I actually could not even take notes because I was so weak. I really despise learning about this stuff but this particular subject matter (the heart) really got to me. The first time I ever fainted was because there was a TV show talking about a kid with his hear born outside of his body. I cannot. The ‘doctor’ actually showed a video of a beating heart and I refused to look at it. Luckily, Christine and Lidia knew how sick to my stomach I was feeling and they told me when it was all clear to look again. I am a child. Ha.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “Keep your issues in your tissues.” -Manali
• “I can do it. I will do it. I have to do it.” -Manali

As usual, I rested and snacked in my room in the short time we had before the evening class led by Micael. He is such an awesome teacher who always makes us laugh and I had a great, great class. I felt so strong and did really well which was a shock considering how miserable my morning class was. I am also convinced that they are slowly making the hot room more hot and more humid every single class. He tried to get us excited that we were at the half way point but he was one week off (not sure he knew that) so he was having trouble getting an excited reaction from us. The staff always says the last week does not count but I disagree! 

I hung out by the pool after class before a rainstorm rolled in. I had dinner, studied, and briefly video chatted with Jessica and the girls. I miss them all so much. My sister and I are really close and I do miss talking to her and seeing her, especially since I lived at her house for 2 weeks before going to training.

Posture Clinic was quite an experience. My group had Eddie and Axry in with us and they had us say our favorite Bikram phrase, in his voice, instead of saying “here” when taking attendance. Mine was when he says “yes or no?” really aggressively as if we have a choice to say No. Tanya had the best once: when Bikram says “bounce, and bounce, and bounce, and bounce, and bounce” for the 3rd part of Awkward pose. That us all laughing! Eddie asked us to name our group and I suggested Naughty Cows because in the morning class, Micael was calling the staff that name for not listening in class and it was funny. The group was not convinced though so we are still nameless!

Eddie had me deliver Standing Bow Pulling pose first because he wanted me to help Alonso study in the hall. I was ready so I went ahead and did it. Eddie acknowledged that I knew the dialogue but wanted to push me out of my comfort zone. He had me re-do several parts, speeding some up and slowing some down, and yell phrases over and over again as loud as I could. He said it my time for a breakthrough and as much as I do not want to admit he was right, he was. I am used to doing the dialogue the way I do it and it was good to be pushed into trying something out of my zone. Is teacher training teaching me how to be a teacher?! 😉

After I went, I helped Alonso study Standing Head to Knee in the hallway for about half an hour. English is new to him but he knows it pretty well. As you can imagine, studying can be difficult for him when he does not know what words like “both” and “until” mean. Those were tough to define but he is a smart guy, he picked it up quickly. Earlier in the week we had to teach Fernando the difference between “palm” and “hand” and where the shoulder blade is. I could never learn this dialogue in Spanish so I commend them for working so hard to memorize 90 minutes of speaking in a language they do not know. It is amazing and so admirable!

Eddie put several people through the same experience of yelling and whatnot. Sometimes it felt like feedback was inconsistent which made it confusing but I guess we just need to trust the process. I can only assume it was more about making us do something out of our zone than it was about actually having perfect inflection. Eddie had the entire group scream the last part of the dialogue for Standing Bow together as loud as we could which was crazy, but fun. When someone wearing a sweet, leather Reebok hat tells you to scream, you do it. The other confusing part was that it was as if people who had great dialogue had more feedback than people who were still struggling to memorize it. It was bizarre but Leah, my roommate, reminded me that they are only going to give us feedback we are ready for and some people might not be ready for the nit-picky stuff.

Eddie had everyone thank me for helping Alonso and then Alicia and Tanya spoke up and said that I help everyone and was everyone’s “personal coach.” Eddie had everyone clap for me and told them to buy me a coffee but I said ice cream is always better. Ha. It is not about giving me credit, though, because we all help each other. A lot. I am not the only person making an effort, it is a complete team effort, but it was nice to be recognized especially having felt so beat down the night before.

 

Thursday 10/12/17 – Day 26
I woke up feeling so incredibly tight, probably because of the awesome class the night before. That always happens. Have a good class? Great, your punishment is that the next day is torture. Jolinda, a visiting teacher who got here last week, taught the morning class and despite how tired and sore I was, I did alright. It was a tough class though and I wanted to skip a posture or a set or sit down so badly but I stuck it out. Jim told us last week that there is no such thing as a modified posture, you just need to do less percentage. So, I did less percentage on a lot of them but I did what I could and that was all that mattered. For some reason I was having trouble breathing again so I rolled my Nike shorts down from the waist and up from the legs and that helped. Yikes. I was not sure how I felt about her class at the beginning but as class went on, I liked it more and more. She joked around with us and kept it casual and that was nice. Her savasana song was the classic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

I was so tired that after class I took the fastest shower of all time, threw the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the door, and crawled into bed for an hour-long nap. I skipped breakfast and everything. I woke up feeling like a new person! My body needed it. I try not to nap so that I do not get dependent on it or form that habit but sometimes, you just need it. Plus, I would rather nap in the mornings before the afternoon lecture rather than after the afternoon lecture so that I still can go to bed at night at a decent time. I had some snacks in the room before heading to the tables outside of Starbucks to study with my group.

The afternoon lecture was anatomy again but thankfully the last lecture and second-to-last class. We learned about the Lymphatic system and I was just so over it. I tried to pay attention but my patience with the anatomy process was so low and I found all of it to be so silly and pointless. I tried so hard to care at the beginning but as time went on, I could not put forth the energy for it anymore. I wrote my dialogue out most of the time and only took notes when he said something was important (e.g. that it was going to be on the test).

We were out around 4pm and I had just enough time to fold all my clothes and organize my drawers. They were a mess and had been driving me crazy. I had a bit of a headache and was longing to go to the pool and enjoy the hot weather but there was no time. Our days of going to the pool between lecture/class are long gone.

Our evening class was with Tom Henle, a visiting teacher and studio owner in California. He was AMAZING and I had the most amazing class ever. I was expecting my practice to be awful because of how bad the morning was but it was the extreme opposite. He was so funny and encouraging and DID THE DIALOGUE. I cannot speak for everyone but I believe that the teacher has a HUGE impact on the performance of the students and when someone like Tom gets up there and does so well, I do well too. His energy is so high that we have no choice but to use it and boost our own performance. I hope to be a teacher like that some day – someone who can give their students everything to help them do well! I found it interesting, too, that some visiting teachers come and either never get to teach or do not get to teach for a couple of days or weeks but Tom got to teach on his first day here. I think that says a lot about him!

Several of us went to the ocean after class. I have noticed that when people have a good class, they are more likely to go the ocean or the pool to relax but when people have a bad class, they like to go straight to their rooms afterward. There were so many people at the ocean so that should say a lot about how we all felt. Tina and Kirsty had me cracking up before class talking about how all of our yoga stuff smells like cheese and after the beach, we shamelessly paraded our cheese-smelling selves through the crowds of people to get back to our rooms. I love it but I felt bad for the poor people sharing the elevator with us… hot yoga is stinky.

Dinner was beautiful and it is worth mentioning that the soup was this amazing poblano soup that I had 3 bowls of. It was so delicious and I could eat it forever and ever.

Our evening lecture was our LAST anatomy class!! Hallelujah. Manali updated us on the latest like she does before every lecture. A lot of people were having side conversations and all the chaos was stressing me out and making it tough to hear her. I leaned over to Lidia and told her that the side chatter was distracting and giving me a headache and Manali called me out to ask me what I was saying. Facepalm. Of all the people talking, of course she singled me out! She had been suggesting to anyone staying in Mexico past graduation to try and teach a class or two here before going home so when she asked me what I was talking about, I lied and told her that I had said it would be cool to teach a class in Mexico but that I had to go back to Houston ASAP. I felt like if I had told her that what I really was saying then everyone would have been upset at me for finger-pointing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The ‘doctor’ finished the Circulatory system lecture and then we had a Q&A session to prepare us for Monday’s ‘final exam’ (still makes me laugh even thinking of it that way). He put all of the review questions on the screen but gave us no time to write them down as he went through answering them. He skipped around, too, so that made it confusing. Everyone was scrambling to write things out: I took my own notes (because writing helps me remember) but a huge shout out goes to Jana for taking notes for everyone and uploading the typed-versions in our Facebook group for everyone! People were asking questions a lot which was kind of pointless because he could barely hear them and in the rare case he could, he would not answer them. People were obviously worried about the test; I wish they knew to put their energy elsewhere. If their worry was because they wanted to actually learn the material, then I hope they know by now to learn it elsewhere. The ‘doctor’ was not the best source of information. We learned a little, but not a lot. We were out by midnight after reviewing 102 questions.

 

Friday 10/13/17 – Day 27
I was up late and early because I randomly got a stomach bug and was sick. Meh. I made it 4 weeks without getting the stomach bug so it was just my time, I guess. Caroline, a visiting teacher, taught the morning class (class #40!) and I spent all class trying not to be sick so I do not remember much about her except that she was a little firm with us. My group was in the first row so I put my mat on the far end just in case I had to run out. The breeze from the fan was strong on the end which I normally would have not liked but given my sick state, I was grateful. I did the best I could. Caroline’s savasana song was “One” by Mary J. Blige and U2. I had never heard that song before and it made me ugly cry. I get a little emotional all the time in this yoga but that song… feels. Seesh.

It was also Kim’s birthday so we all sang Happy Birthday to her in the hot room!

My stomach was still hurting after class but I managed. I had a light, sad breakfast and then did some laundry before heading out to study. I needed to make progress on my own dialogue and I finally felt like I was doing that.

Our typical lecture room was being used by one of the many other groups at the hotel this week so we were forced back into the ballroom where we practiced during week 2. Instead of a normal lecture, Manali wanted everyone to share their yoga stories: who we are, what led us to Bikram yoga, how it impacted us, and why we decided to teach. In 3.5 hours we made it through a little over half of the group. We cried, laughed, and everything in between. The only way to form meaningful connections with people is to really get to know each other and up until that moment, we really had not been getting to know each other on deeper levels. We all have our “Bikram besties” here but we have not really spent time getting to know EVERYONE else in the group. We are all guilty of it. Sharing was a great way for us to overcome that. I commend everyone who shared and was brave enough to open up. There were some really amazing and touching stories and even though I have not interacted with every person here, I feel closer to them. I loved everyone’s stories but Mandi said a few things I related to quite a bit: “What do you do when the person who made you courageous goes away?” and “We cannot explain why we love and do this yoga, so we teach it.” Spot on, Mandi.

We had to finish sharing our stories to go to our evening class. Jonalyn Henle, a visiting teacher and studio owner (married to Tom, who taught Thursday night), led class and she was SO great. I thoroughly enjoyed her class. She was a great teacher and I had an awesome class, one of my best ones here. Again, my ability was surprising considering the morning class I had. It helped that my stomach was feeling better! I loved everything she had to say and she was playful, funny, and kept our spirits up. Her pacing and timing was spot on and it made the class fly by. I really hope to be able to visit her and Tom’s studio one day and learn from them.

Jana and I went to the ocean after class and had a great talk. The water was cold but the weather and sunset was beautiful and we had a nice talk, catching up and checking in with each other. She is so down to Earth and we relate in a lot of ways. She is so easy to talk to! 

The hotel was so, so full. It was crazy all week with all of the conferences but the hotel was also the starting point/registration for a triathalon going on for the weekend so it was even more full with athletes and their families (and their bicycles!). Do they not know we are living here for 2 months? They are in our home!! *sarcasm*

Because of the amount of people in the hotel, Chula Vista (our buffet) had twice as much food and twice as many desserts. Yum.

After dinner, I walked around with Maryla. Neither one of us had shared our “story” earlier in the afternoon so we talked about what we wanted to say or thought we could say. You cannot really ‘prepare’ to share though – when put on the spot, you never know what will come out of your mouth.

Everyone else finished sharing their stories during our evening lecture. Nadine told us something that I really liked: “You live your life forwards but you understand it backwards.” I do not remember who said this but someone else mentioned that this yoga is “empowering and humbling” and that could not be more true! Everyone had great stories and things to say. I went towards the end (we were going by row and I was in the 2nd to last row) and it was late and I knew people were getting tired. I do not remember everything I said but I know that I did not say everything I wanted to, particularly about the huge impact Bikram yoga has had on my life. I talked really fast and was asked to “calm down and slow down” twice (I was calm! I just talk fast!) but I had people laughing. I guess I was funny, too? I am glad I could make them laugh a little bit though! My entire ‘speech’ seems so nonsensical looking back but hopefully it was okay. Manali also finally asked me what studio I plan on teaching at. Maybe she does not actually hate me. We were out a little after midnight.

Happy wedding day to Brian and Melissa back home! Wish I could have been there. Miss y’all!

 

Saturday 10/15/17 – Day 28
I could tell the sunrise was beautiful because I could see the orange peeking through our shutters but I was so tired that I fell back asleep and missed it. I swiped this photo from someone else!

Nancy led our morning class. I was in the 4th row and so out of it. I think part of the struggle was that I was so tired but part of it was that I had unknowingly mentally checked out because it was Saturday. Nancy is such a quiet teacher and it was soothing me to be more tired, too. I know if I had been at home and felt this tired, I would have taken a break during the floor series and skipped a few postures (or class entirely and done a double another day) but that is not really an option here. I was determined to not be lazy but I have to admit, I was closing my eyes during savasanas. Her savasana song was “Humble and Kind” by Tim McGraw and I do not know if it was the emotion of the day before or my exhaustion but I did get a little choked up. I was so, so happy when class was over!

Chula Vista was crowded for breakfast but I enjoyed a leisurely one, nonetheless. The juices here are amazing. My table went a little crazy.

I needed a break from everything so I took a 1 hour break in my room to blog and watch Netflix before heading to the pool to study. I ran into Kiley and Taryn and we all studied quietly near the pool. I got through another posture. Forward progress, finally. There was a special study session at 2pm and because Manali had mentioned earlier in the week that people who know the dialogue should go to help their peers (and specifically called out Taryn, Kiley, and me along with a few other people), the 3 of us felt like we needed to go. The study session was to help people who are struggling to study learn some tips and tricks to help them along. It was led by Jonalyn and Tom and they gave great advice. Thankfully, the advice they gave was exactly how I study so I felt good about that. The other visiting teachers gave some advice too and it was all helpful information. They had us implement those study methods for a little bit so I partnered with Andres to help him. Then, Manali had Taryn, Kiley, and me share our own advice on how to study for a few minutes. We each had our own extra things that have helped us so maybe something we said resonated with someone and it will help them moving forward. 

One thing Jonalyn said that I really liked was if you are ever in a situation that makes you angry or upset, just start reciting dialogue in your head. Not only will it distract you and calm you down, it will prepare you for all the crazy things that students do while you are teaching. Fun fact, when I have trouble sleeping here, I mentally go through the dialogue to help distract me enough until I fall asleep! I have been trying not to use my anxiety medication here (and have not since the first week) and that has really been helping.

After the study session, we all went back to the pool. We saw Jonalyn and Tom walk by so we stopped them and chatted with them for a little bit. Kiley and I asked them questions about all sorts of things and we had a very nice and enlightening chat. They are awesome people and I am glad we got to know them more. What they had to say really changed my entire perspective of training and on what is to come and I am thankful they took time to talk to us. I also learned that they are the ones behind the awesome water bottle stickers Christina was handing out during week 1. They said one of their teachers is coming next week and will bring some with her. Yes!

I hung out at the pool studying for a while longer as various people came and went. We snacked on chips and guacamole, too. I love the salsa/pico here! It is so much more spicy than at home but not in a too-spicy way. 

Taryn came up with and took my picture-of-the-day, too. I was studying Locust so it made sense to do Locust! Locust has never been my strongest posture (and definitely not my favorite) but I had felt like I had been improving more and more here. Photo evidence! Maybe one day I will be able to do Scorpion. Taryn used to participate in yoga competitions so she critiqued my Wheel picture from earlier in the week and gave me some tips and advice to help perfect it. I still consider myself new to the yoga world so I was more than grateful for the insight. She was pretty confident I could do Full Wheel with a little bit of training but the idea of that is terrifying! If I could do Scorpion, I could probably do Full Wheel though. Again, maybe one day. (By the way, neither Full Wheel or Scorpion are Bikram postures.)

There were random guys walking around socializing with different people. They chatted with us for a bit and while they were very nice, they were clearly shopping for some girls to hang out with… cough cough. They brought up drinking, partying, drugs, and sex and were shocked to hear we were not allowed to do anything non-yoga related, as if we would hang out with them if we could. Yeah right. It was flattering but nice try guys.

After the pool, Lidia, Maryla, and I cleaned up and heading back to Tavola (the Italian restaurant) for dinner. We enjoyed another amazing dinner with great service. They treated us like queens there and brought us ice for our water bottles and free appetizers. The food was so good and the chef even came by to say hello to us! Of course, we had to order 3 desserts again. We have a problem! We also have started to realize how much we value our friendship and just how much we are going to miss each other when this is over. After many laughs and after our stomachs were over-stuffed, we walked around for a bit before calling it a night. I love these girls! Some people in our group went down to an area the hotel turned into a karaoke ‘bar’ and I was tempted to go but I did not have the energy! Maybe another time, if the hotel does it again.

I blogged and watched Netflix until way too late in the evening/morning.

 

Sunday 10/16/17 – Day 29
I had every intention to take the 10am shuttle to Walmart but I was up so late that I decided not to set an alarm and let fate take its course: I woke up around 11:30am. I can never sleep that long at home so that was nice. I missed Walmart but everything on my list was optional (snacks, snacks, more snacks) so it was okay. Lidia and I went to The Beach Club for lunch because their burgers and french fries are amazing. I had hamburger last week but decided to try the chicken burger this time and it was just as good! We had a nice talk about all sorts of things and our life plans/fears when we go home. The more I get to know her, the more I realize how alike we are. We both are tough on the outside but soft on the inside! 

After lunch, she wanted to head to the beach but I did not want to deal with sand so I went to the pool. I was at the pool for hours and hours and hours, soaking up the sun. I reviewed and refreshed my dialogue on postures I already knew and studied another new one. With my new outlook on training, I am hoping to have through the spine series, at a minimum, memorized by the end of week 5! There were several of us coming and going and while we all studied independently, it was nice to have people nearby because we can only study for so long before needing a break to socialize: Tina, Kirsty, Tanya, Elsa, Kiley, Taryn, Jana, Karl, Marya. Great people, great times.

My water was empty and my brain was fried from the studying so I went back to my room to take a break from the sun and finish this post before dinner! For the first time since I have been here, I really wish I had not forgotten my Adderall at home. It would have come in handy today with my distracted brain.

I went down for dinner and enjoyed a nice conversation with Karl, Jana, and Kathie. Jana had an interesting “how I got to training” story and it was nice getting to hear more about it and her perspective on things. She was involved in a rough, life changing car accident that put her through a lot. I believe I really relate to her family in a lot of ways and she really reminded me of my brother. Different events but still so much in common. 

Happy birthday, Denise!

My mom and I talked for a little while after dinner and caught up. It is always nice seeing a familiar face and I am glad to have her support and understanding on this process!

 

Weekly Summary
Week 4 was all over the place, emotionally and physically. It was my “time of the month” and while I hate attributing my low patience and emotional state to that, it sure does have an effect. I am learning a lot here, about yoga, myself, others, and life in general and I am so very grateful to be able to be here. Some people gave up literally everything to be here or have suffered and survived through a variety of things (accidents, deaths, drugs, etc.) and it has helped me realize how fortunate I am. Manali reminded us earlier in the week to stay positive through this experience. Despite how negative and frustrating this blog entry may have sounded, I have not felt overly negative about the experience. Little things have frustrated me here and there and for a little longer than they should (classic Jillian move) but I have had an overwhelmingly positive experience so far. I was told that at some point I (and other people, probably) might question why we are even here and doing this but I have not felt that yet. It has been a rollercoaster but I have truly loved it. This experience has been way more fulfilling than I could have ever imagined.

Some other fun things I jotted down during the week:

• I am noticing when studying postures that I can hear my instructors’ voices in my head. I say things the way they say them, especially Tanja! It is so helpful and really goes a long way in memorizing.
• There have been a lot of conversations about how to hold your foot during Standing Head to Knee and I shared with them the way Paul taught me one day: to make your fingers and thumbs touch and form a circle during the grip. I cannot explain it here but all my yoga people will know. Several people have tried it and already said it has helped them. Go Paul.
• Paul also once told me that delivering consistent and correct dialogue is how you build trust with your students. I knew he was right because I have teachers I trust more than others but I was thinking about it a lot this week. We have had such a variety of teachers and I find myself struggling to adjust to each one. I will break a posture ‘early’ because I know it is time for the posture to end and then the teacher will tell us ‘do not anticipate’ and ‘listen to my words.’ Well, I am listening but the dialogue exists for a reason and by not following it, you are not building trust. It can get distracting. Eddie echoed a similar statement to Paul’s during posture clinics which was such odd timing since it was weighing so heavy on my mind this week.
• No matter if my class is a good class or a bad class, I leave every single one thinking, “I cannot believe I just did that.” Bikram yoga is tough but when do it, you cannot help but be proud of yourself! Even so, the yoga here is the easy part. It is everything else that makes it tough! 

We are almost at the halfway mark! I am still not feeling homesick but there are things about home I miss. I am happy here, though. I  would love to snuggle with my sweet puppy, Elliott! 

Until next time,

Jillian

 

P.S. I am posting a picture-a-day on Instagram so follow along there (@jillianrahn) if you want to see pictures throughout the week! Shout out to Taryn for always helping me come up with ideas.

You can also subscribe to the blog to get an email when a new one is posted. 

31 classes later and we have completed 3 weeks of training. I decided that the word of the week should be “humbling” as this week became more and more difficult as it went on! It really knocked me off my yoga high horse, especially after feeling so good the first 2 weeks. 

Monday 10/2/17 – Day 16
We kicked off the week with a 2 hour and 20-minute class (classes are supposed to be 90-minutes) with Jim Kallet back in our hot room! It was so nice to be back in our hot room but he sure did push us. I do not know if it was being in the heat again, the chemical smell of the room from how they cleaned the carpet from the flood, or that fact that I had a cold but I was very dizzy for most of class and had a tough time. I did not skip any postures but it was tough to hold them for very long, especially Triangle because the carpet in the room is so slippery. I also never sit down between postures but Jim did a lot of talking between them and I just had to sit for those moments. It helps in Bikram yoga to get in your “zone” and I just never made it to mine! On another note, we were put into groups during the first week that determine which line (row) we are on in class which forces us to sometimes be in the front and sometimes be in the back. That way, everyone has an opportunity to be in front on Bikram at some point. I am in group 3 so I was on line 3. If you have been following along or know me from classes at home, you know I would rather be in the front so I can see myself! Seeing yourself in the mirror helps SO much in class but after a week of practicing in the ballroom, I was more used to not seeing myself and while I was not happy to be on line 3, I was fine. Plus, we rotate.

Jim was a good teacher but I could not help but think that I would have preferred him much more during a lecture or Posture Clinic. I liked what he had to say but I also wanted to be able to take notes and learn from him while still being able to breath. He did come off as a little arrogant or rude initially but, spoiler alert, as the week went on, my perspective of him changed and I admit I misjudged him. You know he killed us all because no one cheered before Camel pose! If the morning was class was any indication for the week ahead, we were all going to be screwed.

I video chatted with Katy after class for a few minutes. I needed a pep talk because I was already feeling a little distracted from something else and then just totally wiped from class. She refocused me and sent me on my way!

My friend, Lindsay, helped make me a few tank tops before training and one of them read “BIKRAM STRONG” but was colored in a way that it also read “I AM STRONG.” I felt like I needed a little extra strength so I threw on the tank for the day and immediately proceeded to splash sausage grease all over it at the breakfast buffet when I dropped the serving spoon. FACEPALM. Grease. On my new shirt. Ugh. It was going to be one of those weeks! One of the waiters helped me clean it and I think it mostly worked but I sent it out with the laundry on Saturday so we will see. My favorite omelet guy was gone and the new one started teaching me the Spanish words for my order: egg white omelet, spinach, tomatoes, onions, peppers, and queso. Baby steps.

Thankfully I remembered that we were in a new month so I quickly paid my rent for my apartment back home before heading to our first Anatomy class. I was NOT looking forward to it at all because I tend to faint when learning/hearing about body-related things but I managed. We learned about Osteoporosis and blood cells. I would have preferred it if I had been in an episode of The Magic School Bus (why have I referenced this show twice now?) than listen to the ‘doctor’ talk for 2.5 hours. You all know which episode I am talking about: the one where they shrink and go travel through Ralphie’s blood stream. The room was freezing and I was starving and trying not to faint the entire time was exhausting. Deep breathing is a lifesaver, literally. I had time for a short 20-minute nap before our evening class; only my second nap of the trip.

Bikram taught our evening class and we were all excited to have him back after the morning class we had. Leslie asked me if I was okay because she noticed I was sitting between postures and made a comment that I never sit so it concerned her. That was so nice of her! I did much better in class but was still feeling under the weather. The toxic smell of the room was giving me a headache, too. I was able to readjust for Triangle and do a little better about not letting my feet slip, too. At one of the 7:30am audio classes back home, we could not get the audio to start so the other 4 ladies in the room suggested I just teach since I knew the dialogue. When we got to the postures I did not know yet, we just said them together and helped each other. Kim G. told me that to make your feet to not slip, dig your heels in and turn your stretched-out leg’s ankle in/make the foot flat. It made my inner thighs hurt but it sure did work. The dialogue even says “right foot flat on the floor” so of course that would be the solution!

Bikram taught for 2 hours and 5 minutes. As if doing double yoga classes a day is not tough enough, both had to be over 2 hours long! Brutal. He called me Juliana in class (close enough?) and sang for us at the end. Jim did not have a savasana song for us in the morning so hearing Bikram play and sing one for us was nice. The song at the end of class really helps the mind relax! I love when Bikram sings, too, because he will sometimes stand in the middle of the room while he does it and with all of the lights off and just the glow of the lobby area on him, it is pretty cool. It is a good reminder that we are lucky to be able to take his classes and learn directly from the source of all of this!

We had dinner in Chula Vista (the hotel buffet where all of our meals are) and the chicken was especially good. Good enough to mention on a blog!

Monday night was our first night of Posture Clinic (but more like Dialogue Clinic because it is mostly about proving that we know the dialogue). Our evening lectures/events usually start at 10pm but this one started earlier at 9:30pm. Actually, it was supposed to start at 9:30pm but we had a late start!

There are 4 groups total and they split us into two cold, dimly-lit, cleared hotel suites (empty living rooms of a room, basically) where we sat on the floor with no blankets/pillows for hours. They really are trying to break us and make us crack! Groups 3 and 4 were together in one, groups 1 and 2 together in another. During Posture Clinics, each person must stand up and say the dialogue for whatever posture we are working on at the time. You say it in front of the whole room while 3 people demo in front of you and teachers/staff (not Bikram) listen in. Afterward, the teachers/staff can provide feedback and then you demo for the next person as they say their dialogue. Monday night was Back Bending and Hands to Feet pose (the 2^nd and 3^rd parts of Half Moon which we completed last week). They took attendance but forgot to call my name. For my group, when they said your name you were supposed to yell, “I’m awesome.” When they forgot me, I raised my hand and said, “My name was not called but I am Jillian from group 3 and I am also awesome” which got some laughs. I was the 4^th to do the dialogue and thought I did well. I tried to add more inflection and variety as Bikram had told me last week but Manali and Eddie gave me the same feedback. I needed to emphasize the bold words of the dialogue more and change my pace (sometimes go fast, sometimes go slow) throughout. I was nervous but I still think it was fine overall. I know those things will get better naturally as we go. Lidia, Maryla, Leah, and I all went and got ours out of the way! They did great! You are not allowed to be shy here so better to ‘rip the band aid off’ and just get it out of the way. Posture Clinic went until just before midnight and we got to experience an insane lightning storm on our way to bed.

 

Tuesday 10/3/17 – Day 17
The storm the night before was intense and I was worried about the hot room flooding again. None of us wanted to go back to the ballroom! Luckily, it was okay. I had a slow start to the day and was feeling a little better except for a scratchy throat. Jim taught again, for over 2 hours, and I did well but not great. He called me out to reach my shoulder forward more during Standing Bow Pulling which was fair, I do tend to not reach enough. Again, he had a lot of valuable things to say but again, I wished it was not during class. I could not get in my zone and was hungry the entire time.

After breakfast, I studied in the lobby and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We had anatomy again during the afternoon, this time learning about the skeletal system, muscular system, and spinal cord. It was all horrible but the spinal parts were the absolute worst. I survived.

Evening classes are always with Bikram but Bikram apparently decided to take the rest of the week off so Jim taught again. Anurag took professional photos of us during class which I think made me try even harder; not to show off, but to not be the person slacking off or not ‘in line’ with everyone else. I did not want to stand out for the wrong reasons in the photos! I think everyone felt the same way to some degree because the energy in class was very high and almost no one was sitting down. The class was 1 hour and 50-minutes long, proving to us that Jim cannot teach a 90-minute class! He did tell us a good story about Usain Bolt though… so maybe it was worth it. I also noticed for the first time that my cheap mat is so thin in the middle now because it bothers my knees during Half Tortoise and Rabbit. I miss my awesome mat I have at home!

I put a red arrow on the pictures where you might have trouble spotting me (black top, purple shorts, giant blue Hydro Flask) but they are still pretty tiny. Posting each individual would have you scrolling so much more than you already are. I think you can click on a photo to see the full size though (on a phone – not sure how it works in a browser).

Maryla and I wobbled over to the ocean after class. The class took everything out of me and walking was quite the chore. It was so nice to relax my body in the water and just let the waves crash into me.

During dinner, I called Baba and Grandma for a few minutes. Baba had sent me a Facebook message and I have found it easier to call people and talk for a few minutes than to spend time typing up how things are going. It was nice to see them!

The weather was still very nice so Maryla and I went for a walk and found the 4^th pool. We had a nice heart-to-heart conversation about all sorts of things and I am thankful to have met her! 

We had Posture Clinic at 9:30pm again to finish Back Bending and Hands to Feet. Jim and Micael were with our groups instead and they provided different perspectives on our dialogue and other things. Jim gave a long welcome but because I was not in a hot room dying, I was able to appreciate it significantly more and even take some notes. It bothered me that people were still being allowed to just read the dialogue at this point but I know it is still early and that will not last long. Some people really struggled through it but did not read and that was admirable. Sometimes you need to fail first to succeed! I wanted to badly to be able to help them and “feed them words” but we were not allowed to help. Everyone got through it though and we were finished just after midnight. Sitting on the floor for that long was brutal and did not help my soreness or headache!

 

Wednesday 10/4/17 – Day 18
I woke up so tired and so sore. The soreness was mainly in my hips, pelvis, and butt! I blame Triangle pose. My head was still pounding.

Micael taught the morning class which was a refreshing change of pace for us. He had great dialogue and was quirky/funny enough to keep the mood light. He made us laugh! I had a good class and once again was corrected on my Standing Bow Pulling pose, this time to get my head straight. I will get it all right one day! It was the first time all week I felt like I was in my zone and just do what my body knows how to do. He taught in 90-minutes and played a Japanese song at the end of class which were nice bonuses! He said that Bikram yoga is a “balance between struggle and enjoying it – it is a give and take” and that really resonated with me. It is a tough yoga class but it should be enjoyable too and after Jim’s more serious classes, it felt nice to have a light-hearted class again.

It was a cold and rainy morning but still nice. After breakfast, I helped several people study Awkward pose in the lobby so they would be ready for Posture Clinic in the evening: Veronica, Denise, Daniella, Abigail, Alonso, Kelly, Leslie, Ali, and Mari. We did round robin-style studying and took turns going. I already know the standing series but helping them with it helps solidify it for me, too, so everybody wins! The Mundomex guys (a few guys that help us throughout training and keep things running smoothly, the best!) joined us for a little bit, too.

The afternoon lecture was anatomy again, this time about the Digestive system and Hydration. I unknowingly dozed off for a minute during one of the videos and Lidia woke me up when I started to snore. Oops. I literally had to take notes just to stay awake. My body was exhausted. They let us out at 3:30pm and I fell on my knee from the slippery ground on the way back to my room. Not embarrassing at all…

I stuffed my face with snacks (I was so hungry all week) before for another evening class with Jim and my disgusting yoga mat. He was closer to 90-minutes this time but still over. It was extra hot in the room and I struggled through it but managed. I have yet to skip a posture and I am determined to keep it that way for as long as I physically can. It was my group’s turn to be in the front row and that was nice, too! For some reason though, my body was not cooperating with the spine series. Usually I am more flexible in the evening classes but I was not having it. I did everything fine but it was a struggle; I had the energy, just not the physical ability. My left foot was hurting in a weird way, probably from my fall earlier in the day and my left hip needed to pop but would not, making Toe Stand a nightmare. One thing Jim said that stood out (and that I remembered long enough to write down after class) was that “there is no such thing as modification, only less percentage.” At my studio, so many students make modifications to postures because of an injury or mental block. It really hit me that I am going to have a tough job convincing them to break out of their bad habits and try things the CORRECT way so that they can begin to fix their injury and realize their true capabilities. As Bikram told us, yoga is the slowest therapy because it lasts the longest!

I video chatted with Alex after class for a minute and then headed to dinner. It was cold outside and I was not very hungry so after a quick bite, I went to study with Maryla, Daniella, and Abigail then took a quick break in my room before Posture Clinic.

Groups 1 and 3 were together for Posture Clinic, this time to do Awkward pose. We had Jim, Karla, Ary, and Carolin in our room for feedback. I went 5^th or 6^th and Jim’s feedback to me was: “great.” Cool, I will take that. After I said mine, I had to demo for the next 3 people and that was TOUGH. My legs were shaky and my posture was garbage but the point of the demo is not to have a great posture, it is simply so that the person doing the dialogue has bodies to look at (which really helps!). They say even after you do your dialogue, keep listening to everyone else do theirs so you can learn from them what to do or not to do and that has been valuable. I have heard how other people add inflection and whatnot and have learned from them. When people stopped volunteering to go, they started randomly choosing people to go, whether they were ready or not. Terrifying. Awkward pose had 3 parts and most people that were called on at least had the 1^st part memorized but I really felt for those that had nothing. I try to help people study but at the end of the day, it is up to them to take the time to do it and work towards it. I had studied with Veronica and Mari earlier in the day and I knew they were both ready so I encouraged both to volunteer instead of being called on. Choosing to go is way less stressful then being told to go! Veronica knew all 3 parts but tried to quit after the 1^st one and I basically made her stay up there and finish them all. She did, and she did great. Now she can cross that off her list and keep moving forward. We were out at midnight and as I was walking to the stairs to go to my room, Denise stopped me and called me the ‘Dialogue Queen’ for helping everyone earlier and asked when I would be available to help them again. Any day, any time! I would not call myself the queen of dialogue but I am happy to help other people so that we can all get through it.

 

Thursday 10/5/17 – Day 19
I woke up just as sore, if not more so, than Wednesday. Maryla suggested I start getting up a little earlier so I can walk around before the morning class and get my body moving. It is not a bad idea… but that means I miss out on extra sleep. Maybe I will give it a shot next week.

Lidia and I ordered yoga shorts from Onzie and they were delivered Wednesday afternoon so I was excited to wear one of the pairs to the morning class! I always told myself that I would not wear shorts with the ties but that did not last long. They are so cute and comfortable and even though I felt very exposed/naked compared to my Nike shorts, I love them. (Lidia and I already ordered a few more to be delivered next week!) Being so much more exposed just showed me how bizarre my stomach looks when I am doing Standing Separate Leg Head to Knee (which I had thought I lost the ability to do because it had been subpar my entire time here but had been decent again this week) and Rabbit, though! Kind of funny.

Our morning class was taught by Nancy, Micael’s (he taught Wednesday) mom. Yoga runs in their family, apparently. I was in the 4th row, directly in front of the staff/visiting teachers who practice in the back of the room with us. Nancy taught a great class and I did alright given how sore I was. The spine series was still a struggle. Manali sneaked up on me during Triangle and moved my neck to get it in the correct spot. I am completely okay with corrections and them helping me but I wish there was a 2 seconds heads up so that I would not have been so caught off guard! When you do not see someone coming and then suddenly someone is grabbing your head and neck, it is a little startling! It was a fair correction though. I know my head is not turned enough but it is tough. Just another “mantra” (as Jim would say) to start working on.

I skipped my pre-class protein bar and was starving by the middle of class. Stomach growls are distracting. I also had seen that my sister was interviewing for a job in Dallas again and the thought of them potentially moving to Dallas was weighing heavy on me. Not even the Savasana song could distract me from that! You cannot control things around you but you can control how you react. I hope I react well if I ever get that news! 

Being a creature of habit, I had my normal breakfast again made by our amazing omelet guy. We had a some different guys all week who did alright but this guy right here is the best of the best!

After breakfast, I helped Maryla study by the pool. It was hot outside so we decided to dip our feet in and before I knew it, Maryla had fallen in the water! Classic. We could not stop laughing!

We continued anatomy for the afternoon lecture and learned about the Urinary system and nutrition. I do not think I would survive these classes without fainting if it was not for the sarcastic comments we all make to each other under our breaths. The nutrition PowerPoint came from an internet search too, which was amusing. It was so nice outside and we all just wanted to be outside. We get a break during lecture so we of course use it to defrost and enjoy the weather.

Our evening class with Jim lasted just under 2 hours and was so hot, tiring, and difficult. I still could not do the spine series and so many people were sitting down and/or leaving. My determination to not skip a posture might physically break me. TBD! You know it was a rough class when one of the simplest postures (Wind Removing Pose) hurt more than anything. The good news was that my hip finally popped. Hooray. One thing Jim told us was that “today’s class is an accumulation of every class you have ever taken” and I kind of liked that, even though it was a rough class for me. Had I been home and felt this way, I would have skipped a posture or 2 but I guess I am growing because I pushed through the pain. Also, Jim must not believe in Savasana songs because there was not one again!

After class, Lidia and I did a short photo shoot to celebrate our new shorts before taking a dip in the salt water pool.

We got to watch a beautiful sunset during dinner. I just wanted to lay down though so I headed to my room. I video chatted with mom for a little bit and then finally started listening to Miley Cyrus’ new album. Y’all know I love her! Maryla and I got some ice cream before evening lecture with Jim instead of the usual Posture Clinic.

Lecture with Jim was great. He talked for 3 hours straight about the complete history of yoga, Bikram’s life, and various yoga principles. I took so many notes! It was such a great lecture and it did not feel like 3 hours. I loved that he calls yoga studios “schools” instead. I definitely felt like I needed to stretch though and was happy to be out at 12:45am.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “A frog that is born inside the whale always thinks the inside of the whale is the whole ocean.”
• “There is a limit to the bad.”
• “The wrong method of exercise is worse than no exercise.” -Bishnu Ghosh
• “When medical science ends, yoga science begins.”
• “What you resist ultimately conquers you.” -J Krishnamurti
• “It is not enough to suffer for 90 minutes, you have to watch yourself suffer.” (jokingly on why we have mirrors in the hot room)
• “Pain kills the pain. Poison kills the poison.”
• “The only bad class you have is the one you don’t go to.”

 

Friday 10/6/17 – Day 20
Once again, I woke up SO TIGHT. The morning class was taught by Tyroon (spelling?), one of the guy’s from Bikram’s entourage. He was pretty aggressive and strict with us and it was a tough class. I tried so hard to push myself to try and combat my soreness and tightness but it was this class where I determined that the word of the week was “humbling.” So. Humbling. You think you may be decent at yoga until you have a week and class like this and it is like you know nothing at all! We are supposed to have a short savasana between postures on the floor series, about 20 seconds, and he gave us approximately 3 seconds to rest instead. It was exhausting and my foot was still hurting from earlier in the week. Someone near me was wearing perfume, too. Smells in the hot room are totally enhanced so it was brutal. How many excuses can I come up with for y’all on why I had a bad class?! I was so happy when class was over and took the longest savasana of all time so my body could relax and recover.

Maryla and I went swimming after class for a bit so that my body would not tighten up too much. I had a quick breakfast where I met Carolin, one of the visiting teachers, who knows one of my studio owners from back home, Holly. After catching up with her, I studied in the lobby enjoying the cool breeze. The couch is so comfortable but the hotel hates when we lay down so I was asked to sit up and be a normal person (my words, not theirs).

Our afternoon lecture was a review of all the anatomy we learned this week to help us prep for our anatomy “mid-term” next week. It was ridiculous and when we finished early, they made us re-watch all the videos from the week to keep us in the room until 3:30pm. We had a little bit of time and because my patience was so low from the afternoon lecture and my whole body hurt, I took a minute to go swimming before the evening class and decompress.

The evening class with Jim was incredibly hot, probably the hottest of the week. Once again, I struggled and pushed through it. It was a tough class and I escaped as soon as it was over to lay in the grass outside and get some fresh air. Jim said another thing I liked (and remembered long enough to write down): “The posture ends when savasana begins and the next posture starts when savasana ends.” Deep.

I had a quick dinner and rested in the room before what I figured would be another late night. Dad sent me a picture of my sweet Elliott just before evening lecture too. Look how cute that little guy is!

As expected, the evening lecture went until 1am. Jim lectured again and I really loved everything he had to say. He is pretty long winded but he says everything more clearly/focused than Bikram so it was nice to hear some of it again to really soak it in. I had a question in the middle of it and raised my hand but when it became apparent he was not going to call on me, I bailed. At the end though, he remembered I had a question so he called on me and it ended up keeping everyone there another 30 minutes. Sorry, guys! I had asked him for advice on how to convince students who are used to modified postures for years how to stop doing the modified postures. Valid question, I thought. He did not really have an answer but I also think he misunderstood my question because he mostly focused on how to deal with other teachers who do not do the dialogue or who may ask me to teach a 60-minute class. Oh well!

Jim promised to teach his last class with us on Saturday morning in 89-minutes, too.

Noteworthy quotes:

• “You can’t start your journey until you know your destination.”
• “He lived a life as passionately without attachment to results and thus results came to him.” -Ghandi memorial
• “You’re not your mind.”
• “We’re made up of atoms. Atoms are made up of empty space. We’re made up of empty spaces. If there wasn’t something in that space, wouldn’t it be a waste of space?”
• “A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame.”

Before lecture, we learned that a fellow instructor has passed away. Charles was a student, and then instructor, for a brief time at my home studio. I only ever took one class of his and it was a struggle for him to get through but he made it. I had heard he went to the Spring Training to visit and got to teach a class there. Charles did not going our training and I did not know him well but we all honored him with a standing moment of silence. 
Saturday 10/7/17 – Day 21
Jim taught his last class with us in the morning and as expected, he broke his promise and went over 90-minutes. He is a nice guy and clearly very passionate and knowledgeable (Maryla called him a “library on 2 feet”) but the guy cannot teach a 90-minute class to save his life. I would like to think that maybe it was because he just wanted to tell us trainees as much as he can while he could and that when he is at his studio, he honors the time restraint! I was dying by the end of class but so happy to finally be finished with week 3! If you miss a class/lecture or even sign in late, you have to take an extra class on Saturday morning so I was thrilled to not have to stay for that. I do not think I would have made it!

Maryla and I went for a swim after class and investigated the spa situation and prices. I video chatted with Bailey and Olivia, too. As usual, Olivia did not care (her affection for me was short lived) but Bailey was so cute. She asked me if I was having fun at yoga and if I was eating and drinking enough. She told me she missed me and loved me! She also told me about her Uncle Branden and Aunt Melanie’s wedding last weekend and about being a flower girl. We talked about what she might dress up as for Halloween, too. I hate that I am missing Halloween with them but I told her that when I get back, we can dress in costumes and go to a special dinner anyway! She told me I was silly but said it would be fun. Love that girl.

I had been washing my hot room clothes in the tub but I finally decided to go ahead and get them and my regular clothes properly laundered. The hotel laundry is kind of pricey but there is a guy who comes and takes them away/returns them in 24 hours and is so, so cheap so I did that! I have plenty of clothes to keep me going for another week without laundry but I figured I might as well get it done before I NEED to do it. Always plan ahead. (It ended up being $175 pesos. I love Mexico.)

Danny, one of the Mundomex guys, took everyone to Walmart but instead of getting out there with everyone else (I did not need anything from there this weekend), he dropped Maryla and I off at McDonald’s in the same parking lot while he went to get the next batch of people. After he dropped the next round of people off, he grabbed us and took us back to the hotel. It was a short 20-minute lunch but it was the best thing and exactly what we needed! We ate enough food for at least 4 people and enjoyed every second of it. Did you know that Mexico McDonald’s have cheeseballs? They were so delicious and it was nice to feel normal for a little bit.

After we got back from McDonald’s, we decided to hit the spa. It was only 300 pesos for unlimited access to the spa (steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, etc.) for the day. We got there at 1pm and stayed until 7:30pm and enjoyed every single second of it. When we got there, they gave us lockers for our stuff, robes, and shoes. The lady magically knew which size shoes we needed, too. Impressive.

After we got comfortable, we went into a ‘waiting’ area for the massages. We were not getting massages but the area had tea, coffee, water, cookies, and muffins for us. We stayed in there for about an hour while Maryla studied and I finally started on my blog. I spa like my mom would… with a laptop. I promise I only had it for parts of the day! The blog takes forever to write so I really needed to get started on it and I figured the spa was the perfect place because there would be no distractions. It really felt like we were somewhere else for the day.

The jacuzzi was so nice and there were ice towels for us. We went between that, the steam room, and the outside pool several times. The smell in the steam room was amazing. We used rolled up towels as pillows and stayed in there until we could not breath anymore. There was also another waiting area inside the spa that was warmer and on the other side of the jacuzzi that had 2 lounge chairs so we rested there a lot, too. For most of the day, it was just the 2 of us in the whole area. We studied dialogue and talked about all sorts of things. She has recognized that I have a problem with self-worth and esteem and was trying to get me to pep-talk myself. She said, “I am sorry you became my friend because I am going to fix you” and “I cannot wait for you to fall in love with yourself.” My own personal therapist in Acapulco! Ha.

I also admitted that I have no idea how to do the inhale portion of pranayama breathing. It is supposed to make a noise and I just cannot do it. She tried to teach me but no such luck. It is a little amusing to me because Bikram and other instructors have made comments about how well we sound when we inhale and every time I have just hoped and prayed that I would never get called out to demo because it would be an embarrassing fail. I should work on that.

Being at the spa was such a nice mental break from everything! Later, Kirsty, Elsa, and Nadine showed up for massages and we got to hang out with them for a little bit. It is important to me to get to know other people here as well so as much as I liked being semi secluded for the day, I liked getting to get to know them too! Did you know Kirsty spent 4 years living in Spain as part of an ABBA tribute band? That is easily plus 100 cool points in my eyes! 

After 6.5 hours at the spa, we decided to clean up and go meet Lidia for dinner and Tavola, the Italian restaurant. We had decided no Chula Vista (the buffet) all weekend! It was nice to get dressed up and eat something different. The service there was beyond; they treated us so well and has us cracking up. Thank goodness Maryla, our little French Canadian girl, speaks Spanish! We had bread and the manager treated us to bruschetta. Maryla and I split gnocci, I got a pizza, Maryla got a giant calzone, and Lidia got salmon.

We also ordered 3 desserts. It was so much food but all so, so delicious. We were there for 2 hours and laughed the entire time about who knows what. After the week I had, it was so relaxing and nice to just laugh and be carefree for a night. We are not allowed to drink while we are here but we were laughing so much and being so silly that it would not surprise me if people thought we were drunk. A glass of wine would have been nice though! The meal only came out to $33 a person and for the amount of food we had, that was a pretty good deal.

We went for a short walk around the hotel afterward to try and walk off everything we ate.

Saturday was such a perfect, relaxing, much needed day. Being here is mentally and physically exhausting but I am lucky to have met these amazing girls and have connected so well with them. You really do get to know people at a deeper level when you are put into situations like this! I learn something new about them during every conversation and vice versa.

As a nice bonus, I think with all of the food we ate we officially added every vitamin and nutrient back into our bodies to prepare us for the week. We should bet set on sodium, sugar, and carbs… everything… for the week!

 

Sunday 10/8/17 – Day 22
I fell asleep around midnight the night before and slept on and off until 11am when my alarm went off. I got ready and headed downstairs to go get pedicures with Lidia at the spa. My toes were not that desperate for attention but my feet needed a good massage. It was a good pedicure but not as great as I was hoping for. Next time, I will treat myself to the spa pedicure instead of the classic one! On the bright side, they had OPI’s “Cajun Shrimp” color which is my go-to at home!

After pedicures, Lidia and I went to the Beach Club for a late lunch. I skipped breakfast to sleep so I was pretty starved by then. Lidia and I split a shrimp/fish dish and chips/salsa and then we each got burgers and fries. Again, so delicious and nice to not be Chula Vista food. The food at Chula Vista is not bad at all… we just wanted a break for the weekend. Maryla met us there after her nap and got some fries to snack on, too.

I went to my room to make more progress on my blog and rest for an hour before meeting Maryla and Lidia at the beach. Maryla makes friends everywhere she goes and she somehow managed to get us a free cabana area! Our cabana number was 007, the best number of course. We hung out there for 3 hours, studying and relaxing in the sun. We got coconuts and Lidia got her hair braided. I made a little progress on my dialogue but definitely found it tough to focus out there with all the locals constantly approaching us to sell us dresses, jewelry, and activities (massages, ATV rides, etc.).

We finished the evening with a dip in the pool to rinse the sand off before I went back to my room to finish this post (finally). I skipped dinner because I was still full from our late lunch and took the leftover pizza from Saturday night up to Maryla and Lidia’s room for them. Their view is so great from their higher floor and they do not have the silly dome blocking everything.

On another note: Today was my 5th anniversary working at StarTex Software! Whoop!

 

Week Summary
Week 3 was tougher than the previous ones. The anatomy classes were not my favorite and it took me most of the week to accept having to do so many extra long classes. My body was resisting but it pulled through. “Mind over the matter,” as Bikram would say. I also was breaking out a lot more than I had been and I blame being back in the hot room. I would not trade the hot room for clear skin, though! They say week 3 and 4 are when people start to crack and some have and some have gotten pretty close. I would put myself in the ‘pretty close to cracking’ category for the week. If we had to go one more day I think I would have been in the other category!

We are officially 1/3 of the way finished, too. I know I should not be counting down, that I should just appreciate the time here because it will go by fast, and that it seems weird to countdown to the end of something that you are thoroughly enjoying (despite the mental and physical challenges)… but it is human nature. I do not feel homesick yet but do miss things about home, mostly the freedom over my own schedule and having Elliott around. Both of my best friends are pregnant and both sent me ultrasounds of their babies and I hate missing that too! Of course I miss work (I am still checking emails and support tickets) and my family/nieces/friends/volleyball, too. It was during week 3 of my Europe trip last summer that I had a complete breakdown and wanted to go home but I have not reached that point yet. Maybe it will hit me week 4? 5? Should we take bets? Just kidding 🙂

Trust the process! 

PS – I cannot speak for everyone but I have surprisingly really missed Bikram this week! We only saw him during Monday night’s class. I hope he is back with us week 4 – famous last words, I know!

Until next time,

Jillian
 

 

11 more classes (20 total now) and zero earthquakes and I am finished with week 2! We have 7 weeks and 77 classes to go and I am hoping they all continue to go as well as the first 2 weeks have gone. We eat, sleep, and breathe yoga here and I love every minute of it!

Monday 9/25/17 – Day 9
Our hot room was not repaired yet so we kicked off our class in a new ‘studio’ in the hotel ballroom. The room has little-to-no heat, no humidity, no mirrors, no lines, and no air flow and was no fun! The musty old ballroom was definitely not the ideal studio but was better than not practicing at all. Deepak was our guest teacher and he was amazing! He knew the room was cold and adjusted us all accordingly so we would be warm enough and not get injured. He had great energy and flow and was so encouraging to everyone. It was a tough class, both physically and mentally, but I managed and ended up having a good class. I was in the front of the room and because there were no mirrors, I could not see the people behind and feed off their energy so it felt like a private class, almost. Again, that makes it a little tough! Deepak was great though and made all of those challenges moot.

I went swimming in the salt water pool after class but was so tired from the night before (did not sleep well) that I just wanted to get cleaned up, eat, and relax as soon as possible. After breakfast and fighting off the crazy, sugar packet-stealing birds, Lidia and I sat in the amazing swing chairs and chatted before afternoon lecture. It was the most perfect and beautiful weather outside so we had to take advantage of it, no matter how much a nap appealed to me.

Bikram lectured during afternoon lecture (did you know that there are 26 postures in the sequence because there are 26 letters in the alphabet which allows him to use the “A to Z” idiom? brilliant!) but let us out early so Maryla and I got ice cream and enjoyed the outdoors. I finally heard from Andrew and got confirmation he was home and alive, too. Everyone here misses him!

Noteworthy lecture quotes:

• Listen to your heart. Your mind is always going to confuse you.
• The only way it works is the right way.
• Your back itches? Scratch it yourself. Don’t even tell anybody it itches!

The evening class with Bikram was in the ballroom again. The vibe in there drains us all but we make it work. I had another good class but my mind just was not in it. Part of being a yogi is being able to adapt and adjust to situations… the temporary studio is definitely testing us! The room was warmer than it had been in the morning but not by much. Baby steps.

After a quick swim and dinner, Lidia, Maryla, and I put on our matching Walmart “Power” shirts and had a photoshoot. People thought we were crazy but we had a good time with it!

Before evening lecture, one of the visiting teachers told us about “Ikigai,” a Japanese concept that means “reason for being.”  See the diagram below… it was a fascinating concept and really spoke to me! 

The evening lecture was our first Bollywood movie night: Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai. Everyone here had heard about these prior to coming to training so we all thought we were prepared but I do not think any amount of ‘heads up’ could have prepared us. What an experience. I actually really enjoyed the first hour or so of the movie: singing, dancing, cheesiness? Yes, yes, and yes. At about halfway, the plot took a twist and that was when things got strange and started to drag on. Some people were sleeping during it but I just had to know how it ended… blame my endless curiosity. It was a long night in those uncomfortable chairs (I stood up for parts of the movie) and we were in bed by 1:30am. I barely slept the night before so I was beyond exhausted and slept like a rock.

Tuesday 9/26/17 – Day 10
I slept much better and had a great morning yoga class with Laju. The room was feeling hotter than it had been and as always, her energy was motivating. I am guilty of skipping a few postures (or just the second set) a little too often at home but I realized I had not once skipped anything since the very first death-class, so that made me a little proud of myself! At the end of class, instead of playing a song, Laju read us the most amazing poem: “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. I loved it!

After breakfast, Lidia and I sat in a shaded spot near the pool and studied before afternoon lecture. I did not study… I looked up the poem Laju read us and wrote it out instead.

Bikram talked for a little bit during afternoon lecture and then we moved on. He wanted to hear everyone deliver their Half Moon dialogue again so we started from the top! Since I was one of the first ones last week, I had to go again. I was not wearing my ‘teaching costume’ because it was never made clear if we were ALL going again or just some, but it was fine. I did my dialogue and thought I did better even though I was a little more nervous but he gave me the same feedback. Basically, I am “chicken curry with no salt.” Oy. Salt will come with experience!

Noteworthy lecture quotes:

• The faster you confess the truth, the faster you save your time and life.
• If you see everything, you are lost.

He let us out early so Maryla and I went swimming for a little bit. Again, we have to take advantage of nice weather when we have it! Plus, we decided that swimming would help prepare us for the evening class (spoiler alert: it did). The evening class with Bikram (again in the ballroom) was great! I put my mat front and center in Bikram’s “lion’s den.” Anyone front and center is subject to getting called out the entire class. Kiley and I decided we might as well have our turn… plus, we WANT his feedback on postures. That is one of the whole points of this, right?

Thankfully, Kiley and I managed to get a lot of feedback without ever getting berated! Whew. We both received a lot of silent feedback… he would point to us and then say something quickly like “move the knee” or “twist more,” just minor corrections. Remember, the ballroom does not have mirrors so we really cannot adjust ourselves on our own. He told me my left side Standing Bow was crooked (it always is, that is why I need the mirror!) but he did not use my name so when I looked up to verify he was talking to me, I fell out and he said, “ahhh I knew you would fall out when you looked!” Busted. I also got called out my step being too wide in Triangle and not wide enough in Balancing Stick. Minor things! He had told us about advanced Toe Stand and how to do it the day before and told us to try it if we wanted to… so of course I did. In the beginner version, you put your right foot on your left thigh so you are balancing on one leg, bend down with a straight standing leg until your hands are on the ground, then finally bend the standing leg until you are almost sitting down, only balancing on your toes. In the advanced version, you go straight into the sitting position without ever touching the ground. I attempted it and succeeded! Only me and another girl, Sarah, did it (that he saw, probably). I tried to come back up without using the ground but fell out. He seemed impressed and I was excited to have done it.

Bikram sometimes has some demo a posture to the class. We all have to stop what we are doing and watch the person do whatever it is he wanted us to see. Sometimes, this can  be a demo of what TO do and sometimes it can be a demo of what NOT TO do. After the first set of Floor Bow, I was asked to demo as an example of what TO do! Good news! That was scary, but exciting. The only problem now is that I always have to do a perfect Floor Bow in class because he knows I am capable!

I also learned in class that when we grab our elbows during Fixed Firm, we are not supposed to grab underneath the elbows. Our hands should only cover the tops of the elbows and not touch the floor. It really did change the posture a little bit. I know none of this makes any sense to non-Bikram yoga students… but it will once you all start taking my classes! 🙂

Maryla and I went to the ocean after class. It was another beautiful sunset so of course I had to get a picture. I had a full dinner and 3 desserts (because I hate myself, apparently) and then studied in the lobby with Lidia and Vinny before the evening lecture. The lobby is one of my most favorite spots in the hotel. It is open-air and there is always a nice breeze! I love it.

We learned about the body and mind and how they work together during the evening lecture and about the origins of Hatha yoga. I found it all to be very, very interesting and really enjoyed it. Bikram makes it entertaining, too. It was thankfully not a very late night.

Wednesday 9/27/17 – Day 11
Our morning class was with Edward, again in the ballroom. We were all really missing the hot room by this point but we take what we can get. We are yogis, we adapt. I was very tired and my right-side lower back was feeling pretty sore but I managed to have a good class again. It seemed like everyone was coughing in class – I blame the musty, old, stale room! That carpet has got to be a major contributor and we have probably ruined it at this point with all of our sweat!

After breakfast, Kirsty and I took a photo to send to our mutual friend, Paul.  She used to work with him in the UK and he is one of my instructors/mentors from back home. Small world! Lidia and I studied again by the pool in the shade. I actually studied this time! The morning was all about the birds… they stole sugar packets and squawk like crazy. I think I prefer sweet, chirping birds!

More people delivered their Half Moon dialogue in front of Bikram during the afternoon lecture. From everything I had heard from past trainings, we did not have to do Half Moon twice but… no expectations, go with the flow, trust the process. I studied a little bit during though. You can only hear Half Moon so many times.

We got out early again so Maryla and I went swimming before the evening class. We recited dialogue (which is much more difficult to do than reading/writing/saying it to yourself) and did laps. We sit so much during lecture that swimming really has proven to be a good pre-class stretch. I love it. Assuming time and weather permits, that might become a regular thing for us.

Our evening class with Bikram was in the ballroom again. I did well (I really have not had a bad class yet, especially not an evening one) and Bikram made us all laugh quite a bit, more so than usual. Tom was next to me and Bikram picked on him a lot so I knew I was in his sight – knowing that always makes me try harder. So many of my postures have already improved since I have been here, even without the heated room this week. I ALMOST got my forehead to touch my toes during the last part of Head to Knee with Stretching. Ah!

After class, I got to video chat with Jessica, Bailey, and Olivia. It was so good to see them! They are in Tennessee for a wedding so the girls told me about their fun adventures so far. It was good to catch up. Both girls looked happy to see me and Bailey asked when I was coming back. Be still, my heart! I wish Elliott could give me that kind of reaction!

I video chatted with dad and Suzette after dinner for a bit to check on Elliott and catch up. It was good to see and talk to them. I have not felt home sick so far (thankfully) but it is nice to be able to SEE and talk to people from home. It helps!

Our evening lecture was my nightmare. Bikram talked about Hatha yoga and I truly did find all of that to be interesting. It was what came AFTER his lecture that was horrible. Hatha yoga is all about uniting the Mind and Body; having the two work together. If the two are working together perfectly, you can do anything. He showed us the most disgusting and horribly fascinating videos of yogis, himself included, during extraordinary things that can only be done when the mind and body are united. Some clips were from an old TV show called “That’s Incredible” and some were just random clips. The videos included things like: incredibly flexible yogis, laying on a bed of nails and getting run over by a motorcycle (Bikram did this), getting walked on by an elephant, etc. These days, these acts would be called “danger acts” and they are NOT my cup of tea. When I see things like this on TV, I always fast forward or close my eyes (and then watch between my fingers anyway because my curiosity). My anxiety gets too high and if you know me at all, you know I tend to pass out whenever the human body gets involved so it was a rough hour of videos. Good thing I know how to do pranayama deep breathing and stay conscious. I was in bed by 12:45am. 

Noteworthy lecture quotes:

• What is the most important thing in your life? Your life!

Thursday 9/28/17 – Day 12
I woke up with a sore throat but I had the best morning class to date! Christina taught and had great energy/pacing, was calm with us, and was clearly very knowledgeable and experienced. We share the same favorite posture (Standing Head to Knee, which Bikram said was the most difficult), too. I cannot do Rabbit pose properly to save my life in the morning but she singled me out to move my knees closer towards my head and when an instructor says to do something, you do it. As tough and painful as it was, I did it! I have to admit, I am incredibly intimidated by her because of the relationship she has with a someone from the Spring TT but I know it is paranoia and I will get past it. I truly enjoyed her class and really hope she teaches again soon (and that I can swipe some Hydroflask stickers). She had great wisdom for us too and dropped little nuggets like:

• People who are struggling in class need your encouragement – single them out and tell them they are doing well
• People who look the most miserable are probably the ones enjoying it the most (so true – I look like I hate every moment of class but I seriously cannot get enough of this)
• “Back bends aren’t about holding on, they’re about letting go.” – LOVE his one!

Bonus: she played “Man in the Mirror” as her Savasana song and that was cool. Always a good song to get you feeling powerful and motivated.

Instead of rushing to breakfast after my post-class shower, I got to have a long talk with Katy, my friend/instructor from back home. It was so good to catch up with her and it made me feel special that she would make the time for me during all of her overseas adventures. She has obviously already been through TT so she understood everything I had to say about classes and lectures more than my other friends and family would. She also knows all of the history of my past relationship and it was nice to get some of those emotions off my chest. As much as I love being here, the longer I am here the more I realize I spent 9+ weeks being lied to and deceived in SO, SO many ways (intentionally or not) and any normal person would feel bothered and beytrayed by that. It truly does not even make me sad at this point, just foolish, angry, and disappointed. I thought I knew him. I want to forgive and part of me does (we have been in contact on and off through this process, we are our original yogi buddies and he’s been supportive of me which has been nice) but it is tough sometimes, especially because I never got an apology. Getting those emotions out and talking through it was so incredibly helpful though. I love every second of this experience and nothing will ruin it for me so processing that stuff sooner rather than later was nice. Plus, Katy has one of the best attitudes of all time (not to mention she gives great advice!) and was so excited for me and everything going on here. She was very encouraging and talking to her really made my day! I had just enough time for a quick breakfast before afternoon lecture.

During afternoon lecture, we continued with our Half Moon dialogue and because we finished with everyone, we got out 2 hours early! Huge win. The weather was crummy so I decided to just stay in my room and rest. I checked work emails, started this post (this takes forever…) and watched Netflix. Maryla had bought a Bikram bra but did not like how it fit so I offered to buy it from her but instead, ended up trading her 3 of my bras that did not fit anymore. Everybody wins!

My evening class with Bikram was fantastic. The room was warmer than usual and I noticed that my postures are all quickly improving, especially the floor series (my Locust is higher than I have ever gotten it). I can almost do the advanced Separate Leg Stretching, too. I need to try it one day after class once we are back in the hot room. My Triangle is also significantly stronger. Bikram told us once that it is easy to build flexibility when you are already strong but it is not as easy to build strength if you are already flexible. Thank goodness I am already strong (leg strength only… my upper body strength is laughable)! Bikram had us laughing harder than ever today and ran around the room at one point and fixing their Locust. He is such a character and classes are so enjoyable. I usually do not like when classes are not dialogue driven but when he deviates, it is great. He frequently reminds us that he does not teach to the dialogue and instead teaches with corrections and advice because we already know the dialogue and it is the other stuff we will need to know as teachers. That is very true and it has been very helpful. We are, after all, learning to be teachers!

I studied in the lobby (have I mentioned that I love the lobby?) after another delicious dinner. Maryla, Lidia, and I walked around before evening lecture and tried to get some stretches in before we had to sit for hours on end in the uncomfortable lecture chairs.

Bikram lectures for a little bit but then we watched 3 episodes of a TV show (“Mahabharat”). I thought I would hate it and even though I was distracted by the horrible quality and atrocious set design, I totally loved it. People were sleeping but I just had to know what was going to happen next and did not want to miss anything. Each episode was a cliff hanger even though Bikram had already told us the whole story (with no spoiler alerts, mind you). We have 6 more episodes to watch of it (there are more than 9 but he only has us watch a few) and I cannot wait until we resume it again. I know that may sound sarcastic but I genuinely mean it. It was a late night and I was in bed after 1am. New late night record.

PS – My hips were a whole new level of sore. Thank you, Triangle pose.

Friday 9/29/17 – Day 13
My throat still hurt but I had a good class, taught by Carla. My brain was not functioning but by Standing Head to Knee I forced my brain to focus and just do the yoga. Bikram tells us “let my brain be your brain” which means the instructor should be doing all the thinking for the students which allows the student the freedom to ONLY have to LISTEN. So, I let Carla’s brain be my brain and let my body just do what it knows how to do. Success. Carla was a great teacher and killed us with compassion and a smile. I love that we get different teachers every morning so we can constantly learn different teaching styles and hear different advice. For example, Carla pointed out that only 1 posture has the word “I” in it proving that the class is not about the instructor, it is about the student. She reminded us to not use “I” in class and not make it about us. Good advice! We have to be selfless teachers, not egocentric teachers. Her Savasana song was “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles and man, that was rough. First of all, that song is always emotional for me for some reason deep down in my subconscious. Secondly, I do not know why but when I was landing in Mexico City 13 days ago, I got to watch the sunrise from the plane and that song randomly popped into my head. As you already know, being in Mexico City already brought back emotions but then to have that song pop up for whatever reason really compounded the emotion. Hearing it in class… oy. Good choice, Carla.

We learned a valuable lesson after class – the hotel does not belong to us! The place definitely filled up and our breakfast area was incredibly crowded. Weekenders! The hotel even had the pool waterfalls on and everything – something we do not usually get the pleasure of enjoying. I ate quickly at a crowded table and then washed my yoga clothes in our room before heading to study in the lobby. I had been writing the dialogue out by memory in the days before and as I went to compare what I wrote with the dialogue, I discovered so many inconsistencies. The dialogue in the PDF I was emailed is different than the dialogue in the laminated book I bought here (which is also different than the dialogue in the same laminated book other people bought here). AH! They are minor differences but that sure does make it tough!

The lecture room was freezing in the afternoon. Bikram spoke for quite awhile, summarizing the last night’s TV show and then discussing the heart and lungs (I quite enjoyed that part of it – despite my weak stomach). He has a way of making those topics interesting despite being a little long winded. He sure makes his point but it works because by the end of it, we all get it. We got to see his sassy side for the first time, too, which was a little intimidating!

Noteworthy lecture quotes:

• If somebody can steal your peace, you are a loser.
• Anything that works, is right.
• You have a problem? Great. Pay $10, stand on the line, look in the mirror, and lock the fucking knee.  *my favorite*
• ‘They’ say? Who is ‘they?’ What do you say? Listen to your heart.
• Yoga is the slowest therapy ever. Why? Because it lasts forever.

We had a little time before the evening class so I continued the blog and enjoyed some snacks. I have got to stop eating snacks all the time!

I sat in the 3rd row for the first time during the evening class so that others would be forced to move to the front rows. That ended up working out well for me because before class, Manali was making people switch it up for that exact reason. I would rather voluntarily move around than be told to! Fridays are “performance day” and despite my small headache from what I later attributed to my too-tight hair tie, I think I did alright. Bikram was super funny again but got a little long winded and distracted during the floor series. Even he realized he was not totally focused and called himself out on it. The man is self-realized! He jokingly told us to just do whatever we wanted to which was tempting but I think we all knew better. He showed his intimidating side again when he temporarily kicked someone out of class for being too early on a couple of postures – yikes.

Several of us went swimming in the ocean after class. The big waves and nice weather was the perfect way to wind down. The other hotel guests sent several strange looks our way but who could blame them? How would you react if you saw a large group of people wearing hotel robes and carrying yoga mats strolling around the property and then stripping down into our barely-there yoga clothes to go for a swim? 

Dinner was not nearly as crowded as breakfast, thankfully, and I enjoyed the best dessert they have had so far. I have a sweet tooth problem! Please help.

I rested in the room before the evening lecture and even video chatted with Andrew for a little bit (the guy who had to go home last week). It was good to see him feeling better! We all miss him here.

There was no evening lecture and instead, Manali and the staff talked to us about the dialogue and held a Q&A session for us. I wish the answer to every question had been the Teacher Training motto, “Trust the process” so that the night would have ended earlier, but it was a good lesson in patience. I liked hearing what the staff had to say about the dialogue and the advice they provided but my patience was surely tested with the Q&A. Part of this process is learning to let go: others to let go of the unknown and me letting go of trying to control others. We all have a long way to go! Luckily, it was still an early night and I was in bed by midnight.

Saturday 9/30/17 – Day 14
Saturday kicked off with my worst class of the entire 2 weeks of my time here, by a million miles. My throat was still hurting and for the first time, I skipped eating a protein bar before class. My whole body hurt. The ballroom was not as hot as it had been. Everything was wrong! I did not quit but it took everything in me to hold the postures without falling out and trust me, I was not successful. It was so frustrating because the staff takes every class with us and watches us from the back row and I hate not being able to prove I can do it, not that they necessarily need me to prove anything. I tried to get in my zone but never really made it there. It turned out that a lot of people had the same issue. Were we all overwhelmingly sore? Were we all mentally checked out because it was the last class of the week? Was the room too cold? Was something going on? As a group, it was very evident we all struggled but at least we struggled together! Thankfully, it was our last class in that place and we go back to the hot room Monday. We all miss it so much. Hopefully, if we can make so much improvement in 1 week in a cold/warm room, we will be beyond great in the hot room!

I had the fastest breakfast of all time and headed back up to the room to rest. I felt like a zombie and just wanted to lay down. It would have been smart to take a nap but of course I did not. Instead, I worked on the blog, watched Netflix, and went through my work emails. I definitely felt more tired than ever, possibly because I knew the week was over and I did not need the energy or possibly because I had no energy coming out of class. Maybe both.

I caught the 2nd shuttle to Walmart at 1:30pm and was so excited to finally be out. I made a list of things I needed as the week went on and was happy to be able to go get them. Not being able to go get something on my own as I think/need it is a new feeling and to be honest, I do not really care for it! I am glad we get the opportunity though on the weekends; better than nothing. I did not buy any snacks this time as I still have plenty of my own plus I still have the ones Andrew left me. The fewer snacks I buy, the fewer snacks I eat! I mostly bought notebooks and pens for our upcoming posture clinics and anatomy classes (and cough drops to sooth the sore throat, even though I do not have a cough). Maryla and I had ice cream from McDonald’s… we are weak.

The weather had been a little crummy all week but the sun decided to show itself today and despite the crowded pools and beach, Maryla, Lidia, and I found a nice spot and spent the afternoon studying and snacking on chips and guacamole. Well, they studied and I transferred my notes into my new journals and got everything organized for the week. My brain was too tired to study so it would not have been beneficial. Studying can wait until Sunday! Of course, we took yoga pictures. Yogis doing yoga shenanigans! Shocking. I joke about getting fat with all the snacks and buffets but honestly, I have never felt stronger or more in shape in my life. My baby abs are still alive!

We had an early dinner and after a short walk on the beach (cut short by the insane mosquitoes), all headed to our rooms by 8pm.

I had every intention of going to bed early but shockingly, did not. I wrote most of this blog post while watching Netflix. It was not very eventful but exactly what I needed to relax and decompress from the week. Unfortunately, I tossed and turned until around 1am so did not sleep well.

Sunday 10/1/17 – Day 15
I woke up around 10am to the sound of who-knows-what coming from who-knows-where! There was a LOUD announcer-type guy speaking in Spanish followed by random songs that were blaring on and off. My room is over the mezzanine which has conference rooms on it (and there was a Martial Arts competition this weekend in there) so I think that is where it was all coming from but seesh, talk about a wake up call. It was nice to sleep without an alarm though, even if it was not much sleep. My throat huts more than it has the past few days, too. I hope that goes away before the week starts.

Even though I did not want to get out of bed, I went down for breakfast at 10:30am to eat with everyone else before going back to my room. The sun was hiding and the weather was crummy so my desire to be outside was very low. The sun came up later though so I joined Kiley and Tayrn outside by the pool to study for a few hours. We did “round robin” studying which was a lot more difficult than I expected! 

On another note, today is the 11 month mark since starting my yoga challenge last year. I should be at the 330 mark but I am just one class shy still at 329. Luckily, being at training and doing 11 classes a week will catch me up!

11 month stats:

• 241 90-min Bikram
• 41 60-min Bikram
• 22 Inferno Hot Pilates
• 21 Yin
• 4 Misc (other flow classes, etc.)

The goal is still to do enough classes to wipe out the non-90-min Bikram classes but that will not happen until early January. Once that happens, I will be able to say I did 365 90-min Bikram classes in 365 days!

Week Summary
I love this experience. It has easily been one of the best decisions of my life and I am so glad that everything came together to make it possible. I am even more thankful to everyone who has helped and supported me from back home! Even Katy said I sounded happier than I have in months. I hope that I still feel this way as the weeks go on and we get more exhausted. It is tough to describe but even though the days are paced so slowly sometimes, they go by quickly. I am bad at slowing down and I think this has helped me learn to embrace that speed, though. I have the entire standing series memorized already (plus left side dialogue) and we have not even started posture clinics yet so that helps keep a low stress level. My body is holding up pretty well, too. I tried to command myself to not get sick and have managed to dodge anything serious. If my throat is the only thing bothering me, I would consider that a win. So many people have had stomach issues and, knock on wood, I have managed to dodge that as well. Papaya is a lifesaver! Ha. Physically, I am sore some days more than others. I think I already said it but whether I mean to or not, I think I have just pushed myself harder than I ever have. They told us that old injuries will start to come out through this process so they can get fixed properly and I believe it! The crazy thing is, yoga is what is causing me to be sore/hurt but yoga is the only thing my body craves to fix it! It is a viscous cycle but I would not want it any other way. For all my friends and family at home (especially those at the studio), be prepared… I am coming back to force you all into the hot room to get all of your problems fixed! No more shortcuts in classes! You will lock the knee and you will thank me for it! 🙂

Love and miss y’all! You can Facebook call me anytime.

Wish me luck for week 3!

Until next time,

Jillian