happiness is an inside job

the good: we had some good teachers this week. a woman named Franchesca from london taught our class on friday night. it was just what we all needed, since we were completely exhausted from the week. she had so much energy, it was amazing.

also, we finished posture clinic this week! finally! I never thought the time would come. it's weird to look at my dialogue and realize that i know it all now. well, at least the majority of it - i still need to brush up on the additional stuff, and both breathing exercises. but once i learn those, that means i know enough to teach a class! holy shit! i've been debating whether or not to take up an offer i got to teach my first class in chicago when i go the week after graduation. we'll see. i'll definitely practice there.
delivering the final posture was very strange. i went first for my group, just after erika from corvallis did hers. i didn't feel ready, but i couldn't wait any longer. i got the posture verbatim and put all the emphasis in the right places and what not, but when it was all over i just burst into tears. and i don't know why. i was happy, sad, exhausted, thrilled, weirded out... everything! wow. what a nice release though. then after me, my friend primo went. primo is from the islands and is a very chill surfer kinda guy. at the end of his posture delivery, he said "Twist, and twist, and twist, last chance - lick it up, roll it up, burn it up and smoke it, TWIST! Change." it was pretty hilarious.

also, the talent show was this week as well. lots of people had interesting talents to share. the japanese and australian groups did these cute dances, lots of singers/guitar players, one guy played the jaw harp, some people did some funny skits. my favorite was the drum solo by jeremy, who was also a great MC. he's from seattle and he and i have become buddies over the last few weeks. here's a picture from my birthday...



...jeremy really sold the show when he parodied two of our teachers - frank the french guy and craig. for craig, he used words like "manifest, delineate, congruence" etc along with a few notable catch phrases and totally nailed it. even craig was laughing.

and tonight i went out to dinner with the oregon crew, or Team O as i call us.



from left to right: me, charles (soon to be a portlander), carol (corvallis), ron, erika (corvallis), scott (eugene) and shannon. tomorrow is erika's birthday so we celebrated that too.

the bad: we didn't have running water in our room for almost 24 hours. awesome. also, the fire alarm went off during the middle of the day - at least it wasn't at night like the other half dozen times. and my ham strings and hips are SO tight now that i almost can't touch my head to the floor in standing separate leg stretching. i remember the day when i could reach my head to the floor while still standing on my towel. so, i don't think i'll get a number from bikram for touching my head to my toes, because now i can barely touch my head to my knees.

my acceptance of the group dynamic is diminishing. on friday, everyone was running around the studio and dancing and taking all these group pictures, and i was just sitting there just feeling, for lack of a better word, 'over' it all. we still have another week, but with posture clinic being done, it's hard not to get into the mindset. plus, i started to feel strange about my group as we neared the end of posture clinics. since i've done really well since the start, when i got up to do the last few postures, everyone just said things like "oh yeah she always does it perfectly" and even the repeat posture clinic judges i had, they all called me "that girl who we never have feedback for." i guess i should be happy that i'm not "weird girl" (but that name is already taken), or "that girl who sucks" or "what girl who eats mustard packets" or something like that. the way my group was acting just, to me, felt like all my hard work was being invalidated.


so this week, bikram will lecture us on...guess what.... YOGA! FINALLY!!! holy crap, he will actually talk about the 26 postures and 2 breathing exercises we have all dedicated our lives to for the last 8 weeks. ffff.


Quotes:
The word 'hate' belongs no where in our vocabularies, except in reference to yoga postures. - Craig

In camel, you'll find that as soon as you say "ch" people will desperately fling forward. - Craig

never take your finger off the pulse of the class. - Craig

When you teach, teach like you're talking to only one person. And that person is your friend. And you want your friend to come back over and over and over. - Jason Wynn

What are you doing, touching his balls or something?! - Bikram

Do you know how all american companies make money? cheating! - Bikram

every job is a kind of prostitute. - Bikram

Everything i do in my life I never use my brain, and i am the smartest person in the world. - Bikram

women need the tight grip to keep the man - one on the throat and one on the balls. then you squeeze balls, throat, throat balls. - Bikram

Who is from Chile? Colombia... same drug deal. - Bikram

The short bus will be around back to escort you to posture clinic. - Craig (to the group who had the most people left to finish the last posture)

I was laying down one day and wondering what that awaful smell was... then i realized it was my mat. - Shannon

- why does he get away with that shit?
- because he is a douche bag...?
Erika; Shannon, re: a particular student who pours water all over himself and makes a lake on his mat by the 5th posture.

the 8th week

the good: we had some good teachers this week. a woman named Franchesca from london taught our class on friday night. it was just what we all needed, since we were completely exhausted from

a haiku about the ilikai hotel

one more week with you,
fire alarms in the night
no running water.

only 2 more weeks

Week 7 wasn't markedly different from week 6. craig kept telling us that week 7 is when we find our strength. maybe it will happen in week 8? we'll see.

we had an influx of notable people in the bikram world this week. E-sock (yeah, i dont know how to spell his name) and Jason Winn both arrived this week and each lead a class. Jason kept talking about focus and determination, and i had a really focused class, even though i felt sore and exhausted. the most notable quote from his class was when he said "my friend in the blue shorts, touch your forehead to your knee... okay, imagine we're friends and now will you touch your forehead to your knee?" it was pretty funny. We also had a class from Darius, who owns 2 of the funky door studios in san francisco (and the two he owns i found to be the snootiest places i've ever practiced). And the notable quote from his no-frills class was "grab your god damn heels already!" very sweet, that one.

there was also this strange day when craig came around to all the posture clinic groups and called out a few names of people who needed to stand in front of the podium for bikram's class that afternoon. i wasn't called into the Penalty Box, as Ron termed it, but my dear friend charles set up our mats just behind the penalty box. when bikram arrived and saw empty space in front of him, we were dragged a few rows up and just in front of the podium! so i got a full ration of bikram's shit and had a shitty class because i couldn't focus past feeling watched. so charles owes me huge for that one.

posture clinics are still going quite well. actually, the night that jason arrived, he and another staff member walked into our posture clinic to judge us. he didn't really introduce himself and we jumped right into it. he gave harsh feedback so i felt somewhat nervous, but i completely nailed bow pose. when i looked over at jason and rowena for feedback, they looked at eachother, looked at the grade book, looked at me and then eachother again, and said they had nothing to say because it was perfect. not bad i suppose! i'm glad i didn't know it was the infamous yogi jason winn. whew. but later he and i talked about how vannah white is his student and i admitted she was my hero when i was little. he found that pretty funny. the next day we had e-sock and a woman from new mexico judging us. i did fixed firm for them and e-sock told me it sounded like poetry when i said it. it's been fun to see all the yoginis swooning over him and his lucious locks.

also bikram returned this week and so did the late-night lectures. i just couldn't follow most of what he was talking about, so i took to studying dialogue and trying to follow as best i could. funny enough, he talked about an indian scientist named Bose who did work with Einstein. Well, Ron checking up on this story and found that bikram had creatively blended 2 indian scientists into one and exaggerated Bose's scientific contributions to the world. so i guess we have to take what bikram says with a grain of salt. i just can't wait until he starts talking about yoga, which hasn't happened yet.

We only have 5 postures left, holy crap! and 22 more classes. maybe if we finish the postures by friday, i will actually be able to see other parts of honolulu that aren't the hotel, the grocery store, or the sushi place across the street!


Quotes:
Bikram
- Yoga teachers are mst exception people in the world.
- There are lots of weird and full of shit people in the world. they are easy for you to find and sell yoga to for satisfaction.
- Go to Bikram Yoga every day, bust your ass and balls for a longer life.
- Anger is the number one enemy in your life.
- My mind is always jumping like a little shrimp. i have to grab it and say "ass hole, slow down!"
- You know what is biggest bullshit of American woman? What you call ATT CBS CNN NBC ABC.... Oh, PMS! I forget
- How do yu sleep with glasses on? do you make love with an interpreter?
- The stupidest shit I ever hear - one person pay another $40 in 1970 and ask "what should i eat?" what the fuck is that shit!
- In india, women don't go to the bathroom, ever!
- The pope doesn't know much about christianity anyways...
- I will be here for the rest of training so you can talk to me, hug me, rape me, etc"
- I come back in the morning. I see you, i kill you.


- This lecture is like Seinfeld; it's about nothing! - Shannon
- There's nothing like spinning upside down with a nut sack in your hand - Luke
- You never know what could happen when you are 360 degree angle backward bending for gravitation. I envision astronauts doing camel pose in space. - Ron